Every buyer – knowingly or not – goes through a process before purchasing a product or service. Therefore, it is up to every business to understand the Buyer’s Journey in order to boost their marketing and, ultimately, increase conversion rates. Take a moment and see how conversion rates fit into your overall marketing strategy. Now, read on and learn about how the Buyer’s Journey can help you grow your business.
The ‘Ol (One) Two (And Three) Step
Before applying it to your business, you need to learn the three steps that make up the Buyer’s Journey. Luckily, they are a snap.
- Awareness: First, the buyer realizes they have a problem, even if they aren’t sure exactly how to define it. The buyer then begins to educate themselves in order to figure out what this problem is.
- Consideration: At the point, the buyer has zeroed in on their problem, and begins researching the best ways to fix it.
- Decision: Now, the buyer has found a solution and is looking to implement it in order to solve the problem.
Turning Potential Into Sales
Once you understand the Buyer’s Journey, you can apply it and benefit from it. For example, let’s say you run an accounting software firm – we’ll call it “AccountFix” – specializing in helping small businesses organize their finances quickly and easily. Here’s a scenario of how you could capitalize on your knowledge of the buyer’s journey.
- Awareness: A small business owner realizes they have a problem as their business struggles, especially in tracking bills due and sales made. In order to draw in potential buyers at this stage, I want to help the buyer identify the “symptoms” of their problem. I can do this by posting helpful blog posts, videos and social media posts in an effort to educate customers about how “AccountFix” can help them.
- Consideration: At this point, the buyer has determined what the problem is – their accounts system is a mess – and they are looking for solutions, even if they aren’t ready to buy yet. As a business owner who can help, I want to make it clear to this buyer (and any others at this stage) all the solutions I can provide. I can deploy customer testimonials, animation explainers, YouTube demonstrations etc of how “AccountFix” provides a slew of options in dealing with this particular problem.
- Decision: At this point, our buyer is ready to make a decision on how to fix their accounting problem. Naturally, I’m going to pull out all the stops to ensure they use my software, whether that means giving the buyer a free demo of my product, providing statistics demonstrating my product’s unparalleled performance, and whatever else I might need to sway the buyer to purchase from me.
A big part of utilizing the buyer’s journey to your business’ advantage is to think about it from their perspective. Think about what a buyer needs, and how your business can specifically address their problem. Empathy can go a long way in turning potential buyers into longtime customers.
