The End-User Consumer is Not Always the One We Need to Target
Dealing with a complex customer path: How do you market your products when the buyer and the end-user are different? The Harvard Business Review tells us how. The “How to Market a Product When Your Buyer Isn’t Your User” by Eddie Yoon, is an interesting take on the end-user and buyer customer journey structure.
The Customer Path Spectrum
The article divides the customer path structure to fall on to a spectrum. Some consumer pathways are straightforward with one buyer and one user (buying a product for yourself). Others are more complicated with one buyer and multiple users (buying a product for yourself and others), and others are even more complicated where buyers and users disagree on what is needed.
The more complicated the buyer and user relationship, the more complicated the customer path. A more complicated consumer path can result in delayed purchases and turn, delayed revenue. According to the article, if a consumer path is complicated, companies will be forced to spend a higher budget on Marketing & Sales to push customers through the purchasing funnel.
How to Solve A Complicated Buyer-User Relationship
The article mentions 3 steps that are important to solve a complicated buyer-user relationship.
1. Recognize all buyers and users
2. Be able to effectively and efficiently coordinate across all buyers and users
3. Understand and align the interests of all buyers and users
Some industries have more complicated consumer paths, for example, in Healthcare or Education. The articlementions a couple of examples that demonstrate how these 3 steps can be incorporated into solving the complexity.
An Example in the Healthcare Industry…
You would think that in the health-care industry specifically, there is a clear buyer-user relationship. For example, if someone is feeling ill, they buy products to cure themselves. Yet, according to the article, it is much more complicated than one would think. It is difficult to recognize all buyers and users specifically in Healthcare. This is because it can be very complicated to do so, because of many underlying factors that can affect a buyer’s decisions. For example, it is in human nature for people to find it difficult to change their behavior. If someone is suffering from digestive health, it may be difficult to self-motivate to change their diet and lifestyle. Digestive health though does not just affect patients, but their employers because digestive health can result in a lack of turning up for work.
This is where “Employers” became the buyers for digestive health products. Employers want their employees to be able to come into work normally, so they immediately develop an interest in the product. They become buyers when they incorporate digestive health in their companies as a resource to the end-users.
What do I think?
In my opinion, recognizing who the buyers and end-users are for a product is very important. As seen in the digestive health example provided by the article, the buyer can be someone completely unexpected than the user. Companies must be able to recognize exactly who the buyers and users are for each one of their products, and this will less-complicate the customer path. This way, companies will avoid spending huge amounts of money on Marketing and Sales efforts, because they will be able to target the right buyer that fits each product, rather than try to force consumers into the purchase funnel. I think that a good way this can be done is recognizing that for every product, there is a Primary and Secondary target audience. Perhaps in healthcare, the Primary audience is the person who needs treatment, but there is an existing Secondary audience too- those who suffer if treatment is not completed. Therefore, it is always important to consider all potential customers who are interested in the product, and the reasons behind why each customer is. Consumer research is necessary to do so, to be able to identify certain factors such as behavioral ones, that may influence the buyer and end-user spectrum.
