Gradualization is a copywriting term from marketing. In sales, it’s also known as “advancement” or “escalation”: How can you advance your prospect to the next stage in their decision-making process?
Would you propose to someone you just met on a first date? Probably not a good idea. The same applies to sales. We don’t purchase in a single interaction; there’s usually a series of steps we need to go through. For example:
- See an ad
- Visit your website
- Read a review
- Add an item to their shopping cart
- Enter payment information
- Enter shipping information
- Reading about returns & guarantees
- Checkout
- … (you can continue planning beyond the purchase if you’re interested in developing a comprehensive customer experience.)
Realize that not every prospect needs to go through the same series of steps. Some prospects enter your funnel with more knowledge and experience, while others enter at different points. I don’t use the term “Advancement” because it suggests a specific and unidirectional escalation.
Rather than viewing your buyer’s journey as a linear or process-oriented funnel, envision it as a map. It has a clear end goal, checkpoints that help us understand if we’re trending in the right direction, but many possible paths to get there, some of which might even take us backward a few steps.
To map the buyer’s journey (their actions), we first need to understand their underlying intent and motivations (why are they taking those actions?). This is where gradualization comes into play, it represents the sequence of realizations a prospect must experience before they’re ready to make a purchase.
If you run a social media training program, here’s a series of realizations your prospect might go through:
- I need to realize what I’m doing right now isn’t working.
- I need to believe there is a more effective way to generate leads and close sales.
- I need to believe it’s possible to make 6-7 figures a year without outbound prospecting.
- I need to believe building a strong brand is the path to achieving this.
- I need to believe social media is the optimal choice for brand building.
- I need to believe THIS social media training program will yield faster and easier results than any other alternative.
- I need to believe I need to take action NOW.
It usually follows a pattern like this and often culminates in the prospect recognizing the value of your solution and realizing they should give you their money to get this solution now. However, the specific journey may vary depending on your target customers, organization, or offerings.
It’s also helpful to not only define it for one customer persona but define multiple to address all your different target customers. Gradualization could look significantly different for them even if you’re selling the same solution, this will reflect differently in the messaging you use to appeal to them.
This marketing matrix illustrates the point:
| Marketing Manager | Small Business Owner | |
|---|---|---|
| Problem: | Under pressure to get more leads from your boss? | Looking to generate more leads for your business? |
| Messaging: | Too busy managing all your marketing campaigns? We help marketing managers to… | We’ve worked with many plumbing contractors like you to grow their businesses. Contact us today for a free no-obligation consultation |
If you need help defining customer personas, check out this comprehensive guide.
Gradualization doesn’t only help us with mapping the customer’s journey; it also assists in fine-tuning the granular steps within it. For instance, if a landing page is one of the steps in your bigger picture, the landing page itself needs to guide prospects through a micro-journey. Prospects don’t want to see “register now” right away; they might want to learn more about who your event is for, what they will learn from it, who else might be attending, the credibility or credentials of the speaker, etc.
From the term gradualization, you might also assume “gradual” equates to “slow”’ However, gradual primarily refers to the progression in a prospect’s mental awareness. As I’ve mentioned earlier under Shorter Sales Cycle(s), it doesn’t have to be slow. In some cases, the entire conversion can occur within a single interaction or conversation. However, this isn’t always the case, and if you push a prospect to buy prematurely, not only in terms of timing but more importantly, if they aren’t mentally prepared for the transition, you’ll come across as pushy.
ASSIGNMENT
What realizations (what do they need to believe?) must your prospects develop before they’re prepared to use or purchase your solution?
List distinct series of realizations if you have multiple target customers or offerings.