How long people spend considering before they contact anyone

6 days ago
3 min read

Introduction

The consideration period is the only stage of the funnel that leaves no trace. Nobody registers, nothing is logged, and the business has no idea whether a buyer decided in an afternoon or spent seven months thinking about it. As a result most firms assume it is short, and design everything on that assumption.

The evidence, when businesses actually collect it, generally says otherwise. Buyers first encounter a supplier months before contacting them, revisit the decision several times, and act on a trigger unrelated to anything the supplier did. Knowing the real length changes how you budget, how long you sustain activity, and how you interpret an enquiry when it finally arrives.

1. How long people spend considering is measurable by asking

The only available method.

"When did you first come across us?" asked at first contact and recorded. Twenty answers give you a distribution, and the distribution is usually wider and longer than the business expected. It is a different question from how they found you, and both are worth asking together.

2. Expect a wide spread rather than a typical case

The shape of the answer.

Some decide in days, most in weeks or months, and a meaningful tail in years. Planning around a single average misrepresents both ends and leads to abandoning activity too early. Report the median and the range rather than the mean, which one very long case will distort.

3. Price and reversibility lengthen it

The main drivers.

A large sum, a decision that cannot be undone, and anything involving other people all extend the period. Urgency shortens it dramatically, which is why emergency work behaves so differently. If you sell both urgent and planned work, they need separate figures.

4. Consideration is not continuous

The important detail.

It happens in bursts separated by long periods where the buyer thinks about nothing else. This is why persistent low-level presence beats intensive short campaigns. A campaign that runs entirely during one of those quiet gaps reaches nobody who is paying attention.

5. The trigger is usually external

What ends the period.

A failure, a deadline, a life event, a budget approval. The supplier rarely causes it. Your objective is to be the business considered when it happens, not to cause it.

6. Long consideration favours whoever is remembered

The competitive consequence.

Over months, the advantage goes to the business that stayed visible rather than the one that made the best single impression. Consistency beats intensity as the period lengthens.

7. Give people a way to stay in touch during it

The practical mechanism.

Somebody three months from deciding will not enquire, and may accept a low-commitment way to hear from you. That contact is what carries them from consideration to enquiry.

8. Interpret a first enquiry accordingly

The handling consequence.

Somebody contacting you after four months of consideration is close to a decision, not at the beginning of one. Treating them as a cold lead misjudges the conversation considerably.

9. Match your marketing horizon to the period

The budgeting conclusion.

If the median consideration is five months, activity judged after two months will be judged before it could have worked. The horizon has to exceed the consideration period or the measurement is meaningless.

Be careful about assuming a long period justifies indefinite patience. Measure it, set your horizon from the measurement, and hold to it — otherwise the length of consideration becomes an excuse that no evidence can ever contradict.

Conclusion

Measure the real length by asking, because the stage is otherwise invisible.

Expect a wide distribution rather than a typical case, recognise that price and irreversibility lengthen it while urgency compresses it, remember that consideration happens in bursts rather than continuously, accept that the trigger is usually external to you, favour consistent presence over intense campaigns, offer a low-commitment way to stay in contact during the period, treat a first enquiry as a late-stage conversation, and set your marketing horizon longer than the measured period.