A Simple Framework For Marketing Strategy

Purchase necessity X decision timeline

A couple weeks ago I conducted a search marketing seminar for small law firms. In it I laid out a framework for thinking about the process that people go through when they buy from a company.

I divided products and services into three categories: things people want but don’t need, things people want and sort of need but not urgently, and things people absolutely have to have. The way you should market to your target customer depends partly on which category your company falls into.

Most legal services fall into that third category, hence why the seminar was about search marketing: you don’t have to convince people they need a lawyer, just get in front of them when they search for one.

After thinking about it a bit more, I realized you can also divide companies by how long people spend mulling over their purchase decision. So now this framework is a three by three matrix that looks a bit like one of those Dungeons & Dragons alignment memes.

You could also divide this by the size of the purchase, but that tends to go hand in hand with the mount of time spend mulling it over before buying. Obviously this doesn’t encompass all the specifics of how people buy in a given industry, but it’s a good high-level starting point for thinking about how the marketing funnel for your particular company works.

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