Currently, retail customers do not follow a simple path from advertisement to purchase. Instead, they juggle between online and offline touchpoints. One may find a product on Pinterest and then purchase it after receiving a reminder email. In a B2B setting, a potential customer may download a white paper, then schedule a sales call weeks later, arriving well-informed and halfway sold before you even speak. However, mapping out such complex paths helps the marketers to see where customers stumble or hesitate and why. This allows you to overcome the barriers for the customers and convey the right message at the right time. Here is a detailed buyer journey guide that can help you navigate through.
Let’s start with understanding the buyer journey.
What is Buyer Journey?
Before starting the buyer journey guide, let’s understand what does buyer journey mean. The buyer journey is a roadmap that customers follow, starting from identifying a need to making a purchase. It is often categorized into stages: awareness, consideration, and conversion. However, in reality, it varies largely by brand and customer.
For example, a plant-of-the-month subscription service and a shoe brand both lead potential customers toward a purchase. However, the roads and timelines may differ. The former buyers may gradually become aware of the service through gardening blogs on Instagram and plant influencers. On the other hand, the shoe buyer may be influenced by a limited-edition collab with a celebrity they see on a TV commercial.
Essentially, the two journeys are now the same. Therefore, understanding the unique ways customers reach the buying phase can help explain what inspires their decisions and how to support them throughout the process.
Buyer Journey Guide- 3 Stages
A key fact about modern customers is that they do not always move smoothly from one stage to the next. They often juggle between stages, which is often referred to as the ‘messy middle’ of decision-making. However, it is beneficial to divide the buyer journey into three classic stages:
Awareness
At this stage, customers identify a problem or need and begin searching for potential solutions that can address the need. For example, they could be frustrated with their coffee machine and then try a great cup of coffee at a friend’s place, or they struggle to find the best video on YouTube on how to brew the best coffee. In the meantime, they can suddenly realise the need for a better home coffee experience. Then they may start searching for ‘how to improve home coffee,’ but they are not actively searching for a particular product.
Consideration
In this consideration stage of the buyer journey, buyers define their needs and actively seek potential solutions. The customer struggling to find a way to improve their home coffee may end up deciding on a pour-over method to make better coffee at home.
Here, the buyer will start researching the product. They will actively compare the available options, such as French presses, pour-over machines, and espresso machines.
They may go through product reviews, watch tutorial videos, refer to a buying guide, or seek recommendations on different apps. Essentially, they are addressing the question, ‘What is the best solution for the coffee lover?’ and providing a range of options.
Conversion
In this conversion stage, the buyer has completed their research, narrowed down their options, and chosen a solution. For example, the buyer has almost settled on a particular pour-over machine that fits their needs and budget.
However, ‘conversion’ does not mean an immediate purchase. This often involves final comparisons, taking into account timing factors, and avoiding last-minute doubts. They may include the items in their cart and consider them. They may explore more reviews or check for products that are readily available to avoid shipping delays. They may also compare where to purchase- your site, competitor’s site, or a marketplace. It is a continuous search for the best deal or the most reliable partner.
More significantly, they are confident in your product and are influenced to check out without any second thought.
Buyer Journey vs Customer Journey
The buyer journey encompasses the steps that result in a purchase —the pre-purchase stages of awareness, consideration, and conversion, which turn a potential buyer into a customer.
The customer journey encompasses all stages of the purchasing process, including post-purchase stages such as customer support, repeat purchases, and ongoing brand loyalty. Essentially, the buyer journey ends at purchase, but the customer journey continues through post-purchase services to retain a loyal customer base.
Both processes are important to understand; however, they require different strategies. For instance, mapping out the buyer journey starts from pre-purchase touchpoints, such as ads, websites, and content that drive leads, whereas the customer journey includes a smooth onboarding process or outstanding customer service interactions.
Mapping Out Buyer Journey Guide
Mapping out the buyer journey helps identify where potential buyers experience demotivation or friction. Hence, you can take proactive steps to overcome these frictions. The outcome is a smooth purchasing process, better timing for implementing marketing efforts, and generating more sales.
Follow these steps to map it out:
Develop buyer personas and decide their goals
Begin by finding out the particular target audience you are targeting for the journey. Every persona follows a distinct way to purchase. Hence, mapping their journeys needs a particular approach.
Highlight the important stages of the buyer’s journey
In this step, break down the journey into key stages, customized for the business. If you are operating a B2C company, then you may consider awareness, consideration and conversion stages.
List out the touchpoints and platforms for every stage
Now, list down the touchpoints and platforms where the customers interact with the business. This could be social media posts, web pages, paid ads, emails, brick and mortar stores, or word-of-mouth.
Identify friction points and scopes
At this stage, look for areas where friction points emerge in the journey. In other words, identify where the customer struggles, hesitates, or drops off. Identifying these areas helps inform, reassure, or delight the customer.
Execute changes and iterate
Finally, you should develop a plan to execute the improvements. You may develop content, redesign an area of the website, or reboost the marketing messages to improve the efforts. Focus on the bigger drop-offs or the most common consumer complaints.
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