The invisible shopper is looking at you right now. He’s aware of you because he’s in your store as we speak…but you can’t see him. He only has about 3 minutes to look around and if he likes what he sees, he’ll tap you on the shoulder and you’ll be able to meet him. He’s between 30-and-45 years old and he lives in the next town over from you. He likes videos but he doesn’t have a whole lot of time. He’s stopping in today while he’s supposed to be working, but his boss isn’t smart enough to know that he’s shopping on their dime. In fact, he’s using the company vehicle to get to you. He came in to the store because he’s looking for something in particular. He’s ready to buy within the next 3 days if you can make him feel good about spending his money. He doesn’t necessarily trust people just because they say they’re trustworthy, so he’ll be looking around elsewhere in just a few moments.
In fact, he’s going to go to a completely un-related business and listen to what other people may have said about you. He’s going to go to one or two of your competitors as well, but again…he’s invisible so they won’t know he’s there either. He has the ability to walk through walls, so later tonight after you close the store, he’s going to come back maybe and look around when nobody is distracting him. He’s got about a minute or two left but he’s considering remembering how he got to your store. He’s got a smartphone and he can simply take a picture and save it on his computer.
Wait a minute! There’s another invisible shopper! And another one…yikes, it’s getting busy! I hope you’re paying attention. Of course none of the other invisible shoppers can see each other, so there’s really no harm in saying hello to them. Heck, you can be social even with people you can’t see, can’t you?
Your store’s physical location is open Monday through Friday 9am to 5pm…and Saturday’s 10am to 7pm. That’s 49 hours out of 168 total during the week. 70% of the time during the week, people can’t physically come into your store, but the invisible people can walk through walls, remember…so they can come in any time they want.
Of course you’ve realized by now that none of this is true in reality…it’s all a virtual exercise. A virtual exercise in how useful your business website should be.
Every bit of it is true if you don’t have analytical monitoring on your business website.
Everything above happens for real with people on all kinds of screens…big ones, small ones, medium ones.
This can all happen if these invisible people are even able to find you in the first place.
One more thing. These invisible people have actual real money. They want to spend it wisely, but they can do it almost instantly when they’re ready.
Yes, get a website. Get proper analytics. Take care of your SEO. Have a good call-to-action. Design your site for the average person who doesn’t know you from anyone. Help them find what they’re looking for. Give them something nice to look at. Stop making it so difficult for them to contact you. Be social on social media. You might even want to make it easy for them to actually buy something and collect a few sales when you’re sleeping in on Sunday.
