Many buying decisions are postponed because there is not emotional motivation for the product or service being offered.  Timing is so critical for the standard 3%-5% buying cycle timeline for your customer.  This is the time cycle percentage when customers are most likely ready to buy.  The other 95%-97% they are just shopping and do not have an emotional buy in.

When customers are ready to buy, be ready.  A business must be ready to sell when the buyer is ready to purchase, lest an opportunity be irretrievably lost. Customers buy when they want an offering that is relevant to them and when they have time and money to purchase it. Buying patterns may often be discerned from an analysis of existing customers and their purchases.

Businesses should keep track of key buying cycles and make pre-emptive moves to improve their overall sales. Keeping a customer relations management database with pertinent buying patterns is a great way to focus on this. If a business is in retail, additional purchase occasions can be personal or impersonal. Keeping track of birthdays and anniversaries would be a great resource.  Seasonal factors including recurring holidays and weather changes may also affect purchases. Among other favorable influences on purchases are the start of a school year, semi-annual sales, introduction of new products and clearance of old ones, special price concessions, and improvement in economic conditions or building buyer’s confidence.

Many consumers have limited time for shopping only during off hours. evenings, and on weekends. The transition from a single breadwinner per family to having all adults of a household engaged in commercial employment and has intensified these time restrictions. Astute business retailers adjust their hours, staffing, and availability of merchandise and services to meet customers’ shopping convenience. Restaurateurs and bartenders know that business booms on paydays. Manufacturers profit by timing their offers to their customers’ budgetary cycles. Knowing when products are purchased and used is a valuable facet of understanding customers.

Companies in the retail industry often allocate a healthy chunk of their promotions and budgets to customers who made the most recent transactions. But these efforts often give short shrift to customers who are most likely to buy next. As a result, the larger and potentially lucrative segments are inadvertently overlooked.

When marketing, timing strategies can significantly benefit from competitive analysis as previously discussed in my past blogs.  Companies may want to consider adding and systematically refreshing  information that captures what their competitors are offering.  It may also be helpful to know when competitors make those offers and to which markets those offers are being made. This data can assist companies on knowing when to adapt the timing and cadence of their offers to either pre-empt or strategically react to their competitors’ offers. But, again, I want to emphasize the importance of not basing everything on price.

Knowing  when to delay a promotion is a well learned lesson. What if you move forward with a promotion and your resources cannot support the promotion?  Timing is critical.    A first-in promotion strategy is one that says first in the door gets the benefit of the promotion.  This could also cause a lag effect in that the customers may realize they cannot get there first, so why bother!  In contrast would be a “first-in” promotion strategy that could bear a “lag effect” or carry over benefit of your product and/or service. Under the next-in scenario, customers hold off on purchasing for the  “wait to see” what sale or special may be launched. At this strategy’s greatest effectiveness, competitors’ promotions would help generate interest, while your promotions would be timed to generate the sale.

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