We provide the methods and tools to deeply understand a specific market’s end-to-end Buying Journey. We decode what we call the Buying Journey DNA, including the steps, key activities, players, decision-making approaches, value drivers, and all the factors that can cause friction to slow or stop this process.
Triggers
The event or activity that would give rise to a Buying Journey, as opposed to simply gaining someone’s interest in a particular offering.
Steps, Activities, and Touch Points
The discrete steps that comprise an overall Buying Journey. Each step includes activities; when those activities require information or consultation from a prospective supplier, they become touch points.
Key Players
Buying decisions are made by a dynamic network of decision influencers. The Key Players are all the roles and positions likely to participate in and influence the overall Buying Journey.
Buying Style
Buyers approach a decision with pre-conceived notions of what they want, whom they may buy from, and how they will decide. Our proprietary 4Q model maps these dynamics so sales and marketing can align with the buying style.
Value Drivers
The tangible or intangible benefits, experiences, and rewards that people engaged in the Buying Journey believe they or their organization will gain from the potential acquisition.
Buying Concerns
The concerns, anxieties, questions, and fears that can slow or stop the journey. They may be practical or emotional, voiced or unspoken, and they create friction in the overall Buying Journey.
The Customer Buying Journey is the sequence of activities that anyone takes when acquiring and utilizing something they purchase. Sometimes this journey takes minutes, sometimes years, sometimes it even slows, stops, and loops back on itself. It could be a few keystrokes or it could be a trip across country. It may involve multiple players, decisions, and much work, or it may be very simple. When we refer to the Customer Buying Journey, we consider not only all the surrounding influences, but the complete end-to-end journey—including the adoption and use of the purchase beyond simply acquisition. Over the past two decades, we have spoken to thousands of buyers purchasing a wide spectrum of offerings. We have used every opportunity to learn more about how people buy.
Gone are the days when marketing simply blasts out its messages to the world. Gone are the days when salespeople can just turn up with highly polished presentations and ROI logic. It is time to embrace the very real and practical management of the Customer Buying Journey. In today’s world, the singular role for sales and marketing must be to help the customer navigate—and to positively impact—their end-to-end buying journey. The imperative for any company wishing to create and keep customers is to decode its target market’s Buying Journey DNA and, from that, formulate an overall Market Engagement Strategy that aligns resources and investments to impacting and managing that buying journey to its mutually beneficial and profitable destination.
Ready to make a change? Send us your message and a representative will quickly be in touch.
LET’S TALK
