Contemporary consumers go through 90% of Buyer’s Journey on their own before reaching out to the salesperson. The way to purchase gets less and less linear: customers use multiple devices, move between the channels, migrate between online and offline.
Today you probably see much more variants of buyer’s journey that you used to see in previous years. That observation shouldn’t stop you from attempting to reconstruct it, although working on it is different now. How to address it?
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Analyzing data from many sources
To map the road from the first contact to retention, you should include numerous and various touch points that occur on multiple devices. Let’s name a few:
– visits on the website
– social media mentions
– using the mobile app
– a newsletter.
Firstly, make sure that you have tools (technological solutions) to track all these and prepare a cohesive communication across the multiple channels.
Desktop + Mobile
One of the most challenging tasks marketers face now? Combining the insights from users’ desktop behavior and the mobile app. These two collections of data cast light on each other. Combining the two allows to get the fuller picture of the user and to send her more relevant messages.
For example, you don’t get much information about user’s interest from her desktop behavior. But from your Mobile Marketing Automation platform, you know that she has travel-related apps installed on her devices. That’s an important information that could shape not only your mobile marketing to that person, but also the content you show her on the website or offers you email her. You can integrate such data automatically (and automatically add tags to users to add them to segments, for example regarding their interests) provided that you have the right set of tools at your disposal (desktop Marketing Automation + Mobile Marketing Automation that integrate smoothly with each other).
Online + offline
Customers can spend hours on finding the best offer for them. To do so, they often switch between online and offline. How? Consumer A starts from online research: she reads about a product, searches for reviews, watches YouTube videos featuring it, and studies brand’s social media channels. She even visits the online store and adds the products to the cart, checks the price, then she shuts the lid of her laptop and goes to the brick and mortar store.
As an online marketer, you don’t see the second part: that the customer buys the product offline. The problem happens so often that there is a term coined for it – ROPO effect (research online, purchase offline). It can also happen the other way round, when a consumer tries the product in the physical store and then buys it online, mostly because she can get it cheaper somewhere else.
But how to address online-offline gap? There are 4 solutions:
– Beacons: place these small devices in your brick and mortar store and they will monitor customer’s behavior and tap into proximity marketing. >> Read more on beacons
– Mobile app: gives you access to the consumer 24/7 and opens infinite personalization options. Is user getting close to your physical store? Send a notification with products she viewed online or added to online cart but didn’t buy. Identify her shopping patterns and send offers when she usually shops or visit your website.
– Dynamic content: be sure that the offers displayed on your site are relevant to the user. Customize the banners according to her interests – also to what her offline behavior revealed. Did she spend a lot of time in one section of the store? Show her products from that category!
– Real-time communication: with myriads of data at your fingertips, you can react to customers’ behavior in real time and address their needs as they emerge.
Nonlinear buyer’s journey can be treated, provided that you add the right tools to your arsenal. Be sure that you can track and measure what happens on mobile and offline.
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