Terms

Buyer's Journey

The buyer's journey is the process a potential customer goes through, from first realizing they have a problem to making a final purchase decision. This path typically consists of three stages—awareness, consideration, and decision—during which a buyer researches their problem, evaluates potential solutions, and finally chooses a provider.

Stages of the Buyer's Journey

Understanding these stages helps businesses tailor their marketing and sales efforts to meet the buyer's needs at each step. The journey is often visualized as a funnel, guiding a prospect from initial problem recognition to a final purchase.

  • Awareness: The buyer first recognizes they have a problem or an opportunity.
  • Research: They conduct research to better understand and frame their problem.
  • Consideration: They evaluate different categories of solutions to address the problem.
  • Decision: They compare specific vendors or products to make a final choice.
  • Purchase: The buyer commits to a solution and becomes a new customer.

Importance of the Buyer's Journey

Understanding the buyer's journey is crucial for modern sales and marketing. It allows you to empathize with prospects, providing the right information at the right time. This tailored approach builds trust, addresses objections effectively, and ultimately increases conversion rates by meeting buyers where they are in their decision-making process.

Buyer's Journey vs. Customer Journey

While often used interchangeably, the buyer's journey and customer journey represent distinct phases of the customer lifecycle.

  • Acquisition: The buyer's journey maps the pre-purchase path from awareness to decision, focusing on converting prospects into new customers. It's ideal for enterprises with long sales cycles or those prioritizing lead generation, helping to align sales and marketing efforts to acquire new business.
  • Retention: The customer journey begins post-purchase, covering onboarding, adoption, and advocacy to foster loyalty and maximize lifetime value. This framework is crucial for businesses with recurring revenue models, like SaaS companies, where reducing churn and encouraging repeat business is paramount.

How to Map the Buyer's Journey

This is how you can create a detailed map of your buyer's journey.

  1. Develop detailed buyer personas to understand your target audience's motivations and pain points.
  2. Interview customers, prospects, and your sales team to gather firsthand insights on the buying process.
  3. Identify the key touchpoints and questions buyers have during the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.
  4. Create and assign specific content, like blog posts or case studies, to support each stage.

Common Challenges in the Buyer's Journey

Buyers often face several hurdles that can complicate their path to making a purchase.

  • Overload: sifting through vast amounts of information to find what's credible.
  • Alignment: gaining consensus from multiple decision-makers, especially in B2B sales.
  • Trust: establishing confidence in a brand amid competing claims and solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions about Buyer's Journey

How does the buyer's journey differ for B2B vs. B2C?

B2B journeys are typically longer and involve more stakeholders, requiring consensus-building content. B2C journeys are often shorter and more emotional, driven by individual needs and focusing on brand trust and social proof.

Is the buyer's journey always linear?

No, the modern buyer's journey is rarely linear. Buyers often jump between stages, revisit previous steps, or conduct research in parallel. This non-linear path requires a flexible, multi-channel marketing approach.

How has the internet changed the buyer's journey?

The internet empowers buyers with instant access to information. They now conduct extensive independent research online through reviews and blogs before ever engaging with a sales representative, shifting power from the seller to the buyer.

Other terms

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Customer Data Management (CDM)

Customer Data Management (CDM) is the process of collecting, organizing, and analyzing customer data to create a unified view of your audience.

Customer Data Management (CDM)

CRM Integration

CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.

CRM Integration

Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising uses AI and real-time bidding to automate the buying and selling of digital ad space, targeting specific audiences.

Programmatic Advertising

Chatbots

Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.

Chatbots

Demand Capture

Demand capture is the strategy of engaging potential customers who are already actively looking for a solution that your company provides.

Demand Capture

X-Sell

X-Sell, or cross-selling, is a sales strategy of selling additional, related products or services to an existing customer base.

X-Sell

Bounce Rate

Learn about bounce rate, including understanding bounce rate implications, key factors affecting bounce rate, & reducing your bounce rate effectively.

