When a buyer enters the market, then he’s looking for the information that he couldn’t browse over the internet. In simple words, it’s the process and stages that a buyer goes through before making any decision. According to statistics, 70% of the buyers are through all the stages of buyers’ journey before making any purchasing.
As a sales or businessmen, it’s important to know the stages that a buyer goes through, whether they’re instinctive or real. Once you know the process, then you can make better marketing and sales strategies to increase the conversion rate.
Table of Contents
What is Buyer’s Journey?
A buyer’s journey is a process of all the stages a buyer goes through before making any purchase decision of product and service. Those stages comprise of getting information about the product, awareness, considering about it, and then finally making the purchase decision.
Stages of Buyer’s Journey with Examples
We’ll discuss the 3 stages of the buyer’s journey in details one by one with examples, here it follows;
A – Awareness
As the name implies, awareness means that the buyer is acquiring information about the product, service, or the problem he wants to solve. The reason the buyer is acquiring information that he has realized that something is missing in his life, or he has an urge or desire for something to satisfy.
Here are some of the following sources that the buyer would look for;
Online
The only thing available to him at that specific time is his smartphone, computer or laptop. Then he would go online to find the solution to his problem. It could be by searching it over any browser like google, bing, etc.
While searching online, the buyer would get clear information about the solution to the problem he’s looking for. Once he has the information, then it would reach the stage of fully aware. Here are some of the following sources that the buyer would look in order to find answers to his problems like; EBooks, guide, report, video, blog post, whitepapers, or infographics.
Recommendation
If the buyer is surrounded by friends, or he knows someone in the particular niche who could answer his questions, then he would ask them to learn more about the problem, and how it could be solved.
If the business or the company is finding the answers to what the potential customers have in their mind. Then they would really appreciate the effort what the business is doing to make it easier for them.
The important thing to remember at this stage, that the company shouldn’t take this step lightly. It’s because when you would deliver the information to the customers in the later stages, then they would ask for more information. Therefore, you should do your complete homework at this stage.
Examples
For instance, you want to start an online business that requires you to have a website. But you don’t have any experience of building a website. Therefore, you would start reading the WordPress blogs and watching the tutorial videos.
C – Consideration
Consideration is the stage where the buyer has the information about the product, service, or the problem. Once he knows the problem, then he would start looking for ways and methods to solve the problem. At this stage, another research starts with the exact and precise solution starts.
If your business or company offers information in the form of the following things, then it would be very useful to the customers.
- Tutorial or describing video about the product or the problem,
- Well written article, explaining everything.
- Showing comparison in the form of table or charts,
Examples
You wanted to have a website. Now, you know that you can build a website either through WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or you can hire a freelancer to build it for you.
D – Decision
You start the journey with finding the problem. After identifying the problem, you look for the ways and methods to solve it. While researching, you would come across with companies and businesses that are offering a solution.
While finalizing the list of solutions or the companies that are offering solutions, you would also develop matrices to choose one. You’ll end up choosing something that is either exactly or closely related to your problem.
Businesses and companies offer free trials, plans & pricing, about, reviews, forms, contact details, testimonials, featuring lists, or the documents providing the solution.
When a company provides well-detailed information about the product or the problem to buyers and customers, then it gives a company a competitive edge over competitors. That’s how companies and businesses can stand out from the crowd by adding value to customers’ life.
Examples
You wanted a website, and you found out WordPress offers it. But you didn’t know how you can do it. At this stage, you know the website name that offers the complete tutorial. You also know that domain and hosting is necessary, where and how you can buy it.
Conclusion
The problem and stages of buyer’s journey we have discussed in this article may not be the same every time. They may vary from business to business and situation to situation. Problems can be more complicated, and they would require more stages to subcategorize it.
When companies are dividing and subcategorizing the problem into various stages, and research the methods to find the solution that how they can solve the problems better. It gives them an insight into the psychology of customers, their behavior and how they can make a purchase decision.
When you have such information, then you can formulate your business and marketing strategies according to making them choosing and buying your product or service.
