What Is the Buyer's Journey and Why Does It Matter?
In an ideal world, customers would simply land on your website and begin making purchases instantaneously. Realistically, the buyer will journey a long way to find you and then take additional time before feeling comfortable enough to purchase your goods or services. Therefore, understanding the various stages of a buyer's journey is extremely beneficial.
However, to succeed in today's commerce world, you must shift your focus from selling to providing value. The best approach is to become intimately acquainted with the buyer and the journey they take on their way to purchase. Let’s take a closer look.
What Exactly Is the Buyer's Journey?
The buyer's journey highlights a series of stages that your potential buyer goes through before making a purchase. It begins with becoming aware of a need, followed by considering various solutions to meet that need and finally choosing between the various options available.
A clear understanding of the buyer's journey, the problems they encounter along the way, and the factors that shape their thinking will enable you to better position your products or services along that path, helping you maximize conversions.
What Are the Three Stages of The Buyer’s Journey?
1. Awareness Stage
The awareness stage is the first step on a buyer's journey. This is when consumers are made aware of your brand and the products and services you offer.
Prospective clients have a specific problem or pain point that needs to be addressed at this stage. As a result, they are looking for information and solutions on the internet.
This is where your company can help by providing a solution via relevant and informative content. If done correctly, you can inform customers while also making them aware of your brand and the products or services you have to offer.
This stage is all about informing the client, so create informational, rather than salesy, content that educates them along their purchasing journey. You must provide them with resources to help them better define the problem.
Some examples of content for the awareness stage are:
- SEO Articles and Blog Posts
- How-To and Educational Videos
- Social Media Posts
MarketTime enables businesses to easily get their products in front of new clients through omnichannel wholesale commerce with unique buying groups and industry associations, as well as some of the world's largest physical trade marts. With the platform, you can also write new orders, share promotions, and stay in sync with sales agencies and customers at every step of the process.
2. Consideration Stage
After successfully creating and distributing content for the awareness stage, your target audience can now pinpoint their problem easier.
These prospective customers then begin to consider various solutions to their initial problem, including your company's products or services. At this stage, the target audience is still researching and will be looking for information that will provide them with the ability to make a confident purchase.
You should understand how your product or service solves their problem compared to your competitors. It is also best to provide them with additional resources, but this time to assist them in determining the best solution for them.
Some examples of content for the consideration stage are:
- Videos tutorials and product spotlights
- Original research and reports
- Webinars and podcasts
You can provide your potential customers with all the information they'll need to make well-informed and confident decisions by setting up your operation with MarketTime. On the platform, you’ll be able to manage product and customer data across all platforms while receiving holistic insights in a singular location.
3. Decision Stage
At this stage, the buyer has figured out what the problem is and how they intend to solve it. Before the sales process, understand what objections your clients may have to handle them effectively.
If your strategies during the awareness and consideration stages were successful, your potential clients will likely choose to buy from you.
Your impact does not end there. On your website, you should strive to make the purchasing process as simple as possible for your customers. And you must ensure that your B2B clients can place large, bulk orders quickly and without hassle.
MarketTime enables you to provide an excellent user experience to your clients right out of the box. Customers place orders with you at any time and from any location. Additionally, the platform integrates seamlessly with all major ERP accounting software systems for even greater visibility.
How Does the B2B Buyer's Journey Differ from the B2C Buyer's Journey
Potential buyers in the B2C market are typically individuals or families with unique needs. They may be more concerned with convenience or their financial ability to purchase your goods or services. Relationships may be formed over a shorter period, with sales and marketing aimed at many customers via market segments or personas.
In the B2B market, the term "customer" frequently refers to multiple stakeholders. They may have differing interests, concerns, and goals. Stakeholders can range from the CEO to the end-user. Relationships form over time, with sales and account management resources tailored to that specific customer. To ensure the success of the account, you must maintain relationships with all stakeholders, not just the final decision-maker.
74% of B2B buyers conduct online research before making a purchase. Therefore, being visible while a potential buyer is doing research and narrowing down their options can help you bring in more business.
How MarketTime Can Help Your Business
Using the right B2B wholesale software will help you attract leads, close sales, and manage orders. MarketTime is a cloud-based platform designed for B2B wholesale that includes several built-in services to help you grow your business and maximize ROI.
MarketTime provides an intuitive, highly customizable website plugin, enabling your business to provide a wholesale commerce experience within your existing website. This makes your company and its products more visible to potential customers while they are searching online. By displaying multiple product lineups in the same location, MarketTime’s solution helps you deliver a one-stop-shop experience free of hassle. With MarketTime's powerful features and state-of-the technology, guiding prospective buyers from initial awareness to final decision has never been easier.
Request a Demo today to learn more about how MarketTime can help you with your buyers’ journey.