Bounce Rate

Funnel Analysis

Funnel analysis is a method for understanding the steps users take to complete a goal, revealing where they drop off in the conversion process.

Funnel Analysis

Prospecting

Prospecting is the process of identifying potential customers, or prospects, to build a sales pipeline and generate new business opportunities.

Prospecting

Accessibility Testing

Accessibility testing is a software testing method that verifies an application is usable by people with disabilities, like vision or hearing loss.

Accessibility Testing

Buying Cycle

The buying cycle is the journey a customer takes from first realizing they have a need to making the final purchase decision.

Buying Cycle

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is a service model where data is stored on remote servers and accessed from the internet, rather than on a local drive.

Cloud Storage

Drip Campaign

A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent to prospects or customers over time to nurture leads and drive engagement.

Drip Campaign

Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is the ongoing, value-driven relationship a business builds with its customers to foster brand loyalty and awareness.

Customer Engagement

Direct Mail

Direct mail is a marketing method where businesses send physical promotional materials directly to potential customers' mailboxes.

Direct Mail

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless, unified customer experience by integrating a company's various communication and sales channels.

Omnichannel Marketing

Serverless Computing

Serverless computing is a cloud model where the provider manages servers, so developers can focus on code without worrying about infrastructure.

Serverless Computing

Marketing Operations

Marketing Operations (MOps) is the engine of a marketing team, managing the technology, processes, and people to run campaigns effectively.

Marketing Operations

Enrichment

Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.

Enrichment

Enterprise Resource Planning

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.

Enterprise Resource Planning

Sales Pipeline Velocity Formula

The sales pipeline velocity formula is a key metric that measures how quickly deals move through your pipeline and turn into revenue.

Sales Pipeline Velocity Formula

User Interface

A User Interface (UI) is the point where humans and computers interact. It encompasses all visual elements like screens, icons, and buttons.

User Interface

Sales Coach

A sales coach is a mentor who trains and guides sales reps to enhance their skills, boost performance, and ultimately close more deals effectively.

Sales Coach

Firewall

A firewall is a digital barrier that protects a network by monitoring and controlling traffic, blocking unauthorized access and malicious content.

Firewall

B2B Intent Data Providers

Learn about B2B intent data providers, including evaluating intent data quality, leveraging intent data for growth, & B2B intent data: key providers comparison.

B2B Intent Data Providers

Sales Forecast

A sales forecast is a projection of future sales revenue. It's a crucial tool for businesses to make informed decisions and allocate resources.

Sales Forecast

B2B Data Solutions

Learn about B2B data solutions, including unlocking the power of B2B data, & key components of effective B2B data solutions.

B2B Data Solutions

Compliance Testing

Compliance testing ensures a product or system adheres to specific regulations, standards, or policies set by governing bodies or organizations.

Compliance Testing

Digital Advertising

Digital advertising is the practice of delivering promotional content to users through various online and digital channels like social media or search engines.

Digital Advertising

Freemium

Freemium is a business model offering a product's basic features for free, while charging for advanced or supplemental features.

Freemium

Service Level Agreement

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract defining the level of service between a provider and a client, including metrics and penalties.

Service Level Agreement

Brand Loyalty

Learn about brand loyalty, including how to build brand loyalty, benefits of brand loyalty, measuring brand loyalty, & strategies for increasing loyalty.

Brand Loyalty

DevOps

DevOps is a culture and set of practices that merges software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten development cycles.

DevOps

Lead Enrichment Tools

Lead enrichment tools are platforms that automatically add missing data to your leads, like contact info, firmographics, and buying signals.

Lead Enrichment Tools

Cloud-based CRM

A cloud-based CRM is a customer relationship management tool hosted online, letting teams access and manage customer data from anywhere.

Cloud-based CRM

On-premise CRM

An on-premise CRM is a system hosted on a company's own servers, offering complete control over data, security, and system maintenance.

On-premise CRM

Marketing Qualified Opportunity

A Marketing Qualified Opportunity (MQO) is a lead vetted by marketing as a genuine sales opportunity, ready for direct sales follow-up.

