Find out what the purchasing journey is and how it helps your digital marketing strategy!

Please find out the purchasing journey and how it helps your digital marketing strategy!

There is no doubt that Google is the primary tool for ensuring visibility for your business website: the search engine receives billions of searches per month worldwide, connecting people and companies mainly through Inbound Marketing, a digital marketing strategy in which the user/ customer is “attracted” to your product/service. Thus, Inbound Marketing challenges traditional advertising methods, which work with intrusive and interruptive advertising to attract attention and persuade people using various resources to make them buy.

For Inbound Marketing to be well applied in your digital marketing strategy, it is ideal to know who is producing the content and which content is most appropriate according to the stage of your brand/company’s relationship with the consumer, and that is where you enter the purchasing journey.

What is the purchasing journey?

Regardless of who you are, it’s very likely that you’re in one of the phases of the buying journey (even if you don’t want to buy anything!). This is because the journey covers not only people considering purchasing a product or service but also people with needs and problems in general.

It is essential to know that some consumers have yet to be ready to buy a product or service, but they are still crucial to your business. Inbound Marketing consists of producing educational and valuable content so that your company can influence behaviour and decisions in a didactic way, positioning itself as an authority figure for its prospects and customers throughout the purchasing journey.

The purchasing journey directs users gradually and indirectly through the content of your website to convert them into customers and is divided into four essential steps:

Learning and discovery: the person is not fully aware of their problem or need and wants more information about something;
Problem recognition: after doing some research and reading materials, identify the existence of your problem/need;
Consideration of the solution: upon identifying the problem or need, the consumer begins to evaluate possible solutions;
Purchasing decisionFinally, after analyzing the options available on the market, the consumer makes a decision.

Realize that by providing rich and valuable content on your website, you will actively participate in each phase of the buyer’s journey, creating links between the stages and using different resources so that, in the end, the consumer considers your products and services as the best alternative.

The purchasing journey in practice: learning and discovery stage

Suppose you own a gym and want to increase your results using Inbound Marketing and content production considering the purchasing journey. A good theme for texts focused on the first stage, learning and discovery, would be: “The health benefits of physical exercise” as:

This content is didactic and helpful and provides valuable information to the user;
There is no publicity for your academy at this time. Remember that the person is not looking for a service or product yet;
You demonstrate the benefits of your service without even promoting your brand or company.

The purchasing journey in practice: problem recognition stage

After reading the text “The health benefits of physical exercise”, the person may realize that they are leading a very sedentary life and, therefore, will delve deeper into this subject. In the problem recognition stage, your blog may suggest content that teaches how to perform some physical exercises at home, for example, again offering rich and helpful information:

You provide the customer with more information about their problems and needs and even suggest some alternatives for them;
It feeds the need for your service indirectly by telling them how they can exercise at home.

The purchasing journey in practice: solution consideration stage

Continuing the purchasing journey, we reach the solution consideration phase. Some people who read the content may realize that doing exercises at home can be a lot more work, whether due to the available space, the need for equipment and devices or the absence of a teacher to guide them.

When considering the solution, you begin to exercise greater power over the user’s decisions and will be able to provide more prosperous and more detailed material (such as an ebook) that will have the theme: “Is it better to do physical exercises at home or the gym?”, always highlighting the benefits of physical exercise at the gym.

Because the ebook is more descriptive and takes longer to produce, you can ask for something in return so that the user has access to this content (name and email, for example), which will help in capturing leads, ensuring means to contact the person and start offering your service. In this step:

The relationship with the prospect is already more solid, and if it has reached this stage, they see your brand as an authority figure within the segment;
They will probably be fine providing information such as name and email, as they already know about your blog.

The purchasing journey in practice: purchase decision stage

Finally, the long-awaited stage of the purchasing decision arrives: at this stage, you show all the differences between your products and services and use various tools, such as CTA’s (Call To Action) and mental triggers, to convert the prospect into a client. Still talking about the gym, you can offer benefits such as a free period with trial classes, discounts on monthly fees or exemption from registration fees.

Note that, to be efficient, it is necessary to align with the stages of the sales funnel, which speak directly to the purchasing journey and, to produce this content, a humanized language is essential (creating a closer relationship with the consumer), in addition to adopting SEO standards that will benefit you when positioning your content on Google, ensuring the necessary visibility for your blog and website.

It is essential to know that people can find you at any stage of the sales funnel, so the content must be well-linked, always guiding your prospect so that he becomes a qualified lead. Thus, the purchasing journey will help identify the right time for the sale, who is eligible to receive your offer, personalize customer relationships and optimize your sales team’s strategies.

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