Core Concept: 6/10
Interest spectrum
aka the boner gauge
Concept: Interest in a product is not a binary yes or no, it’s a spectrum.
For image? https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/549167-car-dash-board-vector-illustration-eps-10-007
Unless someone makes an impulse buy or a simple transaction they go through a spectrum of awareness going from not aware or interested all the way up to keen to buy. Unless someone is 99% interested and ready to buy and you give them an option to buy or not they have to choose not to.
This means everyone else on that spectrum whether they are a little bit interested or even 90% interested not only don’t buy but you don’t know about it and they have now way of telling you. This is an enormous missed oportunity.
Think of this like a rev guage on a vehicle you need to take someone from idle all the way up to the rev limiter. I call it the interest spectrum or the more comical name of ‘Boner Gauge’
The secret is to not only produce content for each segment of this spectrum but also collect data and get potential customers to signal where they are on that spectrum. This approach not allows you to take sweep up everyone who is interested in your product regardless of where they are on the spectrum. You can then tailor your communications and guide them on the natural buying journey building trust and credibility along the way.
Here’s an anology that illustrates this principle perfectly:
Imagine a single man is in a coffee shop and he’s looking for a girlfriend. If he walks up to a female he likes and says would you be my girlfriend (binary decision) Unless she is mental she is more than likely going to say no even if she is actually attracted to him.
This guy could then feel rejected and pretty stupid thinking he’s never going to get a girlfriend. In this scenario he leaves and the one girl he asked has rejected him even if she was interested he had no way of knowing. He also leaves not knowing if any of the other women in the coffee shop would be interested. This is what most businesses do they ask people buy their stuff and of course most people can only say no even if they are interested.
Let’s imagine our guy takes a different approach and instead of asking a direct yes or know question he simply asks several women if they are interested in having a chat. Chances are some would be interested in a chat and even though they might not initially be attracted to the guy they would at least be open to dialog. He could then gauge their interest and lead the conversation appropriately potentially leading to getting their number or even agreeing to a date. Once they are dating both go through the natural process of figuring out if they are attracted to one another and a good match then one thing leads to another. Good marketing is much the same it’s about capturing those that show an interest and then guiding them along so the buyer can go through the process of deciding if it is right for them.
Hopefully you can see from the litle story which approach leads to better results, apply the same method to your business. Instead of asking for the sale simply ask “Are you interested” and if so get them to signal their interest by entering an email address. Here’s what to do:
1. Audit your business, your website, sales and marketing materials and see if you are being the creepy guy asking a stranger to marry them.
2. Look at the interest spectrum diagram on this page and assess whether you have content and are targeting each segment.
3. Refer to the sections below on each segment and to understand where to find each segment and what content to put in front of them. This simple yet powerful shift in tack never ceases to surprise me even though I no the results are going to be great. This works especially well when launching a new product or service. See my launch control playbook here that goes into how to launch something successfully.
1. No F**ks given
This is where people are unaware of a problem they have or haven’t developed a desire for something particular. By percentage this is the biggest segment and they likely don’t care about you or products. However smart marketers know that this segment can’t be ignored and although it is more difficult to get them to care about your content or ads it will be cheaper to target and will lead to higher trust. The type of content they are likely to bump into is social media organic content or some form of ad. The goal here is to educate or enlighten the target market they have a problem and that your product or service can make a positive impact on them.
Pro tip: As the audience is not actively looking for you or your products and they give no f**ks their attention span and willingness to engage with your content so make it short, easy to digest with a good hook at the start. You can be entertaining or even funny so it doesn’t feel like an ad.
2. Realisation
They next phase is a realisation that they have some kind of unmet desire or an obstacle / pain point. They will have a lot of questions at this stage and will likely turn to Google to start getting answers. The goal here is to find out what they are searching for and where and then provide valuable content that aligns with their problem and shines light on a solution.
Pro Tip: This is a crucial stage and your aim is to not push your product on them but to provide valuable insights and guidance to help them. This can be longer form content such as guide or blog post that will likely lead them to be open to receiving more information from as you have shown you understand their problem. This is the perfect time to get them to opt in via email so they can be converted from an anonymous browser into a lead.
A simple but effective way to find out what people are searching is by typing into google the start of a question relating to your product or service and Google will start to make suggestions, these suggestions are popular searches. You can make content around these questions and provide the answers. Also look at the page one results and you’ll likely see articles for ‘top 10 X Product for 2024′ or The ultimate buyers guide for X Product’. These web pages get all the traffic because they are created specifically for the segment of the audience. Often these types of webpages will have affiliate links products to or servers and will make commission on sales made through these links. Mention and link to scorecards as good content for this stage
3. Active Research
Now that have taking action to solve their problem or seek out a solution to get them point A to point B they will have likely consumed several pieces of content such as articles, landing pages videos or even podcasts. Now they will have started noticing certain brands and products being mentioned and in their heads are narrowing down their best options. This is where they will actively look at a specific company in detail. It may start with visiting the official website or social media account and they are seeking validation that the brand offers what they need and will look at the specific products to figure out what is best for them. Depending on the complexity and price this process might only take a few minutes or could involve many hours over several months however Google research shows that people make around 11 touchpoints before they are ready to buy. These touchpoints include on an offline actions such as reading online content such as articles, social media posts or emails and visitor your store or calling your office. The research also finds that on average people will consume 7 hours of content and seek out information across 4 different locations, these include 3rd party websites such as reviewing sites, Youtube, podcasts, social channels, physical stores etc.
