Episode 27: From Problem to Purchase: Customer Journey 2.0
Explore the evolving customer journey. Discover strategies and insights for adapting to changing consumer behaviors, connecting across channels, and staying relevant in a fast-paced digital landscape.
“The customer journey isn’t linear anymore. It’s complex, dynamic, and full of touchpoints.”
Objectives
In this episode, you will be able to:
Understand the complexities of the modern customer journey and why it’s no longer a linear path.
Discover strategies to adapt to changing consumer behaviors across multiple platforms and touchpoints.
Learn how to leverage tools like SparkToro to gain insights into where your audience engages online.
Gain tips on collaborating effectively with sales teams to address customer pain points and drive conversions.
Explore ways to build empathy into your marketing approach to connect more deeply with consumers.
Transcript
[Intro]
Robbie:
Hello, this is Tim and Robbie with the Content Community Commerce podcast. We talk about topics at the convergence of content, community, and commerce. Today, we’re going to be talking about a topic near and dear to both of our hearts and should be pretty realistic for all of you because everybody lives with this. Everybody deals with this every day. But we’re going to talk about changes in the customer journey. So this is basically like how people make decisions about basically anything. So, like how they purchase a pack of Band-Aids, or how they purchase a car, or how they purchase a college education. All of those journeys are going to be completely different. And as marketers, kind of our job is to understand that to a certain extent and be able to understand how to serve them along the way, because their expectations and desires have changed a lot since back in the day.
Tim:
Yeah, just as you think you understand it, it changes again. And I think that we’re probably at a stage in marketing and in life where it’s more complex than it’s ever been. To the user, it doesn’t seem more complex, but to the marketer, it’s a more complex thing to follow, communicate with your audience, and see things all the way through. Because it’s just not that linear path anymore where, you know, we joke about going to CVS and asking Joey for, like, “get me my regular Band-Aids.” It’s not that easy. You could still do that, but that’s one of 10,000 ways that somebody could end up getting Band-Aids based on their needs.
Robbie:
Yeah, and especially as we evolve as humans—or I say humans or consumers in the wild—we have different expectations. Like, we all shop on… like somebody may use Amazon, somebody may shop at places where they can have consistent reviews or information. So we lean on a lot of these things to get the information we need along the way. And then also the level of that information—who owns that information—is completely different than it has been in the past. So, like, if I needed a new car, I may not go directly to Kelley Blue Book, which may have been my only source of information in 1990. The good old days of buying a car are probably over for—I’m sorry for car dealerships out there, sorry—but basically, hey, if I’m gonna buy a car, I can do all of that research by myself. Where marketing may have accounted for maybe 10 to 20% of that transaction or that sale, now marketing can really account for 60-80% of that transaction because I can inform myself, educate myself, and empower myself ahead of time. So by the time I’m buying the car, I know what model, what make, what I really want. I’m going to take lot to drive it for the first time, but then I can get it anywhere I want.
Tim:
And you also know, like, what should I pay, not just on a local level, but nationally. Like what something sells for if you’re buying new or used. So straight away, you can go into the dealer and just sniff it out—like if the price is BS or they’re marked up way high. Because I’ve already done my research, and I can get this thing for, like, three grand less and have it shipped to my house for $500.
Robbie:
It changes the dynamic because suddenly the consumer has a lot of power too. Where that salesperson may have held that power in the past, the consumer has a lot of power now. So what we have to think about is how do we align our journeys? What does that journey look like? And how do people make decisions, and how do we kind of tee them up for success in a way?
Tim:
Yeah, and I feel like before we even dive into that, just thinking of how things we use have influence. Like we might as well address the elephant in the room. We’ve got GPT, we’ve got Gemini, we have things as marketers where we don’t have as much control. They’re trained off information that’s being put out there, potentially by you. But how are you servicing in that? Because there’s customers now whose first place to start asking queries is before they even make that first search. And that’s just something in the last year or two. I’d say more so in the last year it’s had a more mainstream adoption in how people are using that. And that’s something now like, alright, what do we do? Customers are already six steps into their journey, and they’ve done those in a black box that we can’t see into.
