How does your market shop?
We all know that there are seasons for shopping and seasons of drop off in shopping and it doesn’t matter what type of product or service that you sell. However, all markets do not shop at the same time. For instance, Christmas is not a big shopping time for all markets.
Online Marketers need to know the answer to this question:
How does your market shop?
Just like there are seasons within a calendar year, there are shopping “seasons” within any specific niche. Most customers do not purchase on price alone, they purchase based on a buying cycle that is dependent upon the products and services that you are promoting, and their needs. Some products have more obvious seasons, like toys, tax related merchandise, back to school supplies and beach vacations.
Naturally, if you are promoting toys, your biggest buying season will be Christmas. Sure, people buy toys all year long for birthdays and other special days, but Christmas is the main buying season for toys. This is true whether you’re an on online business or not. If you are selling educational and informational materials it is likely there is a season for your buyers too.
Typically people start thinking about learning something in the fall. For those who are going to college or taking formal classes it is a little late to think about it in the fall, but for you, fall may be an excellent time to give a blogging class, teach how to use PLR, or to have a webinar on other information that your niche market may be interested in.
In order to figure out how your market shops, you will need to conduct market tests and look at the data. If you try different tactics and offers during various times of the year, then look at the data closely to find out when your market is shopping, you will get better each year in determining your market’s shopping habits. Past behavior is usually a good indicator of future behavior.
Knowing where to start is half the battle. If you know who your ideal customer is, and you certainly should, you can give a good educated guess on when they will be most interested in shopping and buying. For instance, if you market to work at home moms it is likely that summer is a bad time to buy much because their kids are home for the summer and they’re not going to be spending as much time working at their business.
But, you can start a countdown to a huge launch during the time when most kids go back to school. Or, better yet, you can create a product that is directly targeted and created for work at home moms with responsibility for the kids during the summer, such as an eBook or Report about how to work during the summer with kids underfoot! Sell this right before summer. See if it works.
Knowing who your market is, what their shopping season is, and what compels them to actually buy from you will go far in helping you figure out what to offer your customers, and when. This is why you must continually look at your website stats and product metrics. You need to know where your visitors are coming from, when they are coming, what they are looking at and what they are buying.
