{"id":159,"date":"2011-04-05T16:56:36","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T22:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bubblemedia2.wpengine.com\/?p=159"},"modified":"2013-09-01T21:52:04","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T03:52:04","slug":"winning-customer-pinball-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"Winning the Customer Pinball Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It would be great if customers woke up in the morning with the express purpose of buying your product or service. Unfortunately, the path a customer takes to your front door may be a little less direct.\u00a0 Think of this as the customer pinball game. Here\u2019s how it works, with lots of breaks in between each step (visualize a ball dropping down the pinball board headed for the bottom \u2013 your business):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Someone decides they want to buy a product or service you sell. (Ball is launched)<\/li>\n<li>They try to remember where they could buy it. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They ask a friend at work or over coffee. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They do a web search. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They read up on the purchase through a web article. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They see a related ad \u2013 hopefully yours. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They visit a website \u2013 hopefully yours. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They consider buying online and having to wait or getting it right away. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>They consider the hassle of returns. (Ding)<\/li>\n<li>If the product or service is expensive, they will ask other people about the options they\u2019ve found. These people may give them information that restarts the process. (Paddle)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Unlike real pinball, there is no guarantee that the ball drops all the way down. Some other \u201cball trap\u201d or competitor may capture the customer before they make it all the way down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tilt Early, Tilt Often<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given this pinball challenge,\u00a0think about how you can \u201ctilt\u201d the board to your advantage. Surprisingly, the game actually favors the neighborhood business since they have more ways to \u201ccheat\u201d by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Connecting early in the process. If customers remember your business at the beginning, it works like a shortcut.\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Advertising helps with this<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Making sure customers find you through friends or Google.\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Blogging helps with this<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Giving reasons why your customers should visit.\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Offering a deal helps with this<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Getting your website to inform potential customers and capture their information.\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A good website design helps with this<\/span>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When all these pieces come together, the pinball game is tilted for an easy win. Have fun playing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It would be great if customers woke up in the morning with the express purpose of buying your product or service. Unfortunately, the path a customer takes to your front door may be a little less direct.\u00a0 Think of this as the customer pinball game. Here\u2019s how it works, with lots of breaks in between [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubblelife.advicelocal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}