Understanding Customers With Buyer Journey Mapping – Beginners Guide

In today’s smartphone-driven times, customers don’t simply walk through your door to buy a product. Every buyer goes through a journey and mapping it can help you improve footfalls, sales, and leads.

The modern consumer is more informed than ever. Before visiting you, they do their share of research online. They go through an entire process from considering the product to researching about it to finally making the purchase. This whole drill has been given the term ‘buyer journey’. And this is what this blog post is about.

We’ll learn:

  • What exactly is the buyer’s journey?
  • What are the different stages of the buyer journey?
  • Why it’s important for businesses to under the customer journey?
  • How to create content that aligns with the customer journey?

Let’s start by first defining buyer journey mapping.

What’s buyer journey mapping?

First, let’s understand what’s buyer journey is:

 “The buyer’s journey is simply the research process a buyer goes through before making a purchase.” 

Do all clear?

Now, buyer journey mapping simply means chalking out your target audience’s journey so that you can achieve business objectives.

Stages of buyer journey 

As we mentioned earlier, the buyer journey unfolds in multiple steps. Below are the most important stages of the buyer journey:

Awareness: The first stage of the buyer’s journey process is when the buyer realizes that they have a problem, desire, or need. Let’s understand with the help of an example:

John just moved into a new neighborhood. Within some days, he noticed that he is getting stomach aches. He doesn’t know the cause; he just becomes aware that something is wrong in this new neighborhood.

This is the awareness stage that will lead to the next step of the buyer journey.

Research: Once the buyer realizes they have a problem, research begins (nowadays mostly online). The buyer begins to gather more information about the problem or desire.

John quickly turns to Google to do research. During the research, he found that the tap water supplied in the area is not fit for direct consumption. He needs to buy a water purifier after visiting the doctor for medicine. 

Consideration: In this stage of the buyer journey, the buyer is aware of what the problem is, and the need to solve it exists. The buyer begins to explore, compare options, and get recommendations. She starts reaching out to friends for suggestions, reads reviews of products on top of her mind, and also connects with sales reps.

John starts to look for companies whose products meet his requirements and eliminates those who don’t. He also calls sellers to get more information about the product before making a final decision.

Decision: In the final stage of the buyer journey, your prospective customer or client has decided on what the best solution is going to be.

John has finally selected a product that meets all his requirements and he is ready to purchase a water purifier. 

The graphic below illustrates the buyer’s journey to further help you with the mapping part!

market research

So, this is the buyer’s journey from start to finish.

Buyer journey mapping for businesses – Importance

It is widely accepted that 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before a buyer even reaches out to sales. When they do, they are already well-informed and close to the point of making a purchase.

This 70% of the self-driven buyer journey is all about research and gathering information, and the truth is that businesses that are assisting buyers with this are winning sales and profits. This is why buyer journey mapping is important. Without understanding the buyer’s journey and mapping it out, you simply cannot create the right content.

Understanding the buyer’s journey simply means knowing what kind of information people are looking for before buying a product. When you provide them with that valuable information and answers at every stage, buyers begin to trust you and they are most likely to purchase from you. And this is what you exactly want.

More clients, more sales, more profit!

To accomplish the above, you need to take yourself right in front of buyers with some amazing content. Let’s see how you can create content for every stage in the buyer’s journey to convert potential customers into paying customers.

    Learn how we helped a small LED company become a global brand. Read case study 

Buyer journey content creation 

Ask top content marketers of the world and they will recommend creating content that addresses the challenges customers face at each step so that they feel confident about moving to the next step. Below is how we can map content for every stage to help John choose the right product. And by the right product, we mean YOUR PRODUCT!

Customer journey mapping – Get helpWe are sure now you have gotten a good idea of what a buyer’s journey is and why it matters to your business. Content that makes buyers think ‘Oh yes, that’s what I was looking for and resolves their issues at every stage will definitely make them turn to you for their purchase. While mapping the buyer journey is highly rewarding, creating content for all the different stages can be exhausting since it requires research, planning, content creation, and publishing. At Upreports, we help businesses and brands plan content for every buyer journey stage so that they generate long-term value.  Email us at hello@upreports.com to discuss your content goals with an experienced team of creators. All businesses need to pay attention to the buyer’s journey to generate more leads. You might struggle at first but trust us, it’s worth the effort.

STAGE CONTENT Content Example
AWARENESS

 

& RESEARCH

In the first stage, provide content that is focused on the problem.

 

Create content that educates potential customers about their needs or problem as well as the risks that can arise because of inaction.

Don’t try to sell your product or service at this stage as it can put off the buyers. They will think you are highlighting the issue just because you want to sell your products.

So, keep the content strictly educational and build brand awareness in the process.

You can create educational blog posts, e-books, editorials, research reports, or anything that helps buyers better understand their problems.

“What are the symptoms of drinking contaminated water?”

 

“How can you treat water at home?”

“Biggest reason of your stomach pain”

Each of these content ideas provides helpful information to John which helps him pinpoint his problem.

The content in no way promotes the product.

And in the process, he also comes to know about your company in a subtle way.

CONSIDERATION At this stage, provide content that is focused on the solution.

 

Create content that tells prospective buyers how your product can solve their problem effectively by emphasizing the benefits of your product.

Your goal here is to create content that can convince buyers that you are experts in the field and you know what you are talking about.

You can create videos, webinars, and podcasts around the solution buyers are looking for.

5 things to see in a water purifier”

 

“How do water purifiers work?”

“Are water purifiers effective?”

Such content provides information about the solution to John and helps your business to establish itself as an industry expert.

DECISION In the last stage of the buyer’s journey, you can go all gaga over your products and business.

 

Create content that tells buyers why your product is the best of the others in the market.

You can create case studies, review videos, offer live demos, product comparison charts, or anything that makes your product look more appealing than the others.

“Which is the best water purifier?”

 

“Compare top 3 purifiers”

“What our Clients say”

Such content promotes your product directly and lets the buyers know why they should choose you.

After weighing the pros and cons of different products, John chooses the one which is best for him and meets all his requirements.

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