Defining the Buyer’s Journey: 15 Questions to Nail Down the Problem and Solution

You need an intimate understanding of your customer and the obstacles they face at every touchpoint along the way. Start with these questions.

Key Takeaways:

• Today’s buyers hold the reins when navigating the buyer’s journey.
• 76% of customers get frustrated when companies don’t personalize their experience.
• The only way to understand the buyer’s journey is by asking the right questions.
• The awareness, consideration, and decision stages each come with unique questions to help you define the journey.
• With the answers to those questions, you can paint the touchpoints that make up the journey (and the personas who activate the touchpoints).

The buyer’s journey is becoming the most important framework in inbound marketing. Every sale your brand makes is the result of a buyer completing their journey – and every instance of churn is the result of a buyer prematurely ending it. 

The most well-known iteration of the buyer’s journey is a three-stage map: 

• The awareness stage
  The buyer is actively looking for ways to address the problem they’ve identified.
• The consideration stage
  The buyer has enough information about available solutions to think about making a decision.
• The decision stage
  The buyer decides to purchase your product or service as the solution to their problem.

Of course, the buyer’s journey never really ends if you want to retain customers. Converting that sales funnel into a flywheel turns happy buyers into promoters through another three stages to know: attracting, engaging, and delighting them.

That journey can take many routes, though, so it’s important to anticipate all the potential paths buyers may take to reach you. 

The buyer’s journey is customer-led and increasingly complex

There’s one important thing you need to understand: Sellers don’t pilot the buyer’s journey anymore – if they ever did!

"Sellers don’t pilot the buyer’s journey anymore – if they ever did!"

Buyers are in the driver’s seat, so it’s not enough to build a linear journey map that brings your lead from point A to point B to point C. Instead, you have to consider the likelihood that your customers will want to circle from point B back to point A to review some information, and then go back to point B to think about their options. After that, they may finally make a decision about your product or service. There’s no one absolute way they’ll go.

The point is your buyers are too picky to shoehorn into a linear buyer’s journey that lacks real definition. They also likely feel they have to be picky because no one else will recognize their pain points and anticipate the solution for them, right?

That’s where you come in.

Buyers want brands to anticipate their needs 

These days, it’s not enough to have a killer solution to a big problem. Even if you have that, you may still be missing out on leads and customers. That’s because you have to show buyers that you’re inside their heads and tackling their problems from a place of understanding.

"Show buyers that you’re inside their heads and tackling their problems from a place of understanding."

You need to get personal. Recent research from Twilio found that over half (56%) of customers say they’ll become repeat purchasers after a personalized experience with a brand. And that number increased by 7% since 2022.

If you don’t live up to these expectations, you could lose potential customers before they even reach the end of the buyer’s journey. Consumers want personalization to feel understood and seen. They want to know that you are considering their unique needs and experiences.

Ask these questions about buyers at every stage of the buyer’s journey

The only way to understand your buyer is to ask the right questions and think critically about the answers from the buyer’s perspective. 

Consider this: the buyer’s journey is already partially over before your sales team even hears from a prospect. If you don’t define your sales funnel’s stages based on the buyer’s needs, they might bounce before ever landing on your product.

"If you don’t define your sales funnel’s stages based on the buyer’s needs, they might bounce before ever landing on your product."

Ask yourself these 15 questions to define the buyer’s journey at each stage.

Questions for the awareness stage:

1. What’s the buyer’s biggest goal?
2. What’s their biggest obstacle in the way of that goal?
3. Where does the buyer go to troubleshoot their challenges?
4. How does the buyer decide to prioritize solving a challenge?
5. Who does the buyer turn to for advice about their challenges and goals?

Questions for the consideration stage:

1. Where does your buyer go to find and compare solutions?
2. What information does your buyer need to compare solutions (e.g., pricing)?
3. How does the buyer weigh the pros and cons of solutions?
4. How does the buyer digest information most effectively?
5. What are the buyer’s deal-breakers?

Questions for the decision stage:

1. Who else does the buyer need to involve in a decision?
2. Do buyers need to prepare to implement the solution (e.g., make an implementation plan)?
3. Is your buyer more likely to make a decision if they can try the product first?
4. What questions does the buyer have about implementing your solution?
5. What are the most important criteria for your buyer’s decision-making process?

Bonus: 5 questions for the retention stage

Not all iterations of the buyer’s journey include ”retention” as an outlined stage, but it’s a critical fourth stage that’s also represented on the flywheel as ”delight.” 

You see, it can be five to seven times more expensive to attract a new customer compared to retaining an existing one. Simply boosting retention by even 5% can increase profits between 25% and 95%.

Ask yourself these five questions to guide your buyers from decision to retention: 

1. What are the buyer’s expectations for your solution? 
2. What obstacles might get in the way of the buyer’s desired results? 
3. What results should the buyer expect from your solution? 
4. What action does the buyer need to take to maximize results? 
5. How does the buyer quantify results, value, and satisfaction with your solution? 

Walk with ContentBacon through your buyer’s journey

Telling your brand’s story through the buyer’s journey requires some intensive thought about:

• Who your buyer is and what they want
• Their biggest pain points, challenges, and goals 
• The personas that represent them
• The touchpoints they go through 
• The buyer’s thought processes and priorities 

That’s a lot to cover. You can get pretty close in 15 questions, but you might still want some extra support. 

ContentBacon gives you that. Check out our newsletter, Bacon Bits, to read about attracting, engaging, and delighting the people who make your business turn on its axis. Then, read about our content subscriptions when you’re interested in partnering with us for kickass inbound marketing content.