Gravity Well: Are you giving your customers the opportunity to take baby steps?


Do you have a gravity well mapped out for your business?

"What's a gravity well?"

I'm glad you asked. This is the time of year when everybody is writing about New Year's resolutions and taking all of those tiny steps towards making progress on your projects and building your business. Marketing to Women Expert, Michele Miller, does a good job of telling you how to use those baby steps for yourself. Roy H. Williams even talked about it in the rabbit hole of this week's Monday Morning Memo.

Yes, you can accomplish BIG things with small steps.

"What about the gravity well?"

I'm getting to it. Think of a big hole in the ground with a gradually sloping spiral staircase going down into it as it narrows to a point at the bottom. Your customer stands at the outer edge peering in.

Do you offer her an easy way to enter your gravity well, or do you expect her to dive straight to the bottom where she will enjoy a lifetime relationship with your business?

If she takes a couple of steps down the well, and she doesn't like it…well, she can still get out.

But, if you have no baby-steps, most of your potential customers will be quite hesitant to make the big leap.

What are some of the baby steps you can offer?

  • Samples
  • Risk-reversal, money back guarantees
  • Short engagements with no strings
  • Overnight test drives

It beats the heck out of a big "Buyer Beware" sign.

"What's your point?"

Here's the point…if tiny steps of accomplishment will bring about YOUR goal, offering tiny steps of engagement to your potential customers will help them bring about THEIR goal…which is to have their pressing problems solved…by YOU!

Describe your gravity well in the comments.

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3 thoughts on “Gravity Well: Are you giving your customers the opportunity to take baby steps?

  1. kunal borikar

    As you have said above, the potential customers will take tiny steps before they jump into the depth of product, but how far it is the same case with FMCG products which are marketed by WORD OF MOUTH marketing. As far in INDIA the word of mouth marketing plays a vital role in neighbourhood still than other marketing jargents.
    please eloborate the above query…
    thanking you,

    MBA-IInd Yr.
    Pondicherry University.

  2. Dave Young

    Kunal, Fast Moving Consumer Goods will typically rely on the gravity well of the retailer, not the manufacturer. So, sampling is important, especially with food items. For electronics, allowing people to play with devices in the store (like Apple does). Makeup and perfume have tester bottles available.

  3. Anand G

    Sir, i believe the gravity well concept applies to most product categories. Sachets for shampoos,detergents etc., test drives for automobiles, free trial periods for softwares, flavor testing at some ice cream outlets like Baskin Robbins, Offering a chapter of a book for reading before online purchase, even Emi’s for jeans as Levi’s have done.Basically it means you have to dole out nothing or only a little amount before getting to know the product.

    ‘Trial’ is an important step in any product adoption process. And here trial is the ‘baby-step’.Offering a trial will definitely increase the chances and reach of your product.



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