Have you ever seen a product or walked through a store and thought to yourself, “who on earth would purchase that?” Truth is, no matter how useless you think a product may be, someone out there thinks it will solve a pressing problem of theirs.
This week we examine the role that the decision journey plays in buyer awareness and overall communications planning.
Understanding what motivates buyers to commit to a purchase and the thought process that gets them to that point is an essential strategy that can help shape buyer awareness and give you a competitive advantage.
This is especially true for marketers who analyze buying behaviour in an attempt to understand the consumer’s decision journey. If marketers and vendors don’t have the ability to understand their customers, they will find it difficult to position for them (Source: Economist Insights, 2014).
The Funnel Approach Just Isn’t Working Anymore
If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably heard of the funnel approach. The funnel is a classic approach used by sales professionals to 'funnel' buyers down to the final purchase stage. The funnel assumes that the buying process is an ever-narrowing array of decisions and choices until purchase (Source: Economist Insights, 2014). With the rise of the empowered buyer however, this approach is irrelevant.
Interested in learning more about how empowered buyers are changing the sales process? May I suggest reading my previous post, How an Empowered Buyer Affects the Sales Process, found here.
In today’s marketplace, no two buying decisions or buyers are the same. The funnel approach suggests that consumers systematically narrow down their decision as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products (Source: McKinsey, 2009). This is an unrealistic assumption of buyers however, because they are constantly expanding their choices and decisions after consideration of the information they have viewed through multiple channels (Source: Economist Insights, 2014).
In this conventional model, consumers started the purchase process with a few potential brands and then methodically ‘short-listed’ the brands under consideration through various selection criteria until they settled on one brand, product, or service (Source: Practice Next, 2014).
Buyers today have more information at their fingertips than ever before. In the past, marketers weretaught to push marketing toward consumers at each stage of the process to influence their behavior (Source: McKinsey, 2009). Today, technology and the internet have made it possible for buyers to actively seek out their own information without the help of marketers or sales reps.
As buyer expectations are changing, so is the sales process. While the funnel approach may have applied in the past, it cannot adapt to changing buyer expectations. If you plan on retaining customers today, you must continue to develop relationships with them even after you make a sale. The funnel approach has very little regard for the post-purchase experience (Source: Economist Insights, 2014).
Today, buyers come in all shapes and sizes. Interested in learning how to better market to your customers? May I suggest reading my previous post, “What is a Buyer Persona and how Does it Influence Digital Content”, found here.
(Source: FourQuadrant, 2013)
Defining the Customer Decision Journey
The way consumers shop has evolved over recent years. This new decision process for customers is much more complex than a linear funnel, with multiple inlets of information (Source: Practice Next, 2014). Many buyers begin their decision journey long before they come into contact with you.
Today, consumers have multiple outlets to interact with the brand and share their views, opinions, and feedback (Source: Practice Next, 2014). This means that customers are actively engaged with the brand, their friends, and peers, after they’ve bought the product or service using social media and the web (Source: Economist Insights, 2014). The way consumers engage with these brands (even when they are not making purchase decisions) affects their relationship with the brand and will influence future purchase decisions.
As the traditional funnel models fail to encompass all the touch points and key decision factors, the decision journey concept has been established out of necessity (Source: Practice Next, 2014). So what makes the decision journey so important? Customers move through a set of touch points before, during, and after a purchase. (Source: Harvard Business Review, 2014). Since no two buyers have the same decision journey, coming into contact with the exact same touch points and making the exact same decision is nearly impossible. The decision journey helps marketers to guide and understand the new buying process.
The switch to the new buyer decision journey has been further catalyzed by perpetual connectivity (Source: Practice Next, 2014). The empowered buyer can to seek out his/her own information to make informed buying decisions. Being constantly connected means that people can experience a brand in different ways, not only by purchasing and using a product. This can happen through live events, content marketing, social media etc. (Source: Harvard Business Review, 2014).
The most important difference between the traditional funnel and the decision journey is the emphasis that is placed on building and maintaining relationships with customers. When it comes to the decision journey, the ideal result is a purchase of your products or services, and a great post-purchase experience (Source: Signal, 2015).
(Source: Forbes, 2015)
Changing Roles for Marketers
As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the role of the marketer is changing. Marketers must not only learn to adapt the techniques they use when it comes to the decision journey, but also the way in which they market to consumers. Until recently, buyers formed impressions of brands from touch points such as advertisements, news reports, friends & family, and product experiences (Source: McKinsey, 2015). Today, in an Omni-channel environment, these touch points are endless.
