All you need to know about customers’ path to purchase

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With the inception of digital platforms and online mediums, it has become imperative for brands to focus on the customer path to purchase. As customers engage with a brand across multiple online and offline touchpoints, uncovering insights into the path to purchase can help a business to optimize its marketing initiatives. In this article we’ll discuss what path to purchase is and how can you make the most of it. Let’s start:

What is the path to purchase?

The path to purchase can be defined as the customer’s journey across several touchpoints before making a purchase. It includes running through multiple channels, influencing the customers, and persuading them to make a purchase. The series of channels involve applications, search engines, emails, social networking platforms, websites, loyalty programs, review sites, and more. It is imperative for brands to understand the customers’ journey across various touchpoints in their ‘funnel’. This empowers them to deliver quality information at every stage of the decision-making process.

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What are the stages in the customers’ path to purchase?

Awareness

Being a popular term in marketing, awareness is the first stage where customers are made aware of some product or service. At this stage, customers might be facing an issue that needs to be addressed. So they start finding a product over the internet that can be a solution to their problem. They may scrutinize several brands or their products on the basis of customer reviews to discover the purchasing experience of other customers. The sales are never likely to happen if the customers won’t become aware of a brand & its products. Thus, focusing on brand awareness helps to maximize the market share of a specific brand.

Consideration

Customers develop a consideration list in their mind which includes 4-5 popular brands before making their final purchase. By effectively demonstrating the expertise, knowledge as well as product excellence, a brand can easily get into this consideration list of the customers. While considering a brand, customers always prefer the ones that are customer-centric, problem-solving, and empathetic towards the intended audience. During the consideration stage, it’s essential for brands to provide a well-detailed and extensive sales material that outlines their product benefits and key technical differentiators.

Conversion

At this stage, the finalization or closure of the customers’ decision takes place. Being the magical moment of truth where the customer finally decides a brand for purchase, this stage plays a pivotal role in the path to the purchase journey. It is crucial for brands to ensure a seamless sales journey for the customers at this stage. By offering a simple and guided check out, accepting numerous payment types, and using interactive & quick-loading web pages, brands can certainly maximize their conversion rates.

Evaluation

The evaluation stage (post-purchase experience) is critical in elevating customer loyalty and boosting repeat purchases. When customers are extremely satisfied with your product post-purchase, they’re likely to give positive reviews and spread positive word-of-mouth for your brand. While the evaluation stage has a less important role in the path to purchase, it plays a pivotal role in influencing future buying decisions and repeat purchases. Thus, this stage is crucial for the long-term profitability of the brand.

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Why should businesses focus on customers’ path to purchase?

It’s impossible for brands to achieve their goals without figuring out their target audience and the key drivers behind their purchasing decisions. No matter if the goal is to increase conversions by 1% or developing a new community for selling the latest product, uncovering the path to purchase is imperative for businesses if they want to excel!

There’s no doubt that creating buyer personas and developing an in-depth understanding of the target market has been an essential part of traditional marketing. But with the evolving customer habits and changing purchasing patterns around the world, brands need to identify what customers are buying and what are the factors influencing their decisions. By focusing on a customer’s path to purchase, it becomes easy for brands to better fit and align themselves according to the key considerations that customers have while making a purchase.

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What is the difference between the path to purchase and the customer journey?

Most businesses get confused between the customer journey and the path to purchase. The path to purchase is a wide process that includes numerous channels that customers go through. It often includes channels that are not controlled by the brands themselves.

The customer journey highlights the overall experience that customers have while purchasing a product within a brand’s owned channels. As every channel is under the brand’s control, the brand can easily track interaction, maximize conversion, as well as test different messages too!

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Targeting the right channels for customers’ path to purchase

Since customers browse multiple platforms and channels nowadays, it has become crucial for brands to target the channels that can truly impact their purchase decision-making process. By focusing on email campaigns, social media advertisements, content marketing (blogs, newsletters, & videos), forums, print ads, TV ads, etc. businesses can gain effective insights into the purchasing decisions of the customers.

Personalizing is key

Personalization offers a brilliant way of tracking previous visitors’ behavior on the website. It ensures to provide product and content recommendations to customers according to their previous purchases and browsing behavior.

Providing insightful information

In case of purchases that include a longer sales cycle, customers prefer to gather detailed information before making a purchase. By offering in-depth data and insightful information related to products and services, potential customers get a clear picture of what they’re considering buying.

Adding visual content

Including visual content can play an effective role in a customer’s path to purchase. As video content is considered to be more engaging than text-based one, the impactful visuals of a product can persuade customers to purchase without giving a second thought.

How Voxco can help you make the most of your path to purchase?

Omnichannel Capabilities

Voxco’s best-in-class omnichannel platform empowers you to track your customers’ path to purchase effectively. It helps you reach out to your target audience across every touchpoint by conducting surveys online, face-to-face, or through your phone.

Top-Notch Dashboards

To analyze your customers’ path to purchase efficiently, you need interactive and insightful dashboards. Voxco comes equipped with a comprehensive suite of dashboards and analytics that empower you to gather actionable insights from your customers’ path to purchase.

Flexible hosting

Data plays an indispensable role in uncovering your customers’ path to purchase. Voxco comes equipped with flexible hosting options that allow you to store your data on your premises, i.e. compliant with your security protocols, or securely in the cloud.

Path to Purchase Survey

Let’s Start

Q: Please enter your name

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Q: Are you the primary person in your household for making product purchase decisions?

Yes ()

No ()

Q: How do you come to know about brands that offer a product in the desired category? (Select all that apply.)

Shopping in the stores ()

Social media ()

TV commercials ()

Online advertisements ()

Through internet research ()

Word of mouth ()

Others (Please Specify) ——————————————–

Q: While making a purchase, how would you rate the following?

Extremely Important Neutral Not very important Not important
important at all

Overall Quality

Innovation

Practicality

Value for money

Brand Familiarity

Support & Service

Q: Which among the following brands are you aware of?

Brand A ()

Brand B ()

Brand C ()

Brand D ()

Brand E ()

None of the above ()

Q: While making a product purchase, do you finalize a brand beforehand or make a decision at the time of your purchase only?

Always beforehand ()

At the time of purchase ()

Q: How often do you buy a product of this category?

Once a week ()

Once a fortnight ()

Once a month ()

Less than once a month ()

Never ()

Q: How much do you plan to spend on a product of this category?

Q: Do you search for a discount coupon before purchasing a product of this category?

Always ()

Sometimes ()

Rarely ()

Never ()

Q: Where do you prefer to purchase a product of this category?

Online retailer website

Brand’s official website

In-store

Others (Please Specify) ——————————————-