A consumer journey (also called customer journey, buying journey, or purchase journey) provides details on the different stages of buying a product or the steps customers take when purchasing a product.

Consumer journey projects help the client understand how a potential customer goes from not even knowing about a product/service to buying it. It helps them answer questions such as:

• How does the customer find out about the product/service?
• How do they get more information about the product/service?
• How do they make the decision to purchase?
• What medium do they use to make the final purchase (e.g., online or in-store)?

This information is then used to create tailored marketing campaigns that influence customers to purchase a product or service.

Minimum Requirements

• Provide 1 consumer journey per 3 hour request
• If data is not available to describe the complete consumer journey, explain this to the client and provide 2-3 insights into the consumer journey instead as helpful findings as you proceed with the client update
• Provide a minimum of 5 the following: (Client comments can provide valuable insight when it comes to selecting the parts of the consumer journey that you will include.)
  • Purchase motivations
  • source of information for the consumer
  • how long the process to purchase usually takes (phases/timeline)
  • decision making factors
  • needs/expectations/goals of the consumer
  • emotions/mindset of the consumer
  • pain points during the journey
• Provide a minimum of one image per 3-hour request. If possible, add an image for each concept discussed.

Locating Information for Consumer Journey

• Understand what particular interest the client has regarding the consumer journey and refine your search accordingly. For example,

  • Do they want a stronger focus on the psychological aspects of the consumer journey?
  • Are they interested in the online sources that a customer consults before buying something?

• Start with a direct search using keywords and search strings e.g., “consumer journey” OR “customer journey” OR “buyer journey” AND “mattress”. Use a variety of keywords for the best results.

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  • Keywords
    • Here’s a list of keywords to refine your search: Shopping habits, target audience behavior, consumer or customer journey, buyer journey, purchase journey, purchase decision making, journey map, buying stages, booking stages (e.g. for hotel and travel-focused requests), customer decisions, consumer journey mapping, etc.

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• If you find reports and studies on the consumer journey (e.g., this and this for the search string above), great! Be sure to include information from multiple sources instead of a single report.

• If you cannot find consumer journey information through a general search, use more specific search strings, Boolean, and X-ray searches, as well as filters to pull relevant results.

  <aside> 🧠 Note: Search strings and advanced search methods e.g., X-ray and Boolean search are tools, not strategies. Do not mention these in your research reports. Instead, mention the publishers of the resources, reports, and databases consulted (e.g., International Data Group (IDG)).

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