Analyzing the Five Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
The Buyer’s journey can be seen as the stages that prospects or customers have to pass through when they are planning to purchase your products or services.
Also, it is possible that the process looks different from one industry to another. How it will look like largely depends on the industry and the type of customers you are dealing with at any particular time.
Whenever you are targeting a particular prospect or customer, you have to know the stage that such a prospect is in your buyer’s journey. Does he already know about the products or services? Has he ever tried it before? Has he tried the competitor’s products or services? You have to know what they feel about your products and services? You have to know what you stand to gain when it comes to those particular products or services.
One of the critical skills that you need as a Digital Marketer is the ability to identify your customers and what you need to do to convert them. Also, the place that your prospects or customers are will determine the type of media that you can use to communicate with them.
The media that resonate with a buyer in the conversion stage might not appeal to a buyer in the awareness stage of the journey. You to know the precise questions to ask each of the customers based on the stage that they are on the journey. The idea of asking these questions is to discover some insights about them and use that information to convert them to customers.
Also, it is very important to customize your own buyer’s journey based on the result of the research that you have carried out about your buyers. This will allow you to customize the offer and allow you to attract the right type of audience to your buying cycle.
The journey can be divided into five stages which include: Awareness, interest, consideration, conversion, and retention. Apart from these general cycles, there are other journeys that are customized for different industries. You need to know that most industries focused on the first three stages of the journey.
You also note that each of the stages of the journey comes with his own challenges and goals that drive the digital marketing strategy for any organization.
Here are the stages:
#1 Awareness
This is the stage when the customer realizes that he has challenges that needed to be addressed. Let’s say, for example, a particular customer is experiencing roofing leakage. He cannot continue like that. He has to find ways of addressing such issues.
To attract prospects at the awareness stage, you have to communicate some of the benefits that the prospect can enjoy if he decides to use your products or services.
#2 Interest stage
At this stage, the prospect who has realized that he has a problem that needed to be addressed actually penetrates the market in order to discover an organisation that can solve his problem. He might have more than one option at this stage as he takes time to study each of the organizations and what they have to offer. In order to attract customers at this stage, you need to create emotional attachment towards your products and services.
#3 Consideration
At the consideration stage, the prospective customer has already narrowed the options and he is able to make choices from some of the few options that he has. At this stage, you need to position yourself as the best choice to make. Also, you need to create a sense of urgency. Let the customer feels that he is missing something if he fails to make the right choice at that moment. Therefore, you have to bring your organization to the forefront of the discussion based on the mouth-watering offer that you are presenting before the prospective customer.
#4 Conversion
The conversion stage os is when you actually sell the products and services to the new customer. This is the stage that you actually turn the intent to action. Your aim is to ensure that the product is present to the customer the way he actually wants it.
#5 Retention
At the retention stage, your plan is to make sure that the customer comes back for repeat purchases. You have to make him feel important so that he can always come back. When you are able to wow the customer, he will always proceed and introduce new prospects and customers to the organization.
Wrap up
Positioning your consumers on any of these stages will also require an understanding of there needs and motivations, which is achievable through in-depth psychological and behavioural research.
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