What Is The Consumer Purchase Journey?

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Whether you create content for your website or engage with your customers, there is one thing you should consider above all else: your customer’s experience. You have to guide your customers through each stage of their journey to lead them to conversion.

This process is called the customer purchase journey. Companies use it to identify where customers are in their purchase journey so they can guide them to the next step and ultimately bring them closer to conversion.

The customer journey consists of four stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Loyalty

Understanding the customer purchase journey is an essential part of digital marketing as it takes careful consideration and decision-making before someone invests in a product or service.

LEARN MORE: 5 Digital Marketing Strategies For The Different Stages Of The Sales Funnel

Here is a breakdown of every stage in the customer purchase journey.

1. Awareness

The second a person sees your ads, that is when the awareness stage of their journey begins. For example, imagine someone scrolling through Instagram and sees your ad. At this moment, they will decide if they want to click in and view your product. Either way, they are now aware that your product and brand exists, so you have successfully attracted their attention.

The awareness stage is the most crucial first step of the customer purchase journey. It is where you can make a good first impression. To do so, here are some tips that might help:

Run Targeted Ads

Facebook is the ideal place to raise brand awareness. Consider utilising Facebook ads to get targeted traffic. This way, you can reach the right people on Facebook and make yourself known. You can target audiences with behaviour that are similar to your existing audiences as they have a high chance of being interested in your products or services.

Another simple yet effective way to get targeted traffic is by using Google Ads. With this online advertising platform, you can use paid ads to improve your web visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). Your Google Ads management strategy should help you earn clicks and drive traffic to your website.

Promote Content On Social Media

Quality content is essential to distinguish your business from competitors. You could create and share high-quality content on social media to attract customers and provide them with valuable information about your business.

The solution is simple. If your website has a blog section, you can share your posts on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Doing so should encourage them to click on your post, which leads to your website, thus driving traffic and raising awareness in the process. Posting quality content consistently will also boost your brand image as an industry leader.

2. Consideration

Your customer would have begun the consideration stage of their journey once they click on your ad. They would land on your website, which will lead to other actions such as browsing products and adding products to their shopping carts. At this stage, your customer would usually finalise their purchase. 

Remarketing

If they left your website without checking out, you can utilise behavioural retargeting, also known as remarketing, a digital marketing strategy that allows you to showcase your ads to them and lead them to your website again.

Remarketing works by targeting people who have previously interacted with your business. They can be grouped according to various behaviours such as website visitors and people who have added items to their cart. You can run different types of ads to target people with different behaviours, resulting in a higher conversion rate. 

For instance, imagine that a customer has visited your website and browsed one of your products. However, they left without making a purchase. With dynamic remarketing, you can run an advertisement to display the exact product that your target customer has browsed to lead them back to the consideration stage by visiting your website again and maybe even make a purchase. Use this strategy to your advantage and convert more leads into sales by utilising remarketing ads.

3. Conversion

To propel customers at the consideration stage of the funnel to conversion, you can build their trust in the following ways:

• Use social proof (reviews, testimonials, ratings, etc.)
• Communicate with customers via chatbots, WhatsApp Business, etc
• Respond to queries quickly
• Showcase awards, milestones, and achievements
• Share updates on your website and social media page regularly

Converting prospects is probably the most crucial part of your digital marketing strategy. Once you have attracted enough potential customers from the awareness and consideration stage, you can give them a little nudge to convince and persuade them to make a purchase. 

However, keep in mind that the conversion stage is not yet the end of the customer’s journey. You must also continue to nurture them and build their loyalty to your brand, which brings us to the final stage: loyalty.

4. Loyalty

After converting prospects to customers, you can strengthen your relationship with them in several ways:

• Implement a loyalty program
• Send ads to existing and previous customers
• Update your email subscribers regularly
• Listen to your customers’ feedback (then make improvements)
• Promote special offers and incentives

Nurture your existing customers as acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer. You can execute members-exclusive promotions and run ads to target existing customers as a reward for their loyalty. 

Other than making repeated purchases, existing customers can also advocate your brand as word-of-mouth marketing garners more trust and credibility compared to other forms of advertising. You can encourage your existing customers to leave a review of your products or services on your social media page, website, and even Google My Business (GMB) profile. Doing so should influence potential customers to purchase your product or learn more about your business.

Final Remarks

The customer purchase journey is a funnel that you must consider when creating a digital marketing strategy. It will help you understand how customers feel about your business during each stage of their journey. Guide your customers throughout their journey so you can persuade them to your products and establish a healthy and long-lasting relationship.

For more information about the customer purchase journey, contact our digital marketing agency in Singapore at 6391-0930.