For any company, being able to influence, entice and encourage customers is essential to success. When you can persuade people to make a purchase, sign-up for services or relinquish contact information, you can secure customers, build loyalty and boost your profits.

Of course, influencing customers isn’t always as easy as we’d like it to be. If businesses rely on pushy or aggressive sales tactics, this can put some customers off and prevent them from engaging with you. Conversely, if you take your foot off the gas too much, this could lead to delays, disengagement, and disappointment.

Having a successful impact on someone’s decision-making process requires companies to find the right balance between encouragement and persuasion. If you’re looking to increase sales, hone your skills of persuasion and become a more influential brand, it’s important to consider the five stages of engagement…

1. Awareness

Before someone can buy a product or service, they need to be aware of it. And, if you want them to select your company over a competitor, they’ll need to be aware of your brand too.

While global awareness may be your ultimate goal, start by focusing on increasing awareness within your target demographic. For example, if you offer local services, your target market is consumers or businesses based within the area. When you’re able to create awareness within your target market, you’re building a profile among those who are most likely to take the next step in the sales process.

2. Interest

Creating awareness ensures that you’re on the radar of your target demographic, but now you need to capture their interest. You may be aware of numerous local services in your area, but that doesn’t mean you would use them. So, how can you generate interest from your potential customers?

Effectively marketing your brand, products, and services is a sure-fire way to create interest. By showing people how you solve their problem, fulfill their needs or satiate their desires will take them from being aware of your company to being interested in your brand.

3. Consideration

When individuals reach the point of consideration, it really is the turning point of your relationship. At this point, they may be considering whether they really need your product or service, assessing it’s value or determining whether you’re really the best provider.

At this point, the success of marketing efforts will be evident. With the right mix of print and online marketing, you’ll have swayed the target and directly impacted their decision-making process. When considering whether they really want to engage with your brand, successful marketing will ensure the answer is ‘Yes!’

4. Action

Having made a mental commitment to your product, service or company, you now need to motivate the target into action. Incentives can have a significant impact on behavior, and they can persuade a potential customer to act now, rather than later.

Many companies use offers, deals, sales, vouchers, time-limited promotions, and bundle deals to spur a potential customer into action. Discount incentives give the impression that the buyer is getting more value from their engagement, while time-limited incentives create a sense of urgency.

Flyers, brochures, loyalty cards, vouchers, and coupons are great examples of offline, print marketing materials that help to promote action. In addition, company apps, voucher codes, personalized deals and countdown timers provide an excellent form of digital marketing when you want to encourage a target to act.

5. Retention

Statistics show it’s far easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to a new buyer. Due to this, companies typically use more of their resources attracting new clientele than they do retaining existing customers. However, retention is a critical element of the sales funnel and should never be ignored.

With effective retention strategies, the ROI on your initial investment of attracting the customer plummets. Conversely, successful retention increases the customer’s value and enables your company to increase profits with minimal expense.

While the effectiveness, suitability and quality of your product or service will undoubtedly affect retention rates, there are other factors at play too. Persuading customers to return to your brand may require further incentivization, so it’s important to examine how this can be achieved.

Personalized digital marketing can deliver tailored content and offers to customers, while invite-only online communities foster a sense of loyalty and trust. Similarly, direct marketing can be used to deliver exclusive content, offers and rewards to your existing client base.

With the right mix of online and offline marketing, you can have a dramatic impact on your target market. Indeed, with effective marketing and a comprehensive strategy, you can successfully influence potential customers, increase conversion rates and boost profits. And if you need help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.