Before making large purchases consumers typically research what brands and products fit their needs and wants. Keyword based search marketing allows you to reach consumers at any point in the buying cycle. In many markets branded keywords tend to have high search volumes and high conversion rates.
The buying cycle may consist of the following stages
- Problem Discovery: prospect discovers a need or want.
- Search: after discovering a problem look for ways to solve the need or want. These searches may contain words which revolve around the core problem the prospect is trying to solve or words associated with their identity.
- Evaluate: may do comparison searches to compare different models, and also search for negative information like product sucks, etc.
- Decide: look for information which reinforces your view of product or service you decided upon
- Purchase: may search for shipping related information or other price related searches. purchases may also occur offline
- Reevaluate: some people leave feedback on their purchases . If a person is enthusiastic about your brand they may cut your marketing costs by providing free highly trusted word of mouth marketing.
See also:
Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? – book by Brian & Jeffrey Eisenberg about the buying cycle and Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing.