Welcome to the final article in our series on leveraging the Buyer’s Arc to create compelling content and attract high-ticket buyers to your consulting and coaching services.
Today, we’ll explore the fourth and last stage of the Buyer’s Arc: Decide.
Additionally, we’ll provide you with a practical example that brings everything together.
Content Type #4: Decide
The Decision stage is often the most straightforward. For lower ticket offers, a simple “Buy Now” button can be the catalyst for prospects to take action.
However, with higher ticket offers, it’s crucial to have discussions beforehand, and the Decision phase typically occurs at the end of these conversations. Ensuring you have efficient systems in place for enrolling and onboarding new clients is essential.
Types of Content That Facilitate Informed Decisions
Well-organized and comprehensive sales pages and services pages play a vital role in helping prospects make decisions. Additionally, a post-booking page that offers an overview of your offers and establishes your credibility can further solidify their choice. If appropriate for your industry, you may deliver a proposal that clearly outlines the solution you presented.
Another useful tip, not specific to content type, is to set clear expectations regarding the decision-making process. During a consultation, I express my intention for prospects to reach an informed decision on the call. If they aren’t fully ready, I provide them with a specific timeframe to consider the offer and inform me of their decision to move forward or not.
Finally, it’s crucial to have systems in place to ensure a smooth enrollment and onboarding process for your clients.
Consider the following questions to guide you:
- What is the next step you want prospects to take after making a decision?
- How does the registration process look once they click the button, so to speak?
- What should they expect to receive, or what is their next step after enrolling?
To create a process that supports you:
- What measures can you implement to ensure you’re only engaging with qualified buyers?
- How can you streamline the intake process for yourself and your team?
Now that you understand the Buyer’s Arc, let’s see it in action through an example webinar campaign.
Imagine the emails you use to promote the webinar align with the Awareness phase. You can grab the attention of your ideal clients by highlighting symptoms and scenarios, explaining how your webinar will help them achieve their desired outcomes.
During the webinar itself, you have the opportunity to cover multiple stages of the Buyer’s Arc in a condensed timeframe (a more in-depth example process is provided below):
- Challenge common beliefs or expectations related to the topic (Awareness).
- Clearly define who the webinar is for and the expected outcome (Awareness).
- Introduce yourself and establish credibility (Research).
- Demonstrate the solution to the problem (Research).
- Teach the steps required to implement the solution (Research).
- Share your unique approach compared to other experts (Compare).
- Outline your ideal client profile (Awareness and Compare).
- Provide a brief overview of the “Point A and Point B” for your core offerings (Compare).
- Issue a call to action (Decide – typically, when someone books a call, they are usually in the Compare stage and interested in discussing which of your offers best suits their needs).
By following this example campaign, you can effectively guide prospects through the Buyer’s Arc, facilitating their decision-making process and increasing the likelihood of enrollment. Of course, that was the version in brief, the short outline, if you will. I go into more detail below.
Example Campaign In Depth: Putting the Buyer’s Arc into Action
Now, let’s dive deeper into our example webinar campaign to see how the Buyer’s Arc comes to life in practice.
This will help you visualize how the stages we’ve discussed can be seamlessly integrated into your marketing efforts.
Imagine that the emails you send to promote the webinar align with the Awareness phase of the Buyer’s Arc.
Through captivating content, you capture the attention of your ideal clients by highlighting common symptoms and scenarios they might be facing.
These emails will emphasize how your webinar can provide them with the solutions they need to achieve their desired outcomes.
As the webinar begins, you have the opportunity to cover multiple stages of the Buyer’s Arc in a relatively short timeframe.
Here’s how it could unfold:
- Challenge common beliefs or expectations related to the topic (Awareness): You bring attention to a prevailing belief or expectation in your industry and share your unique perspective on it. By doing so, you pique the curiosity of your audience and encourage them to reconsider their preconceived notions.
- Clearly define who the webinar is for and the expected outcome (Awareness): You explicitly state who will benefit most from attending the webinar and what specific outcomes they can expect. This helps your audience gauge if the webinar is a suitable fit for their needs.
- Introduce yourself and establish credibility (Research): You take a moment to introduce yourself, sharing your qualifications, experience, and expertise. This step builds trust and establishes you as a credible authority in your field.
