Intro to Buyer Psychology for Software Starters

For sharpening your understanding of the buyer’s motivation, your marketing copy and your feature set.

Join the next landing page review meetup

I’m Pascal Laliberté Pascal Laliberté, and I help software starters like you get into the minds of your buyers.

  • … when the product’s landing page isn’t quite right;
  • … when things are sort of working, but there’s something odd in the buyer’s behavior;
  • … when there’s a doubt about a product idea working;

Maybe it’s that Your product's landing page needs some work but you’re not sure what to change first…

“I’ve followed some of the norms, but it doesn’t seem to be converting.”

Maybe you used a template, or maybe you’ve built it all from scratch.

You did your best to explain what the software does, why it would be beneficial. Target market, target problem. You’ve removed everything that wasn’t helping, keep things simple and clean. But what’s missing?

“Does it need a tweak or an overhaul?” You’re not sure how to answer that question.

Maybe attending a landing page review meetup could be helpful.

Maybe it’s that Buyers aren't responding, despite the new features you’re building…

You got there by doing the right thing. You listened to your customers and built what they asked for. But despite building the stuff people asked, buyers aren’t buying like they used to.

Your mountain of features is creating anxiety for new buyers. They look, they pause, they leave. Too much going on here. “I don’t want to learn all this.” They didn’t even get to your product, because something in how you present the product’s features drew them away.

Maybe it’s that So far, you got lucky, but for your next idea, luck isn’t around…

You’re starting something new, and you don’t know if it’ll take off like other ideas have. Validation. Confirmation. Discernment.

“Can I predict that this idea will work before I start?”

You’d like to move fast, but not waste your efforts on running experiments. Running ads to validate your thing isn’t what you’re going for.

You’ve done a bit of research: you picked an industry, some ideal buyers, found some problems. Maybe it’s a problem you’ve been feeling yourself.

But is it worth a shot? You’re not looking for a pompous “yes” or “no” declaration, you’re looking to get deeper into the mind of the person feeling the struggle. See the kind of progress they’re trying to make, and see if your product is going to help them out. Make a difference. Be worth the price.

Well, I’m glad you’re about helping your buyers more than about extracting sales. Trust over flash. Serving good people over disrupting an industry.

I’m starting a meetup where I’m going to talk about all of these things in the context of reviewing people’s landing pages.

Care to join the next landing page review meetup?

Let me know when the next meetup occurs

Maybe it’s that Your industry is changing real fast and you need your ear to the ground

Previously, you were concentrating on a generic profile of buyers. But all of a sudden, those kinds of buyers are down (ie. market downturn, competition), but surprisingly, other kinds of buyers are up. What’s that about? Sharper use cases, new stories. They’re buying your thing despite your generic marketing. Time to dig deeper.

“Our buyers are using the product for purposes that surprise us. We’re getting cancellations, unused features. We thought we knew what problem our product was hired to solve, but we no longer do. We need to stop building and building and we need to start digging and digging.”

You’ve started talking to your buyers. But you don’t think you’re getting the whole story. You want to understand what’s going on. And you no longer know which questions to ask.

Let’s Say We’re in the Future

Imagine a situation like this, where you’ve worked on sharpening your product and your skills as a product person.

You’re in the future, you’re celebrating that:

  • That marketing page has clearly been communicating “we understand what you’re going through” and people are signing up, upgrading with confidence…
  • You’ve discovered what causes someone to buy your product, which of the features is really supporting the “job” your product is being “hired” to do…
  • You’ve upgraded your strategic direction with a new vocabulary to describe how your customers need help getting progress on their struggles…
  • You’ve grown to have a deeper understanding of your buyers because you heard some insightful purchase stories from some of your buyers…
  • You can now say you understand your buyer’s motivations, you know what’s going on, you have what you need to prioritize the next steps in your product’s development.

That’s what’s in the books for you, once you learn to get in the mind of your buyers. Let me help you with that.

Getting Something Off the Ground

So far, maybe you’ve done most of it on your own.
Maybe you read some books, followed a course.
Maybe you learned from copywriters, watching others.

But now you gotta get moving with some new tools.

I hope you’ll be able to join the next landing page review meetup. Meet some people, have your own page reviewed if you like. Learn from the process.

Or maybe, if you’re further along, here’s what else I offer. I got my services listed there, some diy resources too, including articles I publish every Friday. You can also find me on Twitter and on IndieHackers.

Stay sharp!

Pascal Laliberté Pascal Laliberté
pascal@hey.com
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada