As the global trend of e-commerce continues to rise, more marketers are beginning to face the pertinent challenge of converting prospective consumers that are seemingly invisible. In order to understand the motives behind consumer action, most modern marketers follow a conceptualized marketing theory, known as the Buyer’s Journey.
Essentially, the Buyer’s Journey is somewhat of a voyage a prospective customer takes before they make a decision to purchase a product or service. The Buyer’s Journey is generally effective in understanding the mindset of the consumer while allowing marketers to methodically generate sales based on this approach. In this article, you will learn all about The Buyer’s Journey and how this approach can positively impact your business.
How Does the Buyer’s Journey Work?
To understand how the Buyer Journey works, you must first realize that there are different brands of “buyers” in particular sectors. For example, the Buyer’s Journey model may appear to be considerably different for B2C companies than for B2B companies. At any rate, here are the stages of the Buyer’s Journey as it relates to B2C companies.
Source: Conductor
- Develop Interest – In this stage, the prospective buyer realizes that they have a unique problem or desire.
- Information Gathering – During this stage, the buyer begins to gather more extensive information about their particular problem or desire.
- Seek Options – Next, the buyer begins to explore their options for addressing their problem or desire.
- Make a Purchase Decision – Finally, the buyer is ready to make a purchase and selects the appropriate vendor.
How Can I Use The Buyer’s Journey For My Business?
In theory, the Buyer’s Journey is a practical and effective solution to converting prospective customers into sales. However, in practice, this method will only yield positive results if you are using implementing it to your content strategy. In short, you’ll have to create content similar to the Buyer’s Journey’s framework to see any tangible growth.
To give you a better understanding of how this is done, let’s apply the Buyer’s Journey to a typical, real-world example.
Malcolm is a construction worker that is attempting to repaint the interior of his home. Let’s venture with him on his Buyer’s Journey to ultimately purchase Acme Premier Gloss Paint.
- Develop Interest – Make Malcolm aware that buying traditional paint is ineffective and won’t improve the appearance of his home.
- Information Gathering – Give Malcolm more information about the problem, such as the difference between traditional paint and your particular paint.
- Seek Options – Make Malcolm aware of potential solutions and alternatives, such as hiring a professional painter or purchasing high-quality paint.
- Make a Purchase Decision – Allow Malcolm to realize the value in choosing your premium paint over other brands and vendors.
This model should essentially give you a clear picture of how you can structure your content around the Buyer’s Journey. However, there is still a process you must go through to adequately create content that speaks directly to your audience.
You Must Create a Buyer Persona
Before you can create effective content that resembles the Buyer’s Journey, you must first identify who your audience is. To do so, you’ll have to create a Buyer Persona for your business.
A Buyer Persona is basically your ideal customer, based on market research and data from your existing customers. Once you understand who your typical customers are, you can design your Buyer Persona to aid you on your mission to produce rich content that relates to the Buyer Journey.
To learn more about how you can create the perfect buyer persona for your business, click here to read this guide.
Conclusion
The Buyer’s Journey is an empirical marketing principle that allows marketers to create content that aligns with consumer interests. To learn more about how you can implement this strategy for your business, click here to learn more about how you can receive a website and digital content that follows the Buyer’s Journey today!
