What is the Buyers Pyramid?

The core principle of the Buyers Pyramid emphasises that, at any given time, merely 3% of your potential market is actively prepared to make a purchase.

This is why the "Buyers Pyramid" is as relevant today as when it was first developed by renowned business strategist, Chet Holmes.

Understanding the Buyers Pyramid

The Buyers Pyramid is a valuable tool for visualising the market potential for a specific product or service. It outlines the various stages a customer may be in and highlights the opportunities for attracting customers. Chet Holmes developed this structured pyramid to categorise potential buyers based on their readiness to make a purchase, enabling businesses to customise their marketing messages for optimal impact.

1. The top 3%: At the very top of the pyramid are the 3% of buyers who are 'ready to buy' right away. They have identified a need, done their research, and are actively searching for a solution.
   
   
2. The 7%: These potential customers are open to exploring purchasing options but may not be actively seeking them. They are receptive to your message, and with the right approach, they could easily convert into customers.
3. The initial 30%: This group is currently in the phase of seeking information rather than considering a purchase. They are open to the concept but require additional details before reaching a decision.
   
   
4. The next 30%: This group may not currently see the value in the product or service offered. However, with the right approach or a shift in their circumstances, they could potentially become valuable customers in the future.
   
   
5. The bottom 30%: Some individuals in this segment may not currently see the value in the product or service offered. However, it's important to understand that not everyone will be your target audience, no matter how exceptional your offering may be.

Understanding the response of each level in the Buyers Pyramid is key to effectively winning more customers. To illustrate this concept, let's take an IT Services company to use as an example.

The top 3% of prospects are ecstatic that you can provide Managed Services and give them an SLA that meets their needs. They hire you immediately.

The next 7% are interested in hiring an IT Services company. To date, they haven’t had time to investigate their options, but they snap up your offer.

The next 30% can be persuaded that their company would benefit from hiring your IT Services company. The contracts may take some time to get over the line as negotiations are protracted.

Below is a second group of 30% who do not realise they could use your IT Services company to address their network reliability problems and to give them secure remote access. They don't know how many of their IT problems you can really solve or what's involved in solving their IT problems until you explain it to them. 

The bottom 30% probably won't see the value in IT Services as they already have an in-house IT department responsible for handling the same tasks your company offers as services.

How to reach out to the bottom half of the Buyers Pyramid

Early-stage prospects may move through your funnel and become customers if your products and services are a good fit and they see value in your offer. This might happen faster if your messaging resonates with the challenges they are currently grappling with. 

The following is a selection of ways you can attract more prospects into your early-stage funnel.

1. Webinars

Consider hosting an engaging business event for your target audience and customers in the form of a webinar. An event designed to engage your audience with interactive exercises, valuable content, and networking opportunities, all aimed at boosting your brand's visibility, converting leads into paying customers, and ultimately increasing revenue.

Webinars are ideal if you want to deliver an online video presentation, workshop, or demo. Webinars can be live or pre-recorded, but they should always include interactive elements that allow viewers to participate, ask questions, and engage with the presenters.

Use your webinar as a platform to drive conversions and revenue. Position yourself as a thought leader to establish trust with prospects and effectively promote your product or service. By sharing and promoting your webinar, you can enhance brand awareness and drive more conversations and more conversions.

When hosting webinars, you have the flexibility to tailor the format to align with your goals and desired outcomes. Popular formats include:

• Industry Expert Panel
• Interview (one or more guests)
• Product/Service Presentation or Demo
• Q&A
• How-To
• Case Study

Enhance your outreach activities with webinars to engage your audience, showcase your expertise, and drive meaningful results for your business using one or a combination of these formats.

2. Social Selling

Engage in social selling to target potential business prospects on social media and establish connections that lead to valuable leads. This modern approach focuses on building relationships and nurturing connections rather than traditional sales tactics. Social selling takes time but with the vast number of social media users, the potential for generating sales through these platforms is immense. 

