The Buyer’s Journey in the Age of the Customer

Have you ever had your tarot cards read and received cards like The Empress, Temperance, or The World? Each card represents life lessons, influences, or archetypal themes that influence life’s journey. The meanings behind each card can be complex and deep, and they are designed to represent the structure of your consciousness with valuable information presented in a multi-card reading of your life. 

The Temperance card image shows a winding path up to a mountain range, reflecting the journey through one’s life. All journeys have twists and turns along the way — even the buyer’s journey, during which organizations once led a future customer on a journey of education, consideration, and purchase, and savvy buyers chose their own path and destination.  

Now more than ever, marketers must know the visitors on their organization’s website. B2B buyers participate in an average of 17 meaningful interactions before completing a purchase. By creating the right path and experience, efforts can be taken to increase the conversion of web visitors from unknown to known. Programs that use inbound tactics to capture and direct buyers’ attention such as search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media, and content syndication drives traffic to the company’s website. By using creative visuals that resonate  concise and prominent callouts with leveraging data that could encourage the visitor to engage, marketers can convert that traffic.

We must keep the buyer in mind at all times when we know they are in control of their journey.  The SiriusDecisions Web Conversion Optimization Framework offers a structured approach to attract buyers, encourage engagement, and help the buyer to learn more about your company and offerings. Buyers create their own paths as they fill information gaps and consume a variety of content while evaluating your company’s solutions against their needs. As buyers continue on their path to a final decision purchase, their journey must entail rationalizing that your company’s solution fits their needs with paths to convert that meets their preferences.

We are now in the age of the customer. Customers are empowered by technology, have high expectations, and are changing the rules of business. This unique opportunity allows B2B marketers to realize the efforts we have made in digital, online, and web; amplify the ability to attract targeted visitors; progress buyers’ discovery and learning through active engagement on our websites; collect key data to qualify, and in turn, for the buyer to select the offering. Armed with this knowledge, it has never been more imperative that companies must act quickly with customers who are changing the rules of how we do business.

At Summit 2020, my colleague Renee Irion and I will present “Web Conversion Optimization in the Age of the Customer.” Join us as we explore the winding journey of the Web Conversion Optimization Framework and its impact on the age of the customer. This framework will give you the ability to audit, evaluate, and assess your current state as well as the knowledge to impact key website conversions while improving customer experience. We hope you’ll join us on this journey!