Main Stages of the Buying Journey
There are three main stages of the buying journey that every customer goes through, which are the awareness, consideration, and the final, decision stage. Companies that are able to understand these stages in detail can improve their marketing efforts so that they’ll be able to meet their potential customers wherever they might be throughout that journey, establish themselves as a source of information, and provide them with relevant and helpful information.
First stage
The first stage of the buying journey is the awareness stage where potential customers become aware that they have a pain point, and need to start looking for a solution to that pain point. During this stage of the buying journey, companies need to provide potential customers with answers at the press of a button. The best way for companies to provide this type of information is by creating educational content through various formats, such as white papers, blog posts, infographics, research reports, columns from experts and analysts, and more. This way, whenever the potential customers realize that they have a pain point and that pain point has been bothering them enough that they are willing to seek help to solve the problem, they are going to look for potential solutions to that pain point, which is generally done on the search engines. Companies will be able to attract the attention of these potential customers by providing them with some easily digestible information on how they will be able to solve their pain point, as well as the reason why they have it in the first place, if necessary.
Second stage
The second stage of the buying journey is the consideration stage where potential customers now know that they have an issue that they want to solve, and are actively trying to search for the different options that they might have to be able to solve it. Companies can use the content that they provide to potential customers to help those customers figure out how the company and its solutions can relate to the pain points of potential customers. During this stage, potential customers will start considering all of the options that they have, the different details regarding the issue they have, and are trying to solve, and the best way for companies to help potential customers move on to the next stage of the buying journey is by providing them with expert guides, videos, podcasts, and comparison white papers that will help them narrow down their decision.
Final stage
The last stage of the buying journey that the customers go through is the decision stage when they are ready to make a decision, and companies need to aim that they are the ones selected by potential customers. After going through all of the content the company has provided to potential customers throughout the entirety of the buying journey the customers will now have to decide where they want to go for the solution that they believe will be able to solve the pain point. During this stage of the buying journey, companies have to convince potential customers that they have what customers need through solution comparisons and live demos
