Digital Customer Buying Journey - Research You Need to Read

Forrester’s Customer Buying Journey

The first step in creating a marketing plan is to research your target buyers/influencers and the journey they take to buy your products. In the old days we started our marketing plans with a simple buying funnel [awareness, consideration, purchase, repeat] but now we’ve shifted to using a detailed buying journey that reflects the far more complex digital buying process.

Regardless of the visual model used, the buying process has changed dramatically in the digital age. The buyer is now in total control of the journey as they easily self-educate online instead of engaging with a sales person. They can get nearly all the information they need in seconds right from their mobile phone — including product details, technical specs, analyst ratings, user reviews and even prices others have paid.

Recent studies show that 60% to 70% of the buying journey is completed prior to the customer going to the store [B2C] or contacting the company [B2B]. Both my personal experience as a consumer and my professional experience as a B2B marketer tell me that this statistic is true, if not on the low side. So given this new reality, marketers must thoroughly map their customer buying journey in order determine all the channels customers use and then deploy the right tactics [pull vs. push], right messages [tailored vs. generic] and right content [demos, cost of ownership tools, testimonials, promotions, etc.] at each stage to drive customer action. When done well this not only improves the quantity of leads and purchases, but also enhances the quality of the entire customer experience which leads to greater loyalty and advocacy.

Here are my favorite articles and white papers that will get you up to speed on the modern digital buying journey and its impact on marketing strategy as well as articles on how to map the journey for your customers. While some of the articles deal with the consumer buying journey, they are instructive to the B2B journey as well.

McKinsey – The Consumer Decision Journey by David Court

Harvard Business Review – Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending Your Money in All the Wrong Places by David Edelman

Harvard Business Review – Competing on Customer Journeys by David Edelman

Sales & Marketing Management – Mapping the Buyers Journey

Google – Zero Moment of Truth – ZMOT by Jim Lecinski

Google – Measure What Matters Most

Google – B2B’s Digital Evolution

Google – The Changing Face of B2B Marketing

CEB & Google – The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing – Article, White Paper, Presentation

IBM Marketing Cloud – Customer Journey Maps and Buyer Personas

Aberdeen Group – Creating Content is a Waste of Time Until You’ve Mapped the Buyer Journey – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Forrester – How to Get Started with Customer Journey Mapping [summary only, full report requires subscription]