What Is Buyer's Journey?

Buyer’s journey definition

The buyer’s journey describes the stages buyers go through before making a purchase. This helps companies connect better with their target audience by designing a tailor-fit customer experience.

The more clearly companies outline the buyer’s journey, the better they can understand how and where to reach prospects.

Research shows that 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) step in.

Why is the buyer’s journey important?

With a comprehensive buyer’s journey, organizations can get in front of their clients and:

• devise marketing campaigns centered around the customer lifecycle,
• personalize the sales process according to the buyer’s context

Typically, the buyer’s journey consists of three stages: the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage.

Each stage is defined after conducting interviews with existing customers, prospects, sales reps, or other stakeholders. Once a stage is defined, it should be consolidated through relevant content.

1. The awareness stage

The buyer identifies a challenge or an opportunity.

Example: Buyer has trouble securing the entire IT environment and its growing endpoints.

Companies should find out:

• How do buyers describe their goals or challenges?
• How they educate themselves on these goals or challenges?
• How they prioritize the goals and challenges?
• Are there any misconceptions?

Relevant content for buyers found at this stage:

• Guides,
• Infographics,
• Blog Articles,
• Industry reports and analysis,
• eBooks.

2. The consideration stage

The buyer defines the challenge or opportunity and evaluates their options.

Example: Buyer finds that endpoint management solutions could help address the problem.

Companies should find out:

• What are the categories of solutions that buyers investigate?
• How do they research the categories?
• How do they analyze the pros and cons of each category?
• How do they decide on the right one?

Relevant content for buyers found at this stage:

• Podcasts,
• Webinars,
• Technical blogs,
• ebooks with actionable steps,
• How-to videos.

3. The decision stage

The buyer decides to purchase a solution.

Example: The buyer settles on a solution provider and makes a purchase.

Companies should find out:

• What criteria do buyers use to evaluate options?
• What are the perks/downsides of your offering?
• Who is involved in the purchasing decision?
• Do they want to try the solution before buying?

Relevant content for buyers found at this stage:

• Free trials,
• Demos,
• Case studies,
• Price guides,
• Product datasheets,
• Competitor comparisons.

Once the content is aligned with each stage of the buyer’s journey, buyers have the freedom to choose and move through the stages of the buying process as they see fit.

Chances are, most buyers will not follow the stages in a linear path — they could go from Awareness to Decision and then Consideration, depending on their needs and priorities at a given moment.

But a clearly-defined buyer’s journey allows companies to increase sales opportunities by understanding the needs of the customers, being aware of the strengths and weaknesses, and addressing the most common pain points.