Most people don’t buy now. Most people buy later.

Most people don’t buy now. Most people buy later.

Studies have been done on this. In one such study, researchers followed up with thousands of people who showed interest in a particular type of product for 2 years after they initially showed interest.

Here’s what they found:

• 50% of people didn’t buy in those 2 years

• 50% of people did buy

• Of the 50% that bought, only 20% bought in the first 3 months after showing interest

That means that 80% of the people who did buy, ended up buying 4-24 months after showing interest. 

Also known as: buying later. But you already knew this.

How?

Because we all tend to delay making purchasing decisions. To give a very simple example, I’ll sometimes delay going down to the shop just because I don’t feel like going to the shop right now.

Future David can worry about it, says Present David.

And this happens with something as vital as food.

Change the item to something that is less essential, more expensive, and that requires more effort (like, oh, I don’t know, tennis lessons), and people will come up with all sorts of excuses in their head as to why now is not the right time.

• My kid has exams coming up.

• We need to save to buy a new car.

• It’s too cold outside.

• We need to do more research.

• Etc.

This is just how humans work. We like to think about doing this or doing that, but more often than not, we will delay doing the thing. And sometimes we have very good reasons for delaying. And sometimes we don’t.

But the point is, most people don’t buy now. They buy later.

And as someone who wants to attract people to your program and get them to sign up, you need to be aware of this quirk of human psychology. Because having this idea present in your mind will allow you to play the marketing game the right way.

If you understand that most people buy later, then you don’t need to put all this pressure on yourself to get customers NOW.

Here’s what you should do instead: build strong relationships with people, so that when THEY are ready to buy, they’ll put their hand up and say: “I want to sign up”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT advocating that you turn away people who do want to sign up right now. You should absolutely build a ‘highway’ that allows the people who want to move quickly to sign up right now. But you also need to build the ‘scenic route’ for the ones who want to take their time. The ones that will take a lot longer to make the decision to pull out their bank card and sign up.

Good marketing can do these 2 things simultaneously.

Most head coaches and tennis business owners I speak to are doing a decent job of capturing the interest of the people who want to sign up now. But what about everyone else? The 70 to 80% of the market that will buy ‘later’.

Do you have anything in place to build a strong, trusting relationship with them over time so that when they’re ready to sign up, there’s no doubt in their mind that they should sign up with you? If you’re like most people in tennis, your answer to this last question is no.

And there’s a massive opportunity in doing this right. In building that scenic route to let people come to you at their own pace, not yours. If you can achieve that, you’ll have the best of both worlds.

You’ll be able to fast-track the customers who are ready to buy now. And you’ll be able to build a relationship with the customers who are curious but not quite ready yet, so that when they’re ready, they come to you, instead of going somewhere else.

That’s what good marketing looks like. 

And that’s what will deliver the maximum number of bookings for your business.

David Martins

Director, Tennis Business Academy
www.tennisbusinessacademy.com
[email protected]