Should you design your business’ buyer’s journey or customer’s journey?
While both of these concepts are very similar in structure, they serve two very distinct purposes within your overarching brand strategy. A buyer’s journey consists of the various stages a prospect experiences with your business or your competitors before making a purchase. A customer’s journey comprises the experience a buyer has with your business post-purchase.
Stages of a Buyer’s Journey
You may be familiar with the typical stages of a buyer’s journey, which include Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. The stages represent
Awareness Stage
A prospect is in the awareness stage when they realize they have a distinct problem to solve. They may or may not be familiar with your business and what it offers.
Consideration Stage
Your prospect is conducting research to collect information and evaluate possible solutions to their problem or pain point. They’re actively searching for information online and offline, and are in a great position to find your advertising, social media posts, or your website in their search results.
Decision Stage
Enough information has been collected by your prospect to make a final purchasing decision. This is the stage where your potential customer chooses to buy from your business or one of your competitors.
Stages of a Customer’s Journey
This journey receives less focus by businesses when determining your overall brand experience, but it is just as important as the buyer’s journey. A customer’s journey is how your buyers experience your business after they’ve made a purchase from you. In so many instances, businesses pay little attention to their buyers after the purchase, but it is a great opportunity to turn them into repeat customers and advocates for your business.
Onboarding
While the word “onboarding” is usually associated with a lengthy process of communication or training, in this case it simply represents your buyer’s first experience post-purchase. As an example, if they purchased a product from you such as a camping tent, their first experience post-purchase would be whether or not it was large enough for their needs. This is the onboarding stage, and can be a tremendous opportunity to ensure your buyers are happy with their purchase.
Adoption
Adoption is the post-purchase stage where your buyers are using the product or service successfully. Is the tent they purchased easy to assemble? Are they aware of any available accessories that could enhance their enjoyment of the tent?
Retention
Probably one of the most important stages of both the buyer and customer journey is retention. Ensuring your buyers remain satisfied with their purchase is the secret sauce to business sustainability and growth. It costs significantly less to re-convert an existing buyer than to attract and convert brand new leads over time. Keeping your buyers engaged with your business also helps your business stay top-of-mind when they do need another problem solved.
Loyalty & Advocacy
This is the gold star of customer experiences. Surprising and delighting your buyers to a point where they not only buy from you repeatedly, but they recommend your business to others with the same needs is the ultimate win. Ultimately, you don’t want your customer’s journey to end but rather continue far beyond the first purchase.
Key Differences at a Glance
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Why It Matters
The buyer’s journey is often the focus of sales and marketing teams, generating fresh awareness and new leads from marketing campaigns. However, by neglecting consideration for the customer’s journey, your cost per acquisition can significantly increase for your business. It is far more cost effective and supportive of your overall brand to put great emphasis on developing your customer’s journey in addition to your buyer’s journey.
Your buyers’ post-purchase experience builds trust in your brand, generates repeat purchases, and provides free advertising for your business through recommendations.
Need Help?
Buyer Journey Optimization services help you refine your marketing and sales processes to convert better quality leads and keep them coming back again.
