Why are my customers not buying?

You think you have the perfect product, customer service levels are high and sales were doing well. Your business was flourishing, but then for some reasons sales slowed, became almost stagnate. But why? You hadn’t changed anything – well there you go! There lies your problem!

It is important to note that many factors could be responsible for the slowing down of sales, the recession often being one of the main causes for many businesses. Consumers are becoming increasingly sceptical and unsure about purchasing goods due to depleting amounts of disposable income and job insecurity. But slow sales aren’t always to be blamed on the recession...

The market place is moving extremely fast, evolving all the time and the world is working 24 hours, 7 days a week. It is essential that your business moves with the times and doesn’t get left behind.

Start by asking yourself these questions:

Is there a market for my product? For some businesses this is their first hurdle. Often entrepreneurs identify a need and seek to create a product or a service that fulfils it, however they sometimes overlook the fact that the market they are serving may not be large enough to make a sustainable business out of.

It is also important to look at your competitors. Are they taking over your market share? If so why? The technical term is competitor analysis, however put basically it is identifying your competitors and establishing what they are doing better (and worse) than you. Ensure you know what makes you different and make this your unique selling point, it is not always something to be looked upon negatively.

Are you marketing my product correctly and to the best of my ability? Are you targeting the correct people? Ensure that your customers know about your product. Even when brands and products are known about it is essential to continually market in order to remain part of the consumers’ repertoire of brands.

For example, Coca Cola is known worldwide and is one of the largest, most successful manufacturers of soft drinks, but they still advertise. Why? Because they want to achieve top of the mind awareness, in a perfect Coca Cola world: Consumer thinks ‘I’m thirsty’ and instantly associates the feeling with how refreshed they would feel after a drink of Coca Cola.

A consumers repertoire of brands shifts and changes for many reasons, some of which are known about such as reference groups, self concepts, how the product solves their problem and others which have no explanation. That is until market researchers are able to mind read...(Say hello to neuromarketing...)

Marketing communications has 4 main functions, it aims to:

• Differentiate
• Remind
• Inform
• Persuade

So give your business a chance and make sure that you: differentiate yourself from competitors, remind consumers of exactly who you are and what you do, inform them of what you can offer and persuade them your company is the one for them!


Article Written by Carli Smith


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