At Avocet we work with a number of B2C companies. The number one priority for these clients – whether their product is clothing, food, or tires – is always, from the very outset, to define their target markets and to understand their buyers’ journey.
By understanding how a customer goes from “I want” to “I need” to “I bought,” or from “I didn’t know that existed” to “WOW! I need that” to “I bought that,” is at the core of effective marketing that gets powerful results.
To do that, we have to answer three key questions:
- Who are the customers? While it’s nice to imagine that everyone wants to buy your product, it’s just not reality.
- Where and when do potential customers make their purchases? From laptops to phones to iPads…shopping is essentially a 24-hour, anytime/anywhere sport. Decisions are made in the car, walking down the street, in meetings, from the couch, at a kid’s soccer game.
…and…
- What makes a customer choose one product over another? Studies tell us that a buyer has to be touched by a brand’s message 20 times before making a purchasing decision. What that tells us is that messages have to be more engaging and, more specifically, relevant than ever before.
Understanding the customer journey begins with messaging, positioning, and defining your brand’s essence. By constructing these frameworks, we are able to create and illuminate a customer-facing journey and we come to understand the way different channels and different ways of marketing can help amplify your core messages. And, given today’s advanced and accessible technology, it can be argued that the customer experience can be better stated as the USER experience. At Avocet, we understand that the majority of customer touch points are through digital channels, but we never discount traditional approaches.
Not long ago, I interviewed Jacqueline Claudia and Christy Brouker of Love the Wild on the Integrate & Ignite podcast. These two entrepreneurs had a lot to say about how they came to truly understand their customers, the varied approaches they took to reach each one in ways that made a difference, and how they kept the brand consistent across all the different marketing channels – from demos to surveys to different promotions – they deployed to encourage trial. Take a listen here.
