Why Do Consumers Buy Any Products?

This is about consumer buying and how important it is to make the messy middle easily navigable. Even talking about a “sustainability industry” is messy. But how else can we wrap our heads around some of the issues surrounding the climate crisis and how what we buy matters?

I’m using the phrase “sustainability industry” as an umbrella term for all those products and processes that are solutions to the impending global economic and environmental collapse. You don’t like the term? Give me something that’s better here.

What’s the Messy Middle?

In the sustainability industry, there are two distinct “messy middles.” One has to do with how folks buy things, and the other is about how those things are produced for the consumer.

We buy things based on information we’ve acquired through our years of programming, memories, influences, and all the ways sustainable products have become a part of conscious (and unconscious) awareness. For better or worse this is a huge landscape. In the sustainability industry, this includes all the societal knowledge about plastics, gas and oil, greenwashing, food waste, environmental impacts, and everything else you can think of surrounding the word “sustainable.”

In order to effectively grow the sustainability industry many of these ideas about “sustainable” have to be changed in consumers’ minds.

Sociologists and marketers have spent a lot of time trying to crack the buying code. The first modern marketing model to look at how, and why, people buy was developed in 1898. The two models that seem to best portray how and why people buy a sustainable product are:

  • 1986 Jan Carlzon’s “Moment of Truth.”- every time a potential customer comes in contact with a brand, even if it’s fleeting, is an opportunity for that brand to make an impression. [replace “brand” with “industrial hemp”]
  • 2011 ZMOT – “zero moment of truth” when a potential customer first learns about a product.

Fast forward to 2023 and Google spent a lot of money and time trying to crack the buying code. The scribble below became a diagram that explains the two modes of buying. 

From think with Google, the Messy Middle is indeed a mess.
The Messy Middle is indeed a mess.
the Google buyer journey model with an infinity loop between exploration and evaluation - the messy middle
Google Buyer model with key aspects of exposure, experience, exploration, evaluation, triggers, and purchase.

Images: thinkwithgoogle.com

It’s important to know where in this process a potential buyer is in their journey to become your customer. The messy middle (the area of exploration and evaluation) is where we all spend most of our time as buyers. 

The circle surrounding the diagram is particularly important for the sustainability industry. It’s all the information a buyer has accumulated over the years. Some of that information will be conscious, but most of it will be unconscious. It’s like all the layers in an onion.

Cutting through each layer brings tears. Many of those layers have societal norms and personal morality as important aspects. Notice it’s an infinity loop. Until a person’s answers are addressed, they keep going back and forth between explore and evaluate.

Or they get tired and frustrated and ditch the effort. Proponents of sustainability have to answer a buyer’s questions, so the benefits are clear and leave no doubt in the buyer’s mind. 

Is Your Sustainable Business Answering Questions?

Is the sustainability industry even close to creating a clear message?

My answer to that is NO! We’ve spent a lot of time defending “sustainability” without addressing consumers questions about what the word really means. The sustainability light is not lighting the way for a more environmentally secure planet.  How do we go about changing that?

Avoid Buyer Confusion in the Messy Middle

None of us like to not understand, to be confused. It makes us feel not very bright, it makes us work hard, and it’s frustrating. 

We all avoid these feelings whenever possible. If your business, and the sustainability industry as a whole, sends a message that leads to these feelings the potential buyer is OUT OF HERE!

There are 6 steps you can take to avoid confusing your buyers and making them feel empowered to buy your product.

  • Present only one benefit at a time. Don’t make your buyer think too hard
  • Be the authority. Give away lots of information. Be the business everyone talks about
  • Get those testimonials. Social proof is gold. People listen to people
  • Sooner rather than later. Everyone wants things now. Quick delivery on promises creates valuable gratitude and repeat purchases
  • Limits = scarcity = desire. The less time a person has to spend in the messy middle the sooner they make up their mind to buy your product (or not)
  • There’s great power in “free.” BOGOF, ½ off, promos, these are hot buttons 

There are more factors that go into moving a searcher to a buyer. But the most important ones are just showing up where you think your buyers are and only presenting ONE benefit at a time. 

The Messy Middle – B2B and B2C

The strategies aren’t really any different. Companies don’t sell to companies. Human beings have relationships with other human beings. Each person solving a problem. B2B purchases tend to be more expensive so the period of time spent in the “messy middle” is longer. There is more time spent on information gathering. As part of a disruptive industry, sustainable brands have an obligation to make that exploration and evaluation period as clear as possible. 

This is the time to bring out that PowerPoint, infographic, or video that highlights the solution you have to the buyer’s problem. If you can check off all their boxes (answer all their questions) to the one biggest problem they have, having answers to auxiliary problems will be like icing on the cake. 

Whether you are in the B2B or the B2C space, or both, listening is your superpower. And if it’s not you need to ramp it up. Discovering the Main problem your product can solve for the buyer will get you the sale and will move sustainability forward. 

Be Part of the Circle of Exposure

Google buyer journey highlighting the actions of exploration and evaluation in the messy middle. Consumer buying is a complex zig zag.
The Google Buyer model. The Messy Middle is an infinity loop between exploration and evaluation.

When you solve a problem with a sustainable product or service, your solution becomes part of the context, or the circle of exposure. That should make your next buyer’s messy middle time shorter. Your next buyer may come from a referral from a brother-in-law or from an overheard conversation about your solution. 

The circle of exposure is dynamic. Your buyer is constantly being bombarded with new information. Part of that comes from competitors, part from you, and a lot from all the other sources of information out there.

There’s a lot you can’t control on your buyer’s path from trigger to purchase. But there are aspects of the journey you can control…

…remember, there are both rational and emotional elements to every transaction. Be sure you address the emotional state of mind of the buyer as well as the rational reasoning behind choosing your solution. Because you’re interacting with a human being, the emotional side makes the first decision, then backs it up with rationalization.

Don’t set up barriers to a good user experience, either in-store, on your website, or at a trade show. What kind of barriers are common?

  • Poor site speed – you only have 2 seconds
  • Not enough information, such as missing product details
  • Poor website design – unclear navigation, pop-ups, limited payment or contact options
  • Poor customer service
  • Trade shows are stressful – try not to show it. 

It’s time for all sustainability professionals to move out of the “climate” conferences into what I’ll refer to as “benefit” trade shows.

Conferences are where producers have the opportunity to introduce new consumers to the benefits of industrial hemp. This touchpoint makes the messy middle less confusing to the consumer.
Conferences are where you introduce your product to a new audience

You’re about nutrition? Go to food trade shows. 

You’re about building? Go to home expos.

You’re about sustainable products and processes for industry? Pick the industry you want to disrupt. 

There is still space for print media. If you use trade shows as one of your marketing outlets, be sure you have informative brochures or flyers. It’s tempting to have only a looping video or slide presentation. But will that buyer remember you when they’ve gotten other information and are only 2 booths away? 

You have to remember not all customers are computer savvy. We are in a period of transition and Boomers still are a huge market segment.

Your website MUST be mobile-friendly. Over 60% of website traffic takes place on mobile and that’s a lot of exposure to miss. The better you get at anticipating buyers’ needs for information and guidance the more successful you’ll be. 

Showing up at the right time may be all it takes to shift a buyer’s preference from the status quo to sustainable products and processes as solutions. 

And that’s good for the entire planet and all the beings who call Earth home. 

If you found this helpful, I’m glad. Find out more about my marketing services at this link.

To put your business clearly in focus for your buyers, please contact me at [email protected]