A journey map can capture the channels and steps and still miss what set the purchase in motion, how the buyer felt, or what happened after checkout. Five areas deserve a deliberate look.
The Trigger Event
Inertia can keep someone from acting or hold them in an existing purchase cycle. The event that finally breaks that inertia affects the pace of the journey and the touchpoints available to a brand. For example:
- A broken or non-working item (e.g., a flat tire, non-working mobile phone) is a trigger which often necessitates near-immediate replacement. This journey will be far different than most others and skip many influential touchpoints that are present in longer journeys.
- An impulse purchase due to product or service exposure will often result in a narrower set of available touchpoints to influence brand selection.
Emotion
Emotion and mindset across the journey can affect the tone of advertising and communications as well as salesperson-purchaser interactions.
We find that positive emotions predominate in many journeys across most phases, although this is not always the case. Some examples of negative emotions include:
- Stress or uncertainty when making a big-ticket or life-altering purchase (e.g., car, home, baby products)
- Frustration when navigating a wide array of product or service options, trying to identify a solution to a consumer or business need, or due to lack of category knowledge/understanding
- Anger towards higher-than-expected prices or a lack of transparency from brands or retailers
Each emotion calls for a different response at the touchpoints that follow.
Emotions also change during the journey. A purchase that begins with frustration may end positively, while another can move back and forth as the buyer weighs the options.
Category Needs
Journey research often catalogs why someone chose a particular product or service without examining the broader need it fulfilled.
Understanding the need explains why someone entered the category and which alternatives they may consider. Some needs span several categories: a transportation need, for example, could be met by a rental car, a ride-hailing service, or public transportation.
A specific need may be expressed in a rational or emotional way. For televisions, for example:
- Rational: Having the latest technology to watch sports with friends
- Emotional: Not feeling embarrassed with my current TV when friends are over to watch sports
How the need is expressed often requires distinct approaches for marketing and sales.
Qualitative or other field research can identify the range of needs. Quantitative research can then estimate how common they are and prioritize them.
Post-Purchase
Journey research often stops at the purchase event. What happens afterward, however, can reveal information that should influence earlier touchpoints. It is therefore important to understand the post-purchase experience:
- If there are required product/service actions such as product assembly, food/item preparation, or B2B service onboarding, how was the experience, both overall and versus incoming expectation?
- Did the purchaser take any advocacy actions, such as spreading word of mouth, leaving reviews, posting on social channels? Were they positive or negative?
- Are they likely to buy again? Why or why not?
- What information do they now wish was available during the path-to-purchase?
These answers can show what should change earlier in the journey and what might encourage a repeat purchase or recommendation.
Personas
Purchase journeys often differ with the goals and needs of the purchaser. Persona-level journey maps can help an organization distinguish the audiences with the greatest opportunity and the paths that need different interventions.
- An effective way to develop personas is by segmenting the category based on user needs, with each persona typically exhibiting a range of attitudinal, behavioral, and demographic differences from other personas.
- Some personas will share common needs, though potentially expressed in different ways (e.g., rational vs. emotional), or addressed in unique ways.
- Persona-level journey maps can help internal teams plan different messages or experiences for each audience.