Marketing Qualified Opportunity

Marketing Qualified Account

A Marketing Qualified Account (MQA) is a target company that has shown significant engagement, indicating it's ready for the sales team to pursue.

Marketing Qualified Account

Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method where all expenses are re-evaluated and must be justified from scratch for each new budget period.

Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)

Outbound Leads

Outbound leads are potential customers a business proactively contacts through outreach like cold calls, emails, or social media.

Outbound Leads

Serviceable Obtainable Market

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the portion of the market you can realistically capture with your current resources, sales, and marketing.

Serviceable Obtainable Market

Custom API integration

A custom API integration is a bespoke connection between software, enabling them to communicate and share data to meet unique business requirements.

Custom API integration

Product Recommendations

Product recommendations are a marketing strategy that uses customer data to suggest relevant products, boosting sales and customer engagement.

Product Recommendations

BANT Framework

Learn about BANT framework, including implementing BANT in sales strategy, advantages of the BANT methodology, & BANT vs. other qualification models.

BANT Framework

Average Order Value

Average Order Value (AOV) tracks the average dollar amount spent each time a customer places an order on your website or mobile app.

Average Order Value

Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures the percentage of people who click on a specific link, ad, or call-to-action.

Click-Through Rate

No Spam

“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.

No Spam

Hot Leads

Hot leads are prospective customers who have shown significant interest and are ready to buy, making them a top priority for sales teams.

Hot Leads

Yield Management

Yield management is a dynamic pricing strategy that adjusts prices based on demand to maximize revenue from a fixed, perishable inventory.

Yield Management

Sales Objections

Sales objections are reasons or concerns raised by a potential customer as to why they are hesitant or unwilling to make a purchase.

Sales Objections

User-generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.

User-generated Content

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication method allowing users to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Logo Retention

Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.

Logo Retention

Sales Compensation

Sales compensation is the total pay a salesperson receives, including salary, commissions, and bonuses, structured to motivate performance.

Sales Compensation

Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Sales Performance Management (SPM) is a suite of tools and processes that help businesses monitor, analyze, and boost sales team performance.

Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the ethical gathering and analysis of market data to inform strategic business decisions and gain an advantage.

Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Data Appending

Data appending is the process of adding new data fields to your existing database records to enrich and complete your information.

Data Appending

CRM Data

CRM data is the information businesses use to manage customer relationships. It covers contact details, purchase history, and communication logs.

CRM Data

Content Rights Management

Content Rights Management involves controlling the use and distribution of copyrighted digital media to protect intellectual property.

Content Rights Management

Early Adopter

An early adopter is a user who embraces a new product or technology before the majority, helping to validate and popularize the innovation.

Early Adopter

Customer Retention Rate

Customer Retention Rate (CRR) is the metric that measures the percentage of customers a company has kept over a specific period of time.

Customer Retention Rate

B2B Marketing Analytics

Learn about B2B marketing analytics, including key components of B2B marketing analytics, & getting started with B2B marketing analytics.

B2B Marketing Analytics

Sales Pipeline Velocity

Sales pipeline velocity is a metric that measures how quickly deals move through your sales funnel to generate revenue for your business.

Sales Pipeline Velocity

Hadoop

Hadoop is an open-source framework designed for the distributed storage and processing of extremely large data sets across clusters of computers.

Hadoop

Lead Scoring Models

Lead scoring models rank prospects by assigning points for their behaviors and demographics, helping sales teams prioritize their outreach.

Lead Scoring Models

Sandboxes

A sandbox is an isolated testing environment where new or untrusted code can be run safely without affecting the host device or network.

Sandboxes

Cold Email

A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.

Cold Email

Inbound leads

Inbound leads are potential customers who proactively reach out after finding your business through content, social media, or search.

Inbound leads

Reverse Logistics

Reverse logistics is the process for goods moving from the customer back to the seller, covering returns, repairs, recycling, and disposal.

Reverse Logistics

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis means identifying your rivals and assessing their strategies to pinpoint your own business's strengths and weaknesses.

