We all know them, maybe you are one of them, and we all wish we could buy like them. The shrewd buyer is someone we respect or envy (and sometimes hate) because they always end up with the best deals. Shrewd buyers can also cause serious problems for your brands identity and reputation, and possibly even your stock price! They pick things up, minute details and inconsistencies that can immediately make them doubtful of your brands ability to successfully deliver value to the customer. Them or you.You can be damn sure that these people are all over the internet too with a great social media and blogging power, which makes the potential to do harm to brands that don't tow the line significant and worth taking note of. And lets not underplay 'corporate fear' of social media as a major reputation risk. Have a look at this article by Deloitte called Managing social media risks and reputation risk - A hot board topic! in which reputation risk from social media activity is at the top of the board agenda.I have included a definition of the word shrewd for some context in describing this buyer type:Shrewd - definition (Collins english dictionary)1.astute and penetrating, often with regard to business2. artful and crafty: a shrewd politician.3. spitefulBased on these descriptors it is clear you don't really want to get on the wrong side of these types of buyers. Shrewd buyers expect the best and they are not afraid to use their own intelligence and ability to use your brands inconsistencies or failings to their own advantage. And why shouldn't they? Corporations of all kinds have been relying on buyer ignorance or indifference for decades to fleece the general public of their hard-earned money. Or they have relied on the lack of consumer centric feedback channels previously available which has meant the consumer never really had the upper hand. Until now that is. This consumer upper hand is certainly not the case everywhere in the world but social media is fundamentally changing the nature of relationships between brand and consumers. We all need to start learning a thing or two from these shrewd buyers, both as buyers ourselves but also as the brands supplying the products and services to us. So what exactly matters to the shrewd buyer when they are in purchasing mode? I found this interesting article by Marketingland called How to sell to the competitive buyer? which also talks to the shrewd buyer persona. I have included some brief highlights below from the article.Given these points of differentiation in sales approach it suggests a lot about the kind of content you need to be producing for these buyers. You can be sure they aren't going to be impressed with anything average or clunky and you are going to have to work hard to create relevant and highly compelling content, and a seamless user experience, that hits the high and low notes of the consumer journey to purchase consistently well. As a simple set of basic guidelines for creating better content for shrewd or competitive buyers as they can be called, I suggest using the following highlight statements from the MarketingLand article I mentioned earlier:Competitive Buyers: The Smallest Buying GroupTakeaway: Even though there are fewer competitive buyers, make sure you include competitive buying motivations as part of your conversion optimization efforts. The work that you do to encourage competitive buyers will also serve to inspire spontaneous and humanistic buyers.Competitive Buyers Buy Products To Increase Power, Productivity, Leverage, AbilitySince competitive buyers want to be better people, then you should position your products in such a way that they promise self-improvement.For example, if you sell a SaaS (software as a service), you may be able to market it in such a way that it promises to increase the customer's time, effectiveness, earning power, and so on.Competitive Buyers Know When Something Is A GimmickYou'll pick up on techniques and tactics in this article, but be warned. Competitive buyers know when you're being facile. They can identify sales gimmicks a mile away.They understand the difference between fabricated data and real evidence. They know when numbers and statistics can be misrepresented and skewed. They know when they're looking at something legit, and something false.These people are smart. As a whole, they have more buying instincts and higher intuition levels than any other buyer modality. Competitive buyers are smart shoppers.Competitive Buyers Are All About ResultsWhen they make a purchase decision, competitive buyers are looking for the bottom line. They want results.If you are trying to make a fuzzy, emotional, feel-good connection with competitive buyers, good luck with that. You're going to go further with promising and delivering results.Change has appeal to the results-focused competitor. Change is progress. Change is good.Competitive Buyers Are Driven PeopleThe competitive buyer is no slouch. These are people who wake up at 4:30 a.m., run a half marathon, teach a CrossFit class, and work in their high-flying executive job until 11 p.m., sleep 20 minutes, and are ready for a new day. They are driven.Takeaway: Competitive buyers are going to make a purchase, and they are going to make it now. They are not likely to return to a site later to complete a purchase if they find elements that are satisfactory the first time.Competitive Buyers Operate In A Time-Conscious WayThe competitive buyer is driven by speed. The site must be fast. The checkout process must be streamlined. The conversion funnel must be short. These are people who want a quick checkout time and none of the time-wasting barriers that characterize a methodical purchase.Competitive buyers have no time or patience for broken sites, complicated checkout processes. Speed and decisiveness are in their personality and behaviour.Takeaway: Use short sales cycles, quick conversion processes, and you better make your website faster!Competitive Buyers Respond Well To Urgency And ScarcityCompetitive buyers have their own innate sense of urgency. They're born with it. Thus, urgency elements on your website will resonate with their desire to act quickly.Competitive buyers respond well to urgency, because they have an internal urgent drive. Urgency and scarcity are part of their nature and decision-making style. They intuitively understand why urgency is important in a purchase. But urgency alone does not a competitive buyer convert. You must combine the urgency with data.Takeaway: Encourage competitive buyers to convert by using copious amounts of urgency and scarcity.Competitive Buyers Respond To Strong Data-Driven LanguageCompetitive buyers want to be persuaded by legitimate means. Legitimate means data. Legitimate means backing up claims. Legitimate means statistics, numbers, pie charts, and bar graphs. Stuff like that.Don't ignore the visual representation of data. A recent Cornell study found that information in ads is more persuasive when represented visually, even when the charts used are quite basic.Takeaway: Don't rely on your emotional language to persuade. Rely on facts. Rely on data.They Respond To SuperlativesCompetitive buyers, as I've suggested, are high achievers. They want to be at the front of the line.Thus, any website signals that speak to this top-shelf mentality are likely to be well-received. In other words, using superlatives is smart.What are some examples of superlatives?"The best""Number one""Top rated""High rankedA competitive buyer is likely to take all of this information in a single sweep of his all-seeing eyeballs, understanding immediately that the product will make him a superhuman pile of awesomeness.Takeaway: Make superlative claims, and back them up with solid data.Competitive Buyers Like To Be FlatteredYou can flatter a competitive buyer, but you have to be careful. Remember, these people can smell a pile of crap like you wouldn't believe. Straight-up sweet talk is going to get blown off. Instead, you have to subtly appeal to their primal and ingrained drive to be at the top.ConclusionSell to competitive buyers with hard-line results, results-oriented deliverables, urgent signals, powerful evidence, and a set of data that will blow their minds.Even though they're savvy and discriminatory, there are ways to win with competitive buyers. Now, you know exactly how to do it.In my opinion these pointers from Marketing Land provide some brilliant guidelines to consider when you start figuring out how to make you content compelling enough for shrewd competitive buyers to feel comfortable transacting on your site and with your brand.All content creation must begin and end with a clear buyer persona in mind or you will fail to achieve the conversion rates you hope for. This article shows just how specific, particular and tricky certain buyer types can be in their needs and methods of transacting, and therefore how specific and particular your marketing agency or internal team is going to have to be in creating a content marketing strategy that conveys your brands narrative within designated and targeted buyer persona segments. Get these right and you will start to speak with a golden tongue. Get these wrong and you will be speaking to nobody in particular which will definitely drive any shrewd or competitive buyers strait from your site and to their blogs where they may well tell the world about how useless your brand is.So be warned and be clever! Always have a clear buyer persona in mind when you are making content. It will be the difference you seek to succeed. Disclaimer: This article was published by an independent party/ organisation, as part of our Entrepreneur Community Incentive (ECI) program. 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