Stop for a moment and think about all of the events that had to have happened for you to be reading this right now.
Pretty insane right?
While we’re going through life it can seem pretty random, but by taking a moment and looking back, doesn’t it seem obvious it turned out like it did? It’s like watching a movie the second time and being surprised by how much you could have missed the first time around.
I guess this is why they say hindsight is 20/20.
Anyways, if you’d like to reach potential customers before your competitors (thereby removing most of the obstacles) simply acknowledge the patterns in their life leading up to purchasing your product.
Once you’ve done this, you simply position yourself upstream of the client journey.
Royal Bank Of Canada did exactly this with their ‘Mydoh’ application for kids.
Instead of waiting until kids turn 18 and then competing with all the other banks, RBC decided to meet their future customers sooner.
To do this, they created an app for kids that enables them to receive allowances from their parents.
Of course, they needed the parents to go along with this so all they did was engineer to-do lists and financial education into the app.
So in order for the kids to get their allowance every Saturday, they must complete certain ‘chores’ and also learn about financial responsibility (becoming less risky to the bank). Win / Win / Win.
As you can see, the Mydoh app is building a positive association between RBC and rewards… which of course leads to brand loyalty and habitual use.
By the time the child becomes a prospect to other banks, they’ve already formed a strong relationship with Royal Bank Of Canada and getting them to switch will now be quite difficult.
They knew competition was fierce for young adults fresh ‘in the market’ – so instead of fighting an uphill battle and offering incentives and discounts… they simply avoided competition all together by going upstream.
So how about you?
What steps do your customers take before becoming customers and how can you meet them before your competitors do?