It is important to know the purchase cycle of your customers, if you don’t know it, you are missing a great opportunity to improve your marketing actions and increase the profit of your company.
The purchase cycle is the process that a user goes through from having a problem or a need until he finds something that solves it or satisfies him.
One of the great advantages of online businesses is that it is very easy to follow each user in detail and know all the steps they have taken until buying on our website. If we know this whole process well, we can discover what points in our marketing strategy need to be changed or what improvements we should implement on our website to not to lose the interest of the leads.
The buying cycle is usually represented as a funnel and that is why it is also known as a funnel or conversion funnel. In each step of this funnel we find each of the processes of the user’s purchase cycle, which can end in a purchase or the final conversion. In the wide part of the funnel there would be all those people interested in a product or service, and in the narrowest part all those users who finally make the purchase of the product or service on our website.
In English, the purchase cycle is known too as buyer’s journey, which is from this term where the buyer persona concept comes out, which would be the ideal customer of our product or service, which we must understand in detail in order to better address it and achieve strategy to be more effective. Once we have defined our buyer persona in depth, it is time to create the Customer Jurney Map, a guide that we will have to create with content to guide the user according to their status in the purchase cycle.
That is why it is so important to carefully analyze each of the purchase phases, in order to offer the customer what they want at the most ideal time.
Phases of the buying cycle
The buying cycle is always made up of the same 4 phases:
1. Attention
A user realizes that he has a problem or need that he needs to cover. It is at that moment where he begins to investigate and comes across your brand. In this first contact the user is moved by emotions, therefore it is important to persuade him with attractive images that awaken the desire to satisfy the need.
2. Research
In this phase, the user already knows your brand and begins to look for information consciously, through other means, about different products and even about your competition. In this second phase it is important to impact the user.
3. Decision
At this point is when the user already has to choose between different possibilities and make a decision. In this phase, the user asks himself which of all the options he has found is the best.
4. Action
Once the user has already taken into account all the variables and has made a decision, it is time to proceed with the purchase. Customer service can make a big difference, since the user may still have some doubts and if we do not generate a good experience, they can cause them to change their mind and decide on another option.