Robbie:
Even taking a step back though, if I’m going through the stages of this, I always like to think about that part as maybe somebody picks up that journey at different places. So, like, if I’m problem aware, I may know I have a problem. My job as a marketer is to take the problem aware to solution aware. If they can take them from problem-aware to solution-aware, that’s basic. Like, okay, I like Roka as an example. I saw an ad on social, on Instagram, where people were just violently shaking their heads, and I was like, “Wow, that looks like it hurts.” Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. And it says, “Glasses that don’t slip.” And I was like, “Oh, they get me.” And that, for my people, I feel so seen because my glasses slip like crazy. I have no nose bridge, and it stinks. I’m still kind of getting used to wearing glasses. Pain point. I was like, “Oh my gosh, that exists. That is amazing. I love that.” And then I’m suddenly problem-aware, where I know that I hate this. I know it’s a problem. I didn’t realize this solution was even available. Now I’m researching other ways—glasses that don’t slip or glasses that stay on your face. And I’m activated in that journey where it’s taken me from, “I know I have a problem” to “I know a solution,” and that’s kind of the perfect place for social ads.
Robbie:
That’s where that lives—creating demand for something where there’s not demand already. But then we take one step further into solution aware, where suddenly I’m capturing demand as a marketer, and I’m understanding, hey, I want to be searching for “glasses that don’t slip.” And that’s where search comes into place, and that’s where Gemini comes into play, and they’re all leading me towards more information that I need to make an informed, educated decision. That’s where I think it’s neat to see that we can understand how we’re creating demand, how we’re capturing demand, and what does that look like in that information-gathering stage. Again, solution aware—I know there’s a solution for the problem, but what do I need to do to get to product aware, transaction aware, or solution aware?
Tim:
Yeah, and now, as a marketer, you can take that and apply it. It’s finding the places to apply that—what belongs on your site, what belongs in an ad, what belongs in social, what should be offsite in some other thing. So as they’re becoming solution aware, you’re in those places. Or I should say, as they’re problem-aware, you’re one of the people talking about the problem. And then when they search for the solution, you’re appearing in the places they’re going. Because, again, it’s not just turning to search for that. That’s the traditional method. There are so many ways now, and they can even complete their journey without even touching search.
Robbie:
And that’s where this becomes more complicated all the time. People can go through… like, you could click on an Instagram ad and be all the way at the end right away, but for a transaction over a certain value, nobody’s going to do that. I don’t buy things I see right away, especially if they’re more expensive. Yeah, and I’m not a cowboy.
Tim:
Yeah, I’m rogue. Just for like one segment on this because it really applies in such a good way for something that we’re working on at the moment for a client. And with that, there’s a tool that I’ve tinkered with, and I decided yesterday, hey, let’s get fully on board with using this because the customer journey has changed so much. Some of the tools out there are only giving us pieces of information. We’re like, hey, for this, it’s good. So I’ll give a plug for SparkToro because I think that’s one of the ones where what we’re talking about here is not just flat keyword research like, here’s how many people are searching for this. But you can actually go in and see: here are the YouTube channels these people are watching. Here are the podcasts they’re listening to. Here are the websites they’re reading. And now, as you have your problem and your solution, you can take that information and say, well, how do we advertise on these websites? If that’s where they’re reading, that’s where we should place ads. How do we speak on these podcasts so that when they’re listening, we’re going into their ears? Maybe we need YouTube videos or collaborations with these YouTube channels. So we started doing it because that’s all part of that journey from problem aware to solution aware, and then eventually into purchase. And if you can be in that cycle along the way, it’s going to help you. Whenever they make that purchase, they’re like, “Oh Roka. Yeah, I saw that violent head-shaking over here, and then they appeared there. I should probably just go to their site because they seem to be the ones talking the most about this.” You know, being mosh-pit ready with my glasses.