Now you know this information you need to ensure you have 7 hours of content for them to consume and you know and track each of the touchpoints so you see what might be missing or causing people to drop off. This is where the power of a good CRM and early opt in comes in. Once you have their email address you can start to build an accurate picture of where they are in the journey and what touchpoints they have made with your business. You can see which emails they have read, which links they have clicked combined with other actions like if they have spoke to your sales team or started a live chat on your website. All this data lets you better understand what they need from you next to progress to the purchase. Tools exist now to a lot of this on automation such as automated email series that drip feeds email content out over a period of time depending on their actions and where they are in the buyer journey.
Pro Tip: It may sound like a lot of work to produce 7 hours of content with different types of rich media but you can use the below method to stream line the process. Start with the example early of looking at the automatic Google suggestions in the search bar, you can also do the same for Youtube (which is the second most popular search engine by the way) Once you see the common questions around your product and service do the following: (maybe link to separate content playbook?)
– Feed the list of common questions into Chat GPT and ask it to write an article answering these questions and to include how your business helps with these problems. It won’t be perfect but this will give a template to work from within a few seconds.
– Refine the article and make sure it fits with your brand and mentions your business appropriately. Publish this on your website as a new page.
– Paste the final version back into Chat GPT and prompt it condense the information down into a short social media post and then share this on your channels with a suitable image linking to the main article on your website.
– Repeat the step above but send it out to your mailing list for people to read and drive traffic to your website.
– From here use the article as the basis of a script for a video and make a shoot a 5 minute video talking about these questions an give the answers. This can be a member of staff talking head style with B-roll of footage you may already have. Upload this to Youtube and repeat the process of sharing and linking to the video on your social channels. So far you have 1 article, multiple social posts, email newsletter and a 5 minute video.
– Now you can cut the video into 15-30 second reels of each important point and again share on social media turning your video into at least 4 or 5 reels.
You can repeat the process to quickly and effeciently create multiple pieces of content from one original piece. Simply repeat this process until you have at least a few hours of total content a potential customer can consume to learn about you and your products.
4. Interested
Now that they have done their research and likely narrowed their options down to a select few, including yours it’s now time to get them to signal their interest. They may have already signed up to your newsletter or even reached out to you which is great but you want to make it easy for them to signal their interest a specific product. This gives them an easy low commitment first step which could be something like downloading a brochure, joining a waitlist or booking a sales call. Mention AI chatbot
5. Keen
Now they have signalled their interest it’s up to you to make it clear how your product solves their problem and is better than your compeitiors. This is where all your content up to know building trust and demonstrating your credibility pays off as they are already 90% sold they just have one or two final reservations or questions. Depending your product and typical sales cycle you can use different tactics, you could get them on a call or zoom to run through a demo and address their objections or you could send them to the product landing page, customer testimonials or FAQ page. Remember the path to this point isn’t linear and with being bombarded with content constantly people easily get distracted and even if they are pretty much ready to buy you can still lose them easily. At this stage you can use retargeting ads and reminder emails to get their attention again and drive them to take action.
6. Take my money
Congratualtions you have got them from no f**ks given to ready to buy you just need to get them to pull the trigger. Don’t be shy at this stage and be afraid to simply ask for the sale. It might be as easy as that or you might night to deploy some scarcity tactics to get them go for it. This could be a limited time offer such as discount or freebie thrown in, whatever it is make it limited in numbers or by time and play the FOMO game. This works wonders and can get all those people sat on the fence over the line.
Recap:
Don’t give people a binary choice it forces people to say no therefore you miss out on 95% of people interested and have little data about them and are hard to find again. Potential customers all go on the same journey don’t overlook this and make sure you have content for them every step of the way. Sometimes the process can take a few minutes on a small purchase or sometimes it can take months. Having content for each segment available to consume at their leisure 24/7 is the key and using technology to automate and track the interactions means when they do engage with you one on one they are already presold. Have an easy first step and get people to signal their interest by opting in to a waitlist or downloading a guide. Once they have expressed interest give them everything the need so they are confident your solution is the best option, then force them to take action with some form of incentive or deadline.
How to build one
Free Option:
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Paid Option
Funnel.teague.ai (pro members)