Your client is thinking 4 times about your hair but when and how?
The whole process a customer goes through before she buys your hair can be broken down in only four stages, or as we call it the buying funnel.
(Awareness) Before a client will buy from you, she has to have a clear picture of her needs and a desire to address that need with a product or a service (solution). In other words she has to be aware of the solutions available in the market.
(Research) to address that need for a solution she will start to look for information to find the different offers in the market and to know more about the specific products and services. She will on paper or in her head memorize the products she has seen.
(Decision) Now she will use the short list to select the company that has the product and service level she is looking for.
(Purchase) In this final stage of the buying process you client will value the price, characteristics and other conditions (shipment, return policy etc.).
This is step one, just to know what stages your client goes through before she buys your hair. But as your time and money is limited, what is more interesting for you is to know where in the buying funnel you should put your time and money?
To buy something is all about processing information, and it starts with a lot of alternatives and ends with only one option, hopefully your extensions.
Potential clients rely strongly on the use of search engines (like Google and Bing) in the research phase of the purchasing process; they compose queries in order to find what they are looking for. It is exactly these key words you can use to get noticed by these girls looking for awesome tangle free hair extensions!
What are the words to use and when during buying funnel?
To determine in what stage of the buying funnel a key word phrase would be used you can use this table.
Below you will find the type of key word phrases your clients are using when they are in a certain stage of the buying process. You do not have to invent these words, because your visitors use them already.
Awareness
• Does not contain a brand name
• Could contains partial product name/type
• Could contain problem to be solved
• Could contain, gift certificate amount, generic company special, or generic company code
In the Awareness stage a potential client is searching for general knowledge, which could lead to sale. People looking for information in this stage use very broad queries. An example query could be ¨hair extensions¨. This Awareness query does not contain a brand name or a specific product name. They can contain an action or a problem that needs to be solved for example ¨non tangling¨.
Research
• Does not contain brand name
• Contains specific product
In this stage, the potential client has decided on the type of product they want, but not yet on brand or store to purchase from. Queries in this stage contain keywords that indicate the client wants to buy. The queries are still broad, but they are more focused on than the awareness queries. The query can now be ¨Brazilian Remy Virgin Hair¨. But the name of a brand will not be mentioned, because the consumer is still researching the possibilities.
Would You Like to Make $ 30.000/month for Only $ 29/month?
Decision
• Contains specific product and partial brand name
• Does not contain full brand name/company
In the Decision stage the consumer compares the various shopping alternatives, so in her queries she includes brand names and technical specifications. For example ¨Balmain Tape Extensions¨. The name of the brand or shop is chosen but not the exact type of hair. It´s clear in this stage the queries are more focused, than in the Awareness or Research stage of the buying funnel.
Purchase
• Contains specific products and full brand name/company
In this stage the consumer knows what she is looking for to purchase. The queries include the product and nearly the full brand name.
If you have a set of key words that is broad enough, and you can grow this set over time to improve your insight, you can build your own buying funnel. All you have to do is to classify the key word phrases in one of the four stages (Awareness, Research, Decision and Purchase) and pyramid, or buying funnel will be visible for you. Now you know in what stage the potential clients are when they use certain key words.
How to make this work for you and save money and time?
Okay now you know the kind of words your visitors are using, but how can you make money with it?
The next step is to put metrics like: Impressions, Clicks, Cost per Click, Average Sales, Average Orders and Items Ordered per stage. Based upon this information you can see for example if your effort in advertising or promoting your products pays off, but also where to allocate your effort in.
With this information you can start to make your own buying funnel, the steps from awareness till the final sale.
I am interested to know the costs associated with starting hair extension business. How much money do I need to start buying hair wholesale. I have recently started researching how to start my hair extension business and any information related to my objectives will be greatly appreciated
Hi Teneile,
Thanks for your question. The cost associated with starting your own hair selling business depends if you want to start selling online only or also a brick and mortar shop or salon. If you only want to start selling online you need to invest in marketing so people know about you, a website or shop so you can sell hair even if you are not awake or purchasing hair. If your clients do not want to make a deposit for the hair they order you’ll have to invest in building up stock. There is a smart way to have enough hair at hand to show your clients and not to invest too much money. If you follow this the actual amount you will have to invest will be limited,and you can grow your business based upon your sales.