Customers use a variety of tools to assist in their their buying decision, which include devices such as televisions, computers, tablets, and smartphones (Source: The Search Agency, 2015). As a result, marketers must understand how these tools influence the marketing mix. Marketers must be cognizant of the variety of influential factors and utilize an appropriate mix of marketing tactics (Source: The Search Agency, 2015). Some of these tactics include paid search, SEO, display media, email marketing, and social media (Source: The Search Agency, 2015). Buyers use these tools at all different stages in their decision journey, for all different reasons.
On average, buyers guide themselves through 60% to 90% of the traditional sales funnel before even contacting your sales reps (Source: Marketo, 2015). Buyers are a lot more independent than most marketers give them credit for. Content marketing is one way in which marketers can help the empowered buyer through his/her decision journey. Incidentally, 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles, instead of from advertisements (Source: Marketing Institute, 2015).
Interested in learning more about Omni-channel engagement? May I suggest my previous post, Understanding a Seamless Omni-Channel Sales Process, found here.
As I mentioned earlier, the decision journey doesn’t end with the sale. Marketers must understand the importance of continuing to build important relationships after a sale. This is especially important as the post-sale phase becomes a trial period for the brand in determining buyer loyalty and likelihood of re-purchase (Source: Practice Next, 2014).
The Changing Role of Sales
Top performers in today’s B2B marketplace just don’t sell effectively, they sell differently (Source: Sales and Marketing, 2015). According to McKinsey, there is a 5-10% average sales boost for B2B companies that make decisions based on the customer decision journey (Source: McKinsey, 2013). The better you can relate to your buyer, the better you can sell to them, and in turn, the more sales that you will see.
One of the biggest misconceptions that sales people make when it comes to the empowered buyer is thinking that if the buyer is better educated then the sale will be easy (Source: Sales & Marketing, 2015). While it may be true that buyers are becoming more self-informed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the sale will be easy. A good sales rep takes the time to build relationships with customers. Having engaging conversations, building relationships, and following up with customers is what is going to get you the sales results you want to see.
According to McKinsey, sellers who meet customers at various points in their journey will exploit digital tools more effectively, allocate sales and marketing resources more successfully, and stimulate collaboration between these two functions. The result? Winning over reluctant buyers (Source: McKinsey, 2015) Teaching sales reps the importance of the buyer’s decision journey means that they can sell more effectively and can in fact: 1) increase customer leads by 10%; 2) lead to a 10% growth in first time customers; and 3) deacrease the time it takes between gaining a qualified lead and closing a deal by as much as 20% (Source: McKinsey, 2015).
The new role of the decision journey means that there is an added emphasis on the need for sales and marketing alignment. Developing a clear understanding of your customer’s decision journey means that marketing and sales can communicate more clearly and focus more effectively on activities that win customers (Source: Do Technology Corporation, 2015). Sales reps work closely with your clients and have pertinent information that can assit marketing in understanding where the buyer stands in the decision journey. With both teams working in alignment, marketingcan develop stronger materials that are dedicated to every stage of the buyer's journey.
Still not convinced that sales and marketing alignment is necessary? May I suggest reading our previous post, “Why use Sales and Marketing Alignment and 5 Best Practices”, found here.
How Sales Enablement can Impact the Customer’s Decision Journey
If you haven’t already considered doing so, investing in a sales enablement solution can help your marketing and sales teams not only understand your customer’s decision journey better, but also enhance the relationships that you have with your customers. One important way that sales enablement assists you is through content customization.
Using sales enablement software as a tool to create customizable content can greatly benefit the decision journey in two ways. Firstly, through mobile sales applications, marketing teams can use sales analytic software to access data collected by sales reps in the field. Data collected gives sales and marketing teams valuable insight about where the buyer stands in their decision journey given that they have access to information on what material was presented, how much time was spent on the material, and who was in the meeting. From there, marketing teams can use the data collected from sales presentations to create content that is more tailored and streamlined to customers.
Secondly, enhacing the buyer's decision journey through content customization is made easier through the enablement of tailored presentations. Using sales enablement, sales reps can build presentations from existing marketing materials by utilizing information that is more relevant to their customer. This helps buyers move along in their decision journey as they are able to see the information that they actually want. In turn, this helps to build stronger relationships between your sales reps and customers because they are more engaged.
Not sure what content to publish as your buyer moves along in their decision journey? May I suggest reading our previous post, “Which digital content types to use for each purchase decision stage”, found here.
Sales enablement can also impact the decision journey through the creation of playbooks. If your marketing team already uses buyer personas, you will find playbooks especially beneficial. Playbooks are folders that house relevant content specific to your buyer personas. This makes it easier for both marketing and sales teams to sort through relevant content.
Interested in learning more about buyer personas? May I suggest you read my previous post, What is a Buyer Persona and How does it Influence Digital Content, found here.
Understanding buyer behavior has always been complex but coming to terms with the fact that buyers don’t think like they used to is an important part of figuring out their thought process.
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