“A considered purchase is characterised by a complex buying decision with a high degree of financial and/or emotional risk and reward. This process requires meaningful investigation and comparison by key decision-makers and influencers prior to a transaction.”
Well, that's what Wikipedia says anyway.
I believe that at Huble Digital, we’ve cracked the code for working with considered purchase products and services. While these usually fall into the B2B space (mostly every purchase in this space is a considered purchase with a high degree of risk and reward), other industries such as financial services, automotive, education, and real estate experience this type of purchasing too.
In order to start the process of creating a successful considered purchase marketing program, the following steps can be followed:
1. Identify target segments and their purchasing cycles
Carving out segments of your target audience and developing digital personas is a vital part of successful considered purchase marketing. However, the real key is understanding the customer’s buying process: all the way from pre-awareness, through to decision and beyond.
2. Map content to various phases of the purchase journey
Mapping content that is personalised and contextual is absolutely key to providing fantastic experiences at scale. Take a look at the experience from the customer’s perspective:
Tim is a first-time home buyer, he just doesn’t know it yet. While looking to rent a property, he stumbles across a well-researched infographic about “buying versus renting”. He learns that if he can rustle up the deposit, he can actually save money by buying a property, while also gaining a powerful asset for the future. Tim finds a “call to action” on the infographic, which takes him to a calculator that works out how much he needs to save, and over what period, to afford a deposit on a property. The calculator spits out 6 months, and so begins Tim’s long journey to achieving his goal of purchasing a property. Over the six months, Tim receives drip content from a variety of channels. These remind him to save and give him tips on how to do so effectively. The content includes video, desk drops, and a cool virtual piggy bank. At the end of each month, Tim receives an updated timeline for achieving his property dream.
After 6 months, Tim has enough saved to begin researching properties within his budget. This raises a flag in the data, which notifies the system to allocate a personal property consultant to Tim. The property consultant reaches out to Tim and he enters the sales process. Based on Tim’s profile, the consultant can see exactly what his budget and desired areas are. The system then creates a 100% contextual, personalised guide to help Tim purchase his dream property.
Tim chooses his property and is subsequently guided through the mortgage process via easy-to-consume, digestible content that keeps him updated on how far along the process is.
Once Tim’s purchase goes through, the system is notified and a bottle of his favourite champagne is sent to his new address, with a personalised card from his property consultant to welcome him on board. He receives “new home” design tips from the property company to help him set up and settle down in his new home.
Tim is ecstatic about his experience with the company and boasts about it on social media. Tim has 1000 friends on Facebook — 750 of which are in his age group and a similar demographic.
3. Scrutinise the data and don’t be afraid to change course
What I’ve outlined above is a near-perfect journey from awareness to delight. But it rarely plays out like that, which is why we need to scrutinise the data constantly.
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Where are people dropping off?
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Why are people not engaging with our content?
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Are we working off the right insights?
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Are our purchase cycles correct?
As long as we’re not afraid of change, we can keep the process agile and results-based. Agility allows us to create a fluid and data-driven set of customer journeys that will yield real results while providing awesome and — above all — useful customer experiences.
If you want to find out more about considered purchases and how we approach them at Huble Digital, feel free to reach out to us.