• 4.74 billion people worldwide are active on social media.
• Social media platforms gained 190 million active users in 2022 alone
• 27% of internet users use social media platforms to find inspiration for things to do and buy, while 26.2% are seeking products to purchase
• 49.2% of social media users worldwide log on to learn about brands and see their content
• 77% of people discover new products on social media

One significant challenge with social selling lies in its time-consuming nature. Tools like Trueleads, which automate LinkedIn prospecting, are essential for serious social sellers looking to boost productivity and increase the early funnel pipeline.

3. Value Add

When making a decision, potential customers are on the lookout for value. By providing this value upfront, even before a client commits, you are showcasing that your company is the right choice for them. This added value should be substantial without revealing all your trade secrets. or taking too much time to produce.

For instance, if you follow a proven 3-step process to deliver a captivating presentation, offering companies the first couple of steps can be a fantastic way to demonstrate value and start building a relationship with them.

4. Increase Your Web Presence

Establishing a strong web presence boosts the chances of your company being discovered. Whether through engaging blog content, podcasts or social media platforms.

Furthermore, your web presence can act as the starting point of a buyer's journey. By providing valuable content you can efficiently guide potential leads through the next steps. It becomes even more effective when you can automate some of these processes, saving time and effort on individual customer interactions. 

HubSpot Content Hub is a modern content management system that enables you to very easily create dynamic website pages for every visitor — optimised for conversion across every device and unlike other options you don't need to have any technical skills

You can get your site up and running with a user-friendly interface and publish content at scale with the help of AI-driven tools. It's easy for sales and marketing teams to build landing pages, create and publish updates, offers and promotions without the need for technical support. Features like content remix (to reproduce for social media) and AI tools like image generator and blog writer give you productivity gains as well as compelling content.

Using the Buyers Pyramid to guide content creation and SEO

Understanding these unique buyer segments opens up opportunities for targeted SEO initiatives. Here are some ways you can tailor your content for each group:

• For the top 3%, focus on 'buy now' keywords in your SEO strategy. These are the terms they use when they're ready to purchase, such as "buy (product xxxx) online" or "(service xxxxx) near me".
• The next 7% may search with variations, so keywords related to comparison or benefits will resonate with them. Think of phrases like product name vs. competitor or best xxxx in xxxcity.
• For the 30% seeking information, optimise your content with insightful blog posts, how-to guides, and FAQs. Use keywords that answer questions and provide insights.
• Use re-targeting and re-marketing strategies to stay top of mind for those in the 'open to buying' and 'information-seeking' segments who visit your site but don't take action.
• Engage the 'Not Interested' segment with educational content. By offering value through informative blog posts, webinars, or e-books supported by e-marketing, you might just shift their perspective.
• Lastly, recognise that not everyone is your target audience. Refine your SEO strategy to appeal to the relevant segments of the pyramid for a better return on investment.

 

With systems in place to capture, monitor and manage all your outreach activities, it really is very easy to nurture your pipeline and for example, see who booked a meeting in the past few months but did not proceed. These leads are worth revisiting as their previous objections may have been around timing.

This approach to nurturing prospects extracts additional value from your valuable lists, as even highly targeted lists often include companies outside the top 3% - buying now group. It's evident that nurturing your valuable list is essential and something we all should make time for. The Buyers Pyramid is a valuable tool giving us more insights into the buyers journey.

Tune in now to a recent Unicorny Podcast with our Head Honcho, Peter Russell-Smith where he joins Podcast Host Dom Hawes talking about profitable growth in a challenging market, "pin your ears back and get your notebooks out" for a cracking podcast!

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For further reading on B2B Sales and Prospecting, check out our blog articles

How to prospect new clients.

Aligning the pipeline with a sales view of the buyer's journey

B2B Sales Guide

Sales Consulting Services

What is an Ideal Customer Profile?

Social Selling