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11: The Linkedin Buyer's Perspective + Filling Their Information Gaps (LINKEDIN Series)
46 Plays1 year ago
Why do LinkedIn users buy? How do they buy? These are two questions that very few are ever asking on LinkedIn. And yet it's essential to guiding our audience on their buying journey. In this episode, we discuss Information Gaps and how information about problems and misconceptions help users see the value in reaching out and buying our service.
Process | Rekorded (Go to Step 2 for the video on Info Gaps)
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Transcript
Understanding LinkedIn Buying Behavior
00:00:00
Speaker
Why do LinkedIn users buy? How do they buy? These are two questions that very few are ever asking on LinkedIn. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense as to why not. Everyone talks about how to sell, but we can't really sell anything unless someone buys. Our sales completely depend on the buyers. So if you understand how buyers buy, why they buy, only then are we going to actually be able to sell on LinkedIn.
00:00:20
Speaker
It sounds kind of obvious when I say it like that, but so few actually try to see things from the LinkedIn user perspective. And so that is what today's episode is going to be about. LinkedIn users don't buy because they consume your valuable content, they trust you, or because they think you're an expert. They buy because they have a problem and think you can solve it. The rest only helps.
00:00:41
Speaker
It helps if your content is very valuable. It helps if they trust you. It helps if they think you're an expert. That's not why they buy. If you don't focus on that problem, the rest doesn't
The Role of Information Gaps in Service Valuation
00:00:50
Speaker
matter. It took me months to realize this next thing. They don't reach out to you for information about your service. They reach out because of information about how you solve the problem. We are motivated by information in our buying journey.
00:01:02
Speaker
If we were motivated for information, we would be sending everyone a DM on LinkedIn asking for information. That's not how we're motivated. We don't do that. It took me many months to realize this. Many painful lessons, failures, and very deep reflection on LinkedIn content marketing. So I wanted to analyze my own buying journey today on LinkedIn to use examples and proof to understand how LinkedIn users buy
00:01:25
Speaker
how I've bought and so that we can see how necessary it is to fill information gaps with our content because only after we fill these information gaps will our audience be able to see the value in buying our service and reaching out to us. We're also going to see why so many people don't get anything from LinkedIn because they only post what I call independently valuable content when we should be creating interdependently valuable content.
Case Study: Buying from Nick Bennett
00:01:50
Speaker
So I've actually only bought one real service from LinkedIn. This service was from Nick Bennett, a niche design expert. He was tagged on my post on LinkedIn by Logan Lyles because he shared a similar perspective on marketing. So we started talking. I invited him onto my podcast because I thought he had some really interesting thoughts. I interviewed him. He educated me and my audience about the problem I had and
00:02:11
Speaker
many others have and to sum up what that problem is is that most marketing agencies can't tell you the problem that they solve or what makes them different and unknowingly positioning themselves in the eyes of the buyer as an interchangeable agency claiming they are better than everyone else that offers the same solutions and fighting over the same customers and because no one's dying to work with an agency that makes the same promises as a thousand others all this does is frustrate and confuse buyers. So that's just the quick summary of what the problem is that he solves and educates on.
00:02:40
Speaker
He also recommended that I get the book, The 22 Laws of Category Design. I read that
Solving the Right Problem for Effective Positioning
00:02:45
Speaker
book. His interview and this book made me realize that I was focusing on a problem, but it wasn't the right problem. And so I was positioning myself to solve a problem that wasn't valuable enough and didn't create any urgency because it wasn't something that really needed to be solved.
00:02:58
Speaker
And because of all this, because of all this information about my problem and what I was missing, I slowly realized that I needed Nick's service. And so as I consumed Nick's content and his LinkedIn content website, and also that book that shared a similar point of view, I slowly gathered information about the painful problem that I have, how it shows up in my life and business, why it's so important to solve, what my life would be like without the problem,
00:03:22
Speaker
misconceptions about the problem, how the problem can be solved, proof of how the problem had been solved for others, and misconceptions about the solution to the problem. And after learning this information and filling my information gaps, I was able to see very clearly why I needed his service and how I couldn't keep going on without it, driving me to the decision to buy his service now.
00:03:42
Speaker
And not later on in the future buying it now because I needed it now. And then I bought it. This is why information gaps are so important, filling these information gaps. I was motivated to buy his service because of all this information. I didn't buy his service because his content was valuable. I didn't buy because I trusted that he was an expert. I didn't buy because we had talked in the past and we had rapport.
00:04:05
Speaker
I didn't buy because he had matching colors in his content profile and website.
Importance of Problem-Solution Clarity Over Content Value
00:04:09
Speaker
I didn't buy because there were nice benefits like getting word of mouth. I bought because I saw very clearly that I needed to solve a problem and he could solve it for me. And the reason I saw that very clearly was because I had filled all those information gaps or he helped me fill all those information gaps.
00:04:25
Speaker
Those five other reasons that I listed helped, but they were not the reason that I bought. If I did not see a clear problem and a clear reason to solve that problem and see clearly how he would solve that problem, I would not have bought. It's that simple. The problem when people obsess over putting out valuable content, they think that means anything that helps in some way. I've seen a bunch of different posts talking about the four different types of valuable posts, educational, entertaining, perspective changing, whatever.