Robbie:
Mosh-pit ready, yeah, perfect. But yeah, it ties all of that together really well. This is not just one linear path. That’s one of the fascinating things about this. You have to get outside that linear thought process and understand as a person, what do you look to? How would I make a decision? How do I get to that end result? As consumers, we all expect this stuff to happen all the time. But as marketers, we put ourselves in a unique position because we don’t act like consumers anymore or may not think like consumers all the time. It’s like you walk into your office, and suddenly you stop thinking like a consumer and switch to “I’m a marketer.” Then you walk outside the door, and you do something completely different in real life. Yeah. Like, “I’m a marketer, I know I’m a soul. This is how it works.” And then you go outside and do something completely different when you get on your phone. “Our website says it’s good, so clearly it’s good. We don’t need any third party. They must trust our website.” Yeah, we said it’s good, so it is good.
Robbie:
Yeah, we just don’t have control anymore. And getting outside that bubble we can be in is really important because that’s another thing that’s driving a lot of this change—our expectations are changing too. Again, we shop on Amazon. We buy from Amazon for our house. I think most American households do. And that’s something where Amazon really trains us to expect two-day delivery on everything.
Tim:
It’s a benchmark. If you don’t offer that as a website, I’m leaving your website.
Robbie:
Amazon trains us to expect a 30-day return policy guarantee. Amazon trains us to expect easy and convenient everything. And basically, when that expectation shifts as consumers, we also carry that into decisions we make on the B2B side. All of those decisions are impacted by what we see and how we act. The information ecosystem is changing, and the experience ecosystem is changing too. So a lot of these things are working together, making it more challenging for a marketer to connect the dots in a lot of ways.
Tim:
Yeah. And as you talk about Amazon, there’s also that part where I feel like for some brands, that can feel crippling because they look at that and think, “Well, we can’t offer this, we can’t do that.” But that’s where you have to figure out, what is the value that we bring that would make somebody say, “Hey, you know what? I don’t need the two-day shipping on this,” or “I’m willing to pay more to get it from here,” or “I’m willing to do something.” And that’s where all those other things—being able to show your value or show your benefit greater than something that can be sourced somewhere else—is what’s going to do that for you.
Robbie:
We talk about this with our clients all the time. You have to be able to build an irrational relationship with somebody. To purchase from you instead of purchasing from Amazon, it has to be irrational. When I say irrational, you have to get them to be willing not to get it in two days or be willing to pay a little more for shipping and not have that 30-day return policy. But if you can differentiate your brand, you’re never going to out-scale Amazon, but you can humanize them. And when you can do that effectively, that’s a real win.
Robbie:
And along the way, if you want to understand what that journey looks like, you can educate and inform them as they’re making decisions along the way. So with more complicated sales, you want to be holding their hand and walking them through that decision-making process, the same way a salesperson would if I were walking into a car dealership in 1990. They want to know what’s going to be a good fit, what’s going to help me make a decision. Those are the things you can be doing all the time that build trust, credibility, and expertise in their minds and hopefully turn into a sale for your business later on.
Tim:
Yeah, and as you talk about the stages of decision, I know there’s different ways of looking at that. For SEO, a lot of times keyword research tools will break that into a handful of different buckets. You’re going to have informational intent—where somebody at the start is researching, reading articles, and gathering as much information as they can to solve their problem. Those are areas where, as you think about the customer journey, yes, you want to have that information on your website, but what information do you also want to have on other people’s websites? Where do you want your product placed for review and testing by third-party sites? If you have a running shoe, it’s great to talk about it on your own site, but if it’s on Running World and tested by some of their team, and they’re giving it a great review, then all of a sudden it’s got the trust and equity that comes from that brand saying, “Hey, this is worth purchasing” or “This is great for a trail runner” or whatever it might be.
Tim:
And then as you move from that informational part, we kind of refer to it as navigational. So you’ve maybe become aware of a certain brand or a selection of brands. Now you’re starting to do a mix of informational and maybe commercial, but you’re looking at, you know, this product versus that product or how does this stack up. You’re kind of navigating through the brands. Then they move down to like commercial intent, and from there to transactional. And that might happen in search, in social, or in a store. That’s where Google shopping ads always grab people too. That’s why people on the ad side see some of the highest return on investment, highest ROI or ROAS, for shopping ads because people are ready to buy, and they’re making that decision—be there where they’re making the decision.
