Are your purchase journey insights merely ‘interesting,’ or are they truly driving business transformation?

A detailed understanding of how your shoppers navigate their journeys to the moment of purchasing is a bedrock insight. But many purchase journey studies (PJ) are under-delivering, offering interesting glimpses, but failing to lay out a complete and actionable picture of the full journey. Some simple adjustments can make the difference between journey findings that are merely ‘interesting’ and those with the power to transform the business, as Joe Beier outlines in his analysis of the purchase journey landscape.

Begin at the end

A powerful question to ask at the outset of a study is: “What will you do differently when you have these insights in hand vs today?”  It puts the business situation, (vs the research) at the center of the discussion.  Key to this approach is enrolling the brand stakeholders.  What are their KPIs? What do they believe to be true of the journey?  This enrollment step ensures key issues are addressed and boosts insight actionability as brand stakeholders now also have study ownership.

Harness the power of a multi-methodology learning plan

Many journey studies are anchored with a quantitative online survey, but depending on learning objectives, additional methodologies may provide vital enhancements.  Start with the state of existing journey knowledge.  Are we updating recent journey insights or starting from scratch? If the latter, upfront qualitative is a way to ensure we are asking the right questions and in shopper’s natural language.  If we know that online research is key, a “Drill down” online behavioral study can identify actual online behaviors which cannot be accurately recalled from respondent memory weeks or months after the actual purchase.

Embrace that “Not all shoppers are created equal”

With an existing shopper segmentation, that typing tool should be incorporated into the PJ study and reporting should focus on priority segments. Absent segmentation, the PJ study can be expanded to enable the statistical derivation of a segmentation.  This yields a working “Shopper” segmentation (built from shopping behaviors) vs. a “Consumer” segmentation.  This segment- focused approach also addresses the central challenge of PJ studies which is the heterogeneity of journeys across different shoppers. It also enables dimensionalizing journeys across both rational (“What I did and why”) and emotional (“How did I feel about it”) elements which identifies more opportunities to impact the journey in your favor.

Activate like you mean it!

PJ studies are best regarded as a “Means” and not an “End”.  The best projects do not end with the findings shareout.  Instead, it is what I like to call, “The start of the fun stuff!” as we consider how best to put our new insights to work for our business. Start with an “Activation Workshop” – a half or full day session in which trained moderators lead ideation breakouts with your cross-functional teams. Workshops yield a robust list of seed ideas for in-market execution. Visual PJ maps are also a great way to socialize your PJ insights both inside your organization and with key customers.

Start implementing these best practice guidelines on your next purchase journey study and start your own journey to “next level” insights!