Conversely, the cycle could be incredibly long. Some high-dollar purchases or stressful decisions (from vacations to healthcare decisions) can take years but essentially undergo the same process.

Need Recognition:

• Traditional Media: Ostensibly every kind of advertising can live here, from television commercials to printed materials to large display ads
• Social Media: Both advertising as well as peer-mention impressions are included; note that, social media includes message boards and forums as well as major social networks
• Public Relations: This includes media relations and publicity and can be a powerful way to engage influencers and media for brand awareness and favorability.
• Search: This is, search in terms of the entire category, not individually looking up brands; for example, looking for all car dealerships in an area rather than a specific one.
• Other: This represents another way someone learns about a type of product or service

  Information Search:

• Search: This includes specifically searching and researching information on a particular brand or its product or service
• Social Media: This is where prospects seek recommendations by asking or browsing/lurking.
• Public Relations: A well-placed story can help provide details and differentiating information for those researching.
• Other: This list isnt meant to be comprehensive or future-proof.
• Evaluation of Alternatives:
• Sales: Contact with your sales team can help inform and move someone through this segment.
• Social Media: Seeking opinions to make direct comparisons or looking for others who have already done the same and received answers is key here.
• Public Relations: Again, a well-placed story can make for important third-party validation,

• Purchase:

• Sales: Here it is entirely the sales process that matters. Conversion can be won or lost at this step depending exclusively on how the actual experience of buying plays out.

• Post Purchase:

• Social Media: Will you be an advocate or provide critical feedback by remarking about your experience or impression?
• Other: While social media is not the sole way that feedback is shared, its certainly a word-of-mouth channel that can be tracked and seen.

• Budget Emphasis

  Understanding that this process exists, many campaigns still simply focus on Need Recognition and then Purchase, ignoring the process our target audiences take part in before making a decision.

• Correlating with Data

  Its important to note that often businesses may have a distorted view of the actual timeline associated with the buyer decision process because of the kinds of data they use.

  For example, a typical business may track and collect:

• General research before a product rollout
• Data on the potential reach of advertising efforts

• While this may seem comprehensive and result in a tremendous amount of data to be analyzed, note that in every instance the data does not, for example, reflect the behaviors that would be present in the Information Search phase (as one example). This may lead to assumptions that are not correct or validated and may further result in missed opportunities and potential issues that go unidentified.

• ROI on specific calls to action
• Online data
• Post-purchase surveys that include et promoter data

• The last vendor shuffled out of the conference room and the CMO sighed before gathering her things and agreeing to reconvene in the coming days to decide. When she arrived back at her office she made another decision about budgets.

  The Lamb Hospital CMO could continue the familiar cycle or she could inject some new or perhaps, more realistic thinking into the equation. The CMO had found significant validation for what they were already doing. They could clearly see how the need recognition moved through to post purchase. What alarmed her was recognizing that they were so focused in terms of dollars and time on the beginning and end of the process and were missing some critical steps in between. She briefly assessed her department and made some notes:

  They had strength in provoking need in their target audience, and their efforts had proven successful in that phase.

  Lamb Hospital had a strong brand locally and was positioned well amongst its competitors.

  However, they didnt know if they were compared to certain competitors very often; they assumed they were, but they didnt know for sure.

  Locally their traditional advertising was always fresh and relatively effective.

• What glared: they didnt know much about the voluntary processes of decision making who were the members of their target audience taking recommendations from? What did those conversations like as prospects gathered opinions in the information search phase?

  Examining her notes, she realized she needed to do some research to better and more fully understand what was happening at each step of the process.

  The Research Problem

  As the CMO sketched out the cycle during her break between presentations she found that their own research has been reinforcing the ad-spend parts of the cycle and not the entire decision-making pathway. They dutifully conducted an annual preference study and pored over online and offline reviews alongside their own customer satisfaction surveys. (She was reminded of the dozens of post-purchase surveys she has been given lately, both at point of purchase or in follow-up communications.) Sometimes these vendors suggested a focus group or two. But every bit of research came from the two ends of the consumer experience. Nothing was focused on the middle of the process or on how the decision was made. Nothing was really focused on the actual behavior of choosing their services or product, in this case, healthcare. So, it shouldnt surprise them that all of their research pointed to solutions aimed at addressing problems at either end of the process. They had happily remained in the dark, pretending the intermediate steps werent there. In many ways theyve been stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  She realized that managing the consumer decision making process can easily must be thorough and comprehensive, rather than simply process driven.

  Obstacles:

• Current resources were not aligned for the entire cycle.
• Internal research revealed data only about a portion of the decision-making of the target audiences.

• Opportunities:

• Buyer behavior teaches us more about ourselves and our audiences than we had thought.
• Take a deep look at our team makeup is it aligned with consumer experience and behavior?
• Shift a portion of the research budget to better understand the center of the decision-cycle, when consumers are conducting their own research and making direct comparisons.
• New research and audience insights could uncover:
• New opportunities for differentiation
• Positioning obstacles and opportunities
• Purchase-point issues that are currently not revealed
• While maintaining processes felt efficient, they may be lulling themselves into a false sense of security
• Historically relying on third party vendors had provided tactical solutions to stated problems, but it had not offered not strategic insight.
• Change is hard!

• Lamb Hospitals CMO, while based in the healthcare industry, is truly facing an issue that permeates any type of business from any industry. In an industry increasingly relying on vendors, who in many cases are producing exactly what they are asked, complacency with process is an easy trap.

  The situation also brings to light that having tools, team, budget, 3rd parties, etc. doesnt mean one has all the answers. Having research doesnt mean you have the right research and it often requires stepping back and seeing the entire decision-making process of your audiences to get the appropriate perspective and re-align. Even wrong decisions, if made enough times and not directly tied to negative outcomes, can become part of the fabric of an organization.

• A patient would like to schedule an upcoming surgery. He is undecided on whether to look at a hospital that is far away but that is known for its expertise in performing the procedure or one that he is familiar with and is near his home.

For Lamb Hospital (and all companies), ensuring their strategic position (the way their customers think of them relative to the competition) is clearly and effectively communicated at all marketing communications is particularly important at what phase of the buyer behavior process?

A

Need recognition

B

Information search and Evaluation of alternatives

C

Purchase

D

Post-Purchase

E

None of the above

A satisfaction survey would give you information about who and what part of the buyer behavior process?

A

Pre-sale consumers who have not recognized the need for a particular product or service

B

Pre-sale consumers still in the information search phase

C

Confirmed consumers post-sale

D

None of the above

How can the CMO differentiate the evaluation of alternatives phase from basic consumer research on Lamb Hospital?

A

Consideration of how the hospital differentiates itself from its competitors

B

Directly comparing the hospital to its competitive set

C

Determining if marketing efforts have effectively provoked need in the target audience

D

A and B

E

B and C

F

None of the above