Tim:
I don’t want to hit on the paid partners that look amazing with these great ROAS, but it takes a lot of work to make them aware. Yeah, it takes a lot of work, spending a lot of people touches before they came to them.
Robbie:
Yeah. You’re welcome, you’re welcome. Those are, again, all the things they’re thinking about along the way. For more challenging decisions, they may need more sources of information. Like for that pack of Band-Aids, I’m probably looking at maybe one or two sources because I don’t give a lot of thought about a pack of Band-Aids. Yeah. Truthfully, for a pack of Band-Aids.
Tim:
You say that, but our family makeup is biracial, so for us all of a sudden our daughter doesn’t need to wear a white Band-Aid. She shouldn’t have to do that. So it’s like, well, where do we find Band-Aids that are more fitting to her skin color? And so our buying journey looks different than your buying journey and somebody else’s buying journey because things that may not be a problem to you are a problem to us. So our journey now looks different, and we’re looking to different websites and sources to find these things.
Robbie:
Yeah. We have two kids under six, so all of our Band-Aids have unicorns, tie-dye, and all kinds of stuff. So we’ve passed that stage—those were fun for a while, but now there’s skin tones involved. Now it’s like, that doesn’t look as cool, dad. I’m sorry.
Robbie:
There’s no skin tones involved. But yeah, even the level of personalization and customization is going to be different based on just what stage in life you’re in. Yeah. If I’m buying a car though, I’m going to need a lot more sources of information just because of the level of risk involved. In my classes, I always say, “Hey, what was the last purchase you made for over a hundred dollars?” And what is the process you went through to make that decision? Pretty much guaranteed at some point you’re going to look at reviews. At some point you’re going to do this because those are things we lean on to help us make decisions. That’s how we will try to find that information. So if I’m making a B2B decision, that’s generally a high-risk decision. If I screw that up, I might get fired. It’s also involving a lot more stakeholders. Yeah, kind of like your household—there are more stakeholders involved, and the decision becomes more complicated suddenly. This is where for higher-level sales, some people need a level of safety introduced. So for e-commerce brands, maybe a chat function that can help validate the decision they’re making or even a phone call. Like being able to have a conversation. We share a client who’s an equestrian client, and their phone system is great because if I’m going to buy a saddle, I can’t make that decision based solely on online information. I want some level of expertise from a group that I trust. Can they help me get over the finish line?
Tim:
Yeah. Like you said, there’s a certain price point where decisions are easier, but the more expensive or complex it gets, the more that’s involved, and you have to get more sophisticated in what you’re doing. The sales cycle is so much longer, which means there’s more opportunity for more questions. Jumping back to B2B, it could be that somebody reads an article on your site, then sees you at a trade show, and then all of a sudden they’re downloading a study, and then they’re reading other people’s third-party reviews, if you’re on a review site. Then they have a phone call with your salespeople. It moves in and out, where you have these touchpoints. But there are gaps in between when we’re not in communication—what are they looking at? Who are they visiting? What are they seeing? That’s the uncomfortable space for a marketer—am I in all of those places? Is it good what they’re reading, or not good? How do I take control of that?
Robbie:
Yeah. It’s hard to control that narrative. But even talking to sales, that’s a huge unlock. Sales are talking with your customers in person a lot of the time. So if you have the luxury of a sales team, work with them. Get to know them really well because they’re the ones answering those questions. They’re the ones who know what pain points exist. They know which questions they get asked on every sales call. Those are probably good questions to answer.
Tim:
So you’re saying we should talk about that on our website?
Robbie:
Yeah. Even for sales, selfishly for them, if they have a more qualified, informed buyer, they don’t have to waste as much time. If they know what level of qualification someone’s at, they can pick up where the marketer left off. Ideally, the handoff should be as smooth and transitional as possible. If I, as a marketer, offer a marketing qualified lead or someone with a certain level of qualification, sales shouldn’t have to start from scratch. The salesperson should know what kind of information base they’re working off of. I think there’s a lot of overlap and alignment there.