00:04:52
Speaker
This is valuable. A list of people to follow is valuable. An opinion on a trend is valuable. A motivational post is valuable because it helps you. But the problem with these randomly valuable content is that they're not connected. They are what I call independently valuable. They are only valuable on their own. And so when you have all these independently valuable pieces of content, it's not enough to push someone down a buying journey. One piece of content isn't enough.
00:05:17
Speaker
Each piece of content needs to be valuable, but each one should also push the audience in a certain direction, and it should have a snowball effect when you consume more content from that person.
Interconnected Content for the Buying Journey
00:05:27
Speaker
So each time I consumed Nick's content, I consumed valuable information that was connected, what I call interdependently valuable, meaning that it is valuable on its own as a piece of content, but it's also more valuable when you consume more of it.
00:05:41
Speaker
because there's a bigger message, there's a bigger point of view. Each time I consumed his content, I was pushed further in buying, in the buying journey, understanding his point of view and realizing more and more how much I needed his service. And the reason is because he has a very defined point of view about a problem and how to solve the problem.
00:05:57
Speaker
And in each piece of content, he filled certain information gaps where each time it happened, I saw things the way he does more and more. That's what most people on LinkedIn aren't doing. When a piece of content is independently valuable, it's like starting from zero each time. But when it's interdependently valuable, it's like going from zero to one to two to three to four to five. And then once you get to 10, that is when you decide to buy.
00:06:19
Speaker
So although this independently valuable content will keep me coming back to consume more of your content, and it will keep my attention, I will never get further in my buying journey. I will never get to the consideration stage. I will just stay with attention. I will just consume your content, but never end up buying. And so that's what I call the freeloader loop, is that I am consuming your free content.
00:06:39
Speaker
forever and never
Educating Clients to Facilitate Purchases
00:06:41
Speaker
buying. So a few examples from myself and what I do for clients to show what this is like in practice for each of the following, there's a unique problem that needs to be solved. It's not just a bunch of benefits, you know, more word of mouth, more time saved, whatever, it is a problem. And when each of these people fills information gaps about the problem, when I say people, either client or myself or Nick, which I'm also going to explain,
00:07:03
Speaker
When each of these people fills information gaps about the problem, their audience is pushed to the next step. And eventually when they'll get all the information needed to make the decision, and eventually where they'll get all information needed to make the decision to reach out or buy. So I'll first explain my example. The problem is the agency time problem. So the agency time problem is a problem unique to agency founders and independent consultants that are heavily involved with client work, but want to grow.
00:07:28
Speaker
They are currently dependent on inconsistent and low quality referrals, accepting whatever they can to keep their business alive. But they have the expert advantage, the insights and ideas in their niche that make LinkedIn content marketing the obvious solution to generate a stream of clients.
00:07:43
Speaker
But because they are involved so much with client work, they can't afford to spend the 20 plus hours a month that it requires to do LinkedIn content marketing successfully, which is why becoming a content creator isn't an option for them. Instead of pushing out the content themselves, they need someone to pull it out of them efficiently in only a couple hours a month. And that is why I've created content extraction and packaging to solve that problem.
00:08:05
Speaker
So there you have an example where there's a clear problem and a clear solution. And now my job is to educate and fill the information gaps about the problem and the solution so that people can see my point of view. And once they get enough information, once enough information gaps are filled, they will see the value in reaching out to me and buying.
00:08:23
Speaker
So a part of that problem is that because you're an expert and you're heavily involved with client work, you don't have the time to become an expert on LinkedIn content marketing. And so that's why I'm doing things like this is educating and filling information gaps about this problem so that you if you meet that profile, if you have that problem, you will see why to buy my service.
00:08:42
Speaker
So another example for a client, he solved the problem, which he calls fragmented franchise marketing. This is basically where the problem is that the franchisees do their own marketing locally. And because they're not all working together, they don't have any unified data. And because of that, there's no consistent marketing results for the whole franchise network.
00:09:02
Speaker
And when there's no consistent results for the whole franchise network, it's really difficult to sell more locations. And so they solve that problem with the unified marketing system, which is what the solution is to solve that problem. And so what we're doing together is filling the information gaps about that problem and
Addressing Disengagement with Information Gaps
00:09:18
Speaker
that solution.
00:09:18
Speaker
and the misconceptions about both the people once they get enough information will see why it's so valuable why they need to solve that problem another example in customer success there are many disengaged customers customers that don't open up about their priorities about why they bought the service if they think if they're thinking about churning there's no open conversation between the customer and the company and so
00:09:42
Speaker
This causes a surprise turn. It's harder to upsell them. And so this disengaged customer is a problem. And the solution, my client has created the solution called radically authentic discovery method, which helps them to authentically and in a genuine way, open up.
00:09:57
Speaker
because of trust and just simply listening to what the customer has to say. And so together we're filling information gaps about that problem so that people understand that problem and the value in solving that problem and they will see him
Creating Interdependently Valuable Content on LinkedIn
00:10:09
Speaker
as the solution. So hopefully after this quick episode, you realize how your content needs to be connected under one full point of view about one valuable problem and one solution and filling information gaps about that. No longer having independently valuable content, but rather having interdependently valuable content that you post on LinkedIn.
00:10:27
Speaker
I will leave a link in the description to my website where there's a video about 10 minute long that explains in depth with visuals of how to fill information gaps. Hope you guys enjoyed that one. I will see you guys next time.