- Demonstrate the solution to the problem (Research): You delve into the heart of the webinar, presenting a compelling solution to the problem your audience is facing. Through examples, case studies, or interactive exercises, you illustrate the effectiveness of your approach.
- Teach the steps required to implement the solution (Research): You provide a step-by-step breakdown of the process your audience needs to follow in order to implement the solution you’ve presented. By offering actionable insights and practical guidance, you empower your attendees to take tangible steps toward their goals.
- Share your unique approach compared to other experts (Compare): Here, you highlight the distinctive aspects of your methodology that differentiate you from other experts in the field. By showcasing the advantages of your approach, you position yourself as a preferred choice among alternatives.
- Outline your ideal client profile (Awareness and Compare): You clearly define the characteristics of your ideal clients, emphasizing the specific problems or challenges they typically face. This helps your audience determine if they align with your target market and if your solutions are relevant to their situation.
- Provide a brief overview of the “Point A and Point B” for your core offerings (Compare): You offer a concise overview of your core offerings, highlighting the starting point (Point A) and the desired outcomes (Point B) each offering can help your clients achieve. This helps prospects assess which offering resonates most with their specific goals.
- Issue a call to action (Decide): Towards the end of the webinar, you encourage your attendees to take the next step, typically by booking a call with you. By presenting your offers and their benefits clearly, you enable your prospects to make an informed decision about moving forward with your services.
By structuring your webinar campaign around the Buyer’s Arc, you create a cohesive and persuasive experience for your audience. Each stage contributes to guiding prospects along their decision-making journey, ultimately increasing the likelihood of successful enrollment.
The Argument for Case Studies
Now, let’s discuss a crucial element in your marketing campaign: the use of case studies. While some experts advocate for storytelling, the effectiveness of this approach depends on your specific niche. Consider incorporating case studies that follow a simple structure: “Point A (starting point), the applied method or step, and Point B (client’s achieved outcome).”
When presented in this manner, case studies help clients relate to your examples (Awareness) and visualize the application of your methods (Research and Compare). They also play a vital role in establishing trust and credibility as they serve as proof that your methods deliver the promised results.
After the webinar, if your participants don’t book a call, your follow-up sequence should cover additional topics in the Research and Compare categories (I recommend sharing more case studies and clearly outlining your offer, like a sales page).
However, if they do book a consultation, it marks the next phase of your campaign and the final stages of the Compare phase in the Buyer’s Arc.
The post-booking phase of your campaign serves a dual purpose: qualifying your prospects and helping them make an informed decision.
Within your post-booking process, consider implementing three steps:
- Requesting two dates on your calendar.
While the method of scheduling can vary based on personal preference, requesting two dates helps prevent double-booking or unavailability of ideal times when multiple requests flood in after a webinar.
These available times should only be confirmed once the prospect completes the pre-call questionnaire.
- Filling out a pre-call questionnaire.
The purpose of this questionnaire is to assess if the prospect’s problem aligns with your offerings, if their working style matches yours, their stage in the decision-making process, and their motivation to get started.
For instance, if a prospect lacks research into your offerings or isn’t ready to make an informed decision, it’s best to decline their request and direct them to sources where they can gather more information.
- Providing a preparation page.
This strategy, popularized by Jon Schumacher, involves creating a page that sets expectations for the call’s preparation and includes valuable content to enhance your credibility and indoctrinate prospects into your way of working.
For example, you could include an 11-minute video on your post-booking page that explains your offerings, provides pricing information, and helps prospects self-select the best fit.
Additionally, you can share links to sales pages and offer a curated list of podcast interviews, webinar recordings, and articles that allow prospects to “Netflix” and learn more about you. This approach builds rapport before the call even begins.
In conclusion, I hope you found the Buyer’s Arc to be a valuable framework for planning content in your marketing efforts and shortening the sales cycle for your high-ticket offers.
Many coaches, service providers, and course creators often fail to provide the necessary information for prospects to make informed decisions. People generally dislike being sold to and often hesitate to book a call until they have all the required information, including pricing. By incorporating all these essential elements into your marketing, you can capture a significant portion of the market.
Moreover, if you work with corporate clients who follow a proposal process, you can use the Buyer’s Arc as a checklist to position your services as indispensable and address objections before they arise.
By following these strategies and aligning your content with the Buyer’s Arc, you can enhance your marketing effectiveness and attract more high-ticket clients to your consulting and coaching services.
Congratulations on completing the series!