Competitive Analysis

No Cold Calls

No Cold Calls is a sales strategy that replaces unsolicited calls with warm outreach to prospects who have already demonstrated interest.

No Cold Calls

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model where businesses pay a fee each time one of their online ads is clicked by a user.

PPC

Kanban

Kanban is a visual project management method that uses a board to visualize workflow, limit work-in-progress, and maximize team efficiency.

Kanban

Decision Maker

A decision-maker is an individual with the authority to make significant choices for a company, especially regarding purchases or strategy.

Decision Maker

Customer Retention Cost

Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the total amount a company spends to keep an existing customer over a certain period of time.

Customer Retention Cost

HTTP Requests

An HTTP request is a message sent by a client, like a web browser, to a server to ask for a resource, such as a web page or an image.

HTTP Requests

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, offering insights into user behavior and marketing effectiveness.

Google Analytics

Net New Business

Net new business is revenue from customers who have never purchased from your company before. It’s a crucial indicator of sustainable growth.

Net New Business

Gamification

Gamification applies game mechanics like points, badges, and leaderboards to non-game activities to boost engagement and motivate users.

Gamification

Sales Calls

A sales call is a real-time conversation between a salesperson and a prospect, aiming to persuade them to purchase a product or service.

Sales Calls

Cold Emailing

Cold emailing is sending unsolicited emails to potential customers you haven't contacted before, aiming to start a business conversation.

Cold Emailing

Forward Revenue

Forward revenue is the total value of all active, committed contracts that are expected to be recognized as revenue in the future.

Forward Revenue

Personalization in Sales

Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.

Personalization in Sales

Lightning Components

Lightning Components is a UI framework for building dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices on the Salesforce Lightning Platform.

Lightning Components

Sales Enablement Content

Sales enablement content refers to the materials and tools that empower your sales team to engage prospects and close deals more efficiently.

Sales Enablement Content

Brand Awareness

Learn about brand awareness, including understanding its importance, building an effective strategy, key metrics to track, & examples in the real world.

Brand Awareness

Master Service Agreement

A Master Service Agreement (MSA) is a foundational contract that sets the general terms for an ongoing business relationship between two parties.

Master Service Agreement

Lead Enrichment

Lead enrichment adds third-party data to your raw lead lists, creating fuller prospect profiles for more effective and personalized outreach.

Lead Enrichment

Rollback Procedures

Rollback procedures are a set of steps to restore a system to a previous, stable version after a failed update, ensuring minimal disruption.

Rollback Procedures

Warm Outbound

Warm outbound is a sales strategy for contacting prospects who've shown interest in your brand through prior engagement, like website visits.

Warm Outbound

Video Prospecting

Video prospecting is the sales technique of sending personalized videos to potential customers to grab their attention and secure more meetings.

Video Prospecting

Sales Performance Metrics

Sales performance metrics are key data points that measure a sales team's effectiveness in achieving its goals and driving revenue.

Sales Performance Metrics

B2B Marketing KPIs

Learn about B2B marketing KPIs, including identifying key B2B marketing KPIs, setting achievable KPI targets, B2B vs B2C marketing KPIs: understanding the differences.

B2B Marketing KPIs

Quarterly Business Review

A Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a recurring meeting to assess performance against goals and align on strategy for the next quarter.

Quarterly Business Review

Closing Ratio

Closing ratio is a key sales metric that shows the percentage of leads or proposals that result in a successful sale.

Closing Ratio

Expansion Revenue

Expansion revenue is the extra money a business makes from its current customers via upgrades, new products, or additional services.

Expansion Revenue

Always Be Closing

“Always Be Closing” (ABC) is a sales mantra meaning every action a salesperson takes should be with the ultimate goal of closing the sale.

Always Be Closing

Nurture Campaign

A nurture campaign is a series of automated messages designed to build relationships with potential customers and guide them toward a purchase.

Nurture Campaign

Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a concise statement that clearly communicates the unique benefit a customer gets from your product or service.

Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

Account

An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.

Account