Buyer journey: visualize phases of customer journey

70% of the buying process in B2B today takes place online. This means that your future customer is searching the Internet for answers to questions long before he or she comes into contact with a salesperson from your company. The key - even in the earliest stages of the buying process - is to get into the "consideration set" of your target group. The buyer journey helps you do this.

- Understanding the customer journey is the first step toward creating valuable content that connects with the buying process that your B2B customers go through. This is the basis of Inbound Marketing, marketing that makes your customers happy. -

Buyer journey: the customer journey

The buyer journey is the active process that a potential buyer goes through prior to the actual purchase. During this (online) purchasing process (the buyer journey) a potential customer goes through three main phases; awareness, consideration and decision.

The three phases of the buyer journey are as follows.

1. Awareness phase

The prospect experiences a specific problem and faces certain challenges, but cannot yet name them. In this phase of the buyer journey, he or she does research to clearly formulate and frame the problem or challenge. No buying decision is made yet (it is too early in the buying process for that).

2. Consideration phase

The problem or challenge is clearly formulated. The prospect further investigates possible approaches and methods to eliminate the problem/ transform the challenge into an opportunity for the company. A longlist or shortlist of possible solutions is created. At this stage in the buyer journey, the key is to get on this list with your company!

3. Decision phase

In this phase of the buyer journey, the prospect has chosen an approach or strategy and is now compiling a list of possible providers that can provide the solution to the problem. After comparing all the providers, one provider is finally chosen from the long list.

Knowledge needs in the buying process.

At each stage of the customer journey, the potential buyer has different knowledge needs. It is important for your company to offer that knowledge and match it to the different needs in the buying process. The buyer journey provides insight into the possible behavior and (information) needs of this customer and enables sales and marketing to offer specific content at the right time.

Also read: create remarkable content in every stage of the buyer journey. In the blog, my colleague Kelly goes through the three phases using a clear example and tells you what types of content and specific keywords fit into each phase of the buyer journey.

Good luck meeting your (future) customers!

Understand the customer journey and different questions your customer has during the buying process even better using the following diagram:

Align your marketing activities with the buying process: visualize the customer journey

Mapping the buyer journey, i.e., the customer journey, is the foundation of any Inbound Marketing strategy. Learn how to use Inbound Marketing to bring in more qualified leads? Download the white paper: Doing Better Business with Inbound Marketing.

buyer persona: indispensable for understanding the customer journey
The buyer journey, along with the buyer persona is part of every good inbound marketing strategy. To know what information your target audience needs in the different stages of the buying process, you need to know and understand the different decision makers and influencers on the customer side. To do this, you set up buyer personas.