How Your Marketing Messages Can Address the New Buyers Journey

By Eric Keiles, Instructor of the ProThink Learning online course The Cyclonic Buyer’s Journey: Marketing Tactics and Tools

Tale as Old as Time

Once upon a time salespeople drove the sales process. The marketing people delivered the message and made prospective customers aware of what the company sold to get them in the proverbial door. Then the salespeople took over and dragged the prospect over the finish line, whether they wanted to go or not. Faced with few options, the buyer either went along or dropped out altogether . . . only to face the same situation when they took their business next door.

This sales funnel model dates back to 1898 when consumers had limited options, an abundance of attention, and a dependence on sales teams to help make decisions on the products and services they needed. The sales funnel comes from the mentality of “we, the company, are in control. Now, what are we going to do to them, the consumer?”

Consumers in the 21st Century

That’s no longer the reality we live in. Companies no longer hold the power, no longer are the gatekeepers of vital information for decision-making. Where before consumers were beholden to companies to produce the goods and services they needed, there’s now a surplus of providers, and consumers have the power.

The path from wanting to buy something to arriving at a purchase has radically changed, thanks in large part to two major factors:

Digital Revolution

Consumers don’t have attention to spare as they did in 1900. There is a staggering amount of content available on every conceivable (and inconceivable) topic, activity, product, service, and idea. We all live in this crazy whirlwind of people and companies constantly vying for our attention, our trust, and our dollars.

In addition to changing how we receive information, the introduction of the internet has fundamentally changed how we purchase our products. Online retail accounted for more than 15% of all U.S. retail sales in 2020. And even most offline sales are impacted by the internet somewhere along the journey:

· 44% of people start product searches with Amazon

· 78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase

· 71% of business-to-business (B2B) shopping research starts with a generic search

· 72% of B2B shoppers do an average of twelve searches before engaging with a website

What this means is that the information we consumers gather about products is no longer limited to what companies choose to tell. Buyers can be more informed about the products they buy, and a large amount of control is taken out of the producer’s hands.

Globalization

Customers now face a vast array of options when deciding what to buy. Just look at grocery stores: as late as the 1990s, the average grocery store carried less than 7,000 products, but today that number has swollen to more than 40,000 in a single store. Between revolutions in supply chains and communication technology, products can reach consumers halfway around the globe and the production efficiencies of outsourcing products decreases costs, making products accessible to more consumers.

With this ready access to alternatives, even the slightest sense of dissatisfaction with your product can result in consumers easily skipping on over to the next supplicant begging to do their bidding.

The New Buyer’s Journey

So with this dramatic change in way consumers receive information, purchase their products, and have scores of options at their disposal, the old sales funnel just doesn’t cut it anymore. A paradigmatic shift in buyer behavior requires a paradigmatic shift in how we look at buyer behavior and — more importantly for companies — in how we align revenue generation with that behavior. That’s why we’ve smashed the funnel.

Instead, we developed the Cyclonic Buyer Journey that more accurately captures how consumers today make their purchasing decisions. In this model, there are eight key inflection points or cyclones — the “moments of maximum influence” — where you have the opportunity to nudge your buyer’s thinking, consisting of:

· Pre-Awareness: Buyers are unaware of an existing or upcoming problem

· Awareness: Buyers have a problem . . . but it’s not enough to worry about just yet

· Education: Buyers are actively searching for information on how to fix the problem

· Consideration: Buyers have decided on a path and are now looking at a variety of options

· Evaluation: Buyers are weighing a handful of potential providers

· Rationalization: Buyers attempt to justify to themselves that they are making the right decision and focus on the details

· Decision-Making: Buyers are ready to sign

· Ongoing Delivery: Buyers keep coming back to you.

The Cyclonic Buyer Journey is not a linear process. Buyers do not think in a straight line, sometimes skipping a step or two or circling back to one of the initial stages after almost completing a purchase — hence the name cyclones. This is not a left foot, right foot process. This is human psychology and psychology is messy.

However, these eight cyclones contain the moments where customers will be most open to your influence. Learning how to capitalize on them is essential for effectively communicating with your audience because so much of their purchasing process now happens without your knowledge or control. Focus on finding which cyclones your target audience is most receptive to your messages. Tailor your messages to address the needs of consumers in each cyclone.

Consumers Have Changed — Have You?

The sales funnel doesn’t work in this reality where buyers now have the power. Buyers sit in the driver’s seat, and unless you seriously stand out, they’re going to speed past you like so many billboards on the highway. Only until you adjust your strategies to account for the chaotic process of the new buyer’s journey will you reach consumers in our digitalized and globalized world.