Robbie:
That’s why we’re seeing growth in businesses and organizations having a chief revenue officer leading both marketing and sales. The ambiguity between them is increasing, and ideally, the level of collaboration should be increasing too.
Tim:
But it doesn’t always happen. Yeah. That’s something we’ve baked in for some time. Anytime we’re working with a client, during onboarding, one of the first things we ask is, “What are the questions you’re always asked?” If we see these things and their website doesn’t have that information—if there’s not a robust FAQ or content addressing those things—that’s one of the first things we tackle. Let’s start talking about these things. If that’s always being asked, it’s probably being asked across competitors too. If they’re curious about this feature or whatever it might be, you should be talking about it, explaining the benefits, and introducing your solution as something better than others. It’s such an overlooked area where it really shouldn’t be. That should be one of your first focus areas as a marketer—how do we collaborate with sales to figure out what people actually want to know before we dive into everything else?
Robbie:
Yeah. It’s a big unlock of what questions they want answered. It’s simple and easy for everyone to start from, but it’s not as common a practice as you might think. Breaking down that wall as marketers is a big unlock, and then you open the door to more great content. There may be some friction at first, but once the sales team sees the results, they’ll want to collaborate more. If you’re helping them close more deals or have a higher win rate, that’s a win for everybody.
Tim:
And if you don’t have a full sales team or full access, tap into Gemini or GPT, and approach it like a customer. Ask, “What are the questions I need to ask when purchasing this type of software?” and see what it pulls up. You’ll need to use a little intelligence to figure out what’s relevant, but it might close some of those information gaps.
Robbie:
It’s a great way to get into the rhythm of it. In the past, tools like “Answer the Public” provided common questions around a product or category. If you have an in-house expert, have them answer those questions. They’re going to love it. They’ll have their Rain Man moment, talking like a rockstar and nerding out on the stuff they do every day. Why not do that in a public space? And I know we’re just scratching the surface. We’re coming up on time, so we might have to break this into a part two.
Tim:
We wanted to get into personalization. It’s going to be a huge part of where things are going.
Robbie:
Yeah. Be ready for part two. We’re teasing you a little, showing a bit of leg to get you all bothered, so you’ll come back for part two. But coming out of this, three things I think every business and marketer should think about when understanding the customer journey for their business.
Tim:
Number one: don’t think linearly—ask the Irish guy to say “linearly.” Linearly. Don’t think linearly—sounds French now. Anyway, it’s been a long time since the journey has been simple. A $4 purchase like a candy bar might be a simple linear transaction, but most things don’t look that way anymore. Think about all the things your customer is interacting with: What are they reading, watching, listening to? What are you saying on your site? What are others saying? Start influencing those things piece by piece.
Robbie:
Number two: talk to sales. If youhave a sales team, talk to them or the people interacting with customers regularly. That’s the biggest unlock for understanding what problems they’re trying to solve. Take them to lunch. They have so much information from conversations with customers. They see the pain points: Are they afraid or is it opportunity-driven? Why are they making this decision? That’s a big unlock in getting them to the end point.
Tim:
Think about how you make decisions. We joked about being a marketer and leaving the human side at the door. But whatever you do, odds are most consumers follow similar habits. They think around the same types of problems, have the same objections, consider pricing, look at third-party reviews, and don’t just believe everything on a website. They want to know what other solutions exist. Think about how you make decisions, and how you can fit that into your business for your customers.
Robbie:
All three of those should tee everybody up to master the customer journey for their business. When we get into part two, we’ll explore even more, and have some fun with it too. There’s still so much evolution happening, and we’ll look at how to make the customer journey safe and effective.
Tim:
I love it, man. Well, I’m going to go work on a customer journey.
Robbie:
Yeah, I’m going to journey down to get some Band-Aids. Tim, it’s been a treat, sir.
Tim:
Talk soon. Bye-bye.
[Outro]
