The key to successful marketing is to meet the buyer where they are in the buyer’s journey with the most relevant content, messaging and offer possible. To do this, you have to understand the buyers’ journey and have a way to align content with a given point in that journey. The hands-down best method we’ve found to do that is by applying the See-Think-Do framework.
See-Think-Do is a framework for the buyers’ journey introduced by Avinash Kaushik of Google. It presents three states of mind that your buyers can be in at any given moment. These states are non-linear, meaning that your prospect can move freely from See to Think or from Think back to See, or even from See to Do.
As much as I want to dive into these three states of mind and what they mean, I think we need to take a little diversion and talk about our filters.
The Filters That Keep Us Sane
We all have filters that keep us from going absolutely crazy. No, I don’t mean the filter that keeps you from saying those thoughts about your brother-in-law out loud at family events. I mean the filter that prevents you from having to think about every little message or idea that comes across your eyes or in your ears.
Based on studies from the 2010s, your brain sifts through over 74 GB of data every day. You wake up, check your social feeds and email, drive past countless signs and billboards on your way to work as you listen to music. You arrive at your office, where you navigate small talk, more email, check the news and get however many ads in the process – and it’s only 10am.
If your brain forced you to think about every single word or picture you saw or heard, you’d freeze, unable to move the rest of your day.
Thankfully, we have filters that only push the relevant messages through to our consciousness. We only “notice” the things that matter to us in that moment. The rest just sails on by. What gets through the filters is the biggest difference between See and Think states in our buyers. Let’s explore these states in depth now…
See State
See state means your buyer may see content related to your brand or services, but adding or changing vendors are the last things on the buyer’s mind.
In See state, Your content will be filtered out unless otherwise relevant to the buyer’s world. Relevant, could mean it looks entertaining, or it could mean it piques curiosity or simply educates on a topic universally applicable to your buyer, regardless of any need for your product or services.
That doesn’t mean all is lost, though. Because you can market to the filter itself. By leveraging the mere exposure effect, you can raise awareness, trust and improve sentiment for your brand by simply keeping your brand in front of your audience.
This means your task to market to those in See state is to first build awareness and trust through repeated exposure, and then drive engagement by providing either entertainment or tangential value.
Think State
Think state means the buyer has a problem or sees an opportunity that you could help with, but the buyer has made no commitment to themselves or others to change vendors or initiate a project.
In Think state, the buyer’s eyes are open to content, but they are not ready to act. This means, if your content helps them create a greater vision of their opportunity, or helps them explore their problem in novel ways, the buyer will easily let it pass through the filter to the conscious mind.
What does this mean for you? It means you need to cycle through each of your target personas and identify what problems or opportunities might propel them into Think state. Then make sure you have the best piece of content possible to help them explore those problems or visions for the future.
Do State
Do state means your buyer has made a commitment to themselves or someone else to change vendors or initiate a project. This means they have a timeline in mind and an assumption that the change or project is possible.
In Do state, your buyer is prepared to engage and will take a call from a salesperson or potentially fill out a form requesting contact.
You have two jobs as a marketer to help your buyer in Do state:
- Make it easy for them to buy
- Help them justify their actions to themselves and others
Expanding the Journey States to Five
Avinash went on to expand upon his model, introducing “Care” as the 4th state of mind, but we found that in our experience, there are two distinct states that represent existing customers: Grow and Give.
Grow State
In Grow state, your buyers are actively buying (or recently bought) at least one product or service from you, but there is room for them to grow into your brand (and you to grow into the account). The buyer is not a raving fan, eager to sing your praises, and sees no problem or opportunity that would warrant them making a change to move more business your way in the future.
In Grow state, your buyers are actively buying (or recently bought) at least one product or service from you, but there is room for them to grow into your brand (and you to grow into the account). The buyer is not a raving fan, eager to sing your praises, and sees no problem or opportunity that would warrant them making a change to move more business your way in the future.
This is only slightly better than See state. Most of your messaging will still be filtered out, unless they relate to invoicing or the products or services being delivered. You have some goodwill and trust, but our filters don’t operate on goodwill or trust alone – they still have a job to do to keep us sane.
Your job for Grow state is really only an easier version of See state: prime the filter through brand awareness advertising and cut through the filter with entertainment or tangential value.
Give State
In Give state, not only is your buyer an active or recent customer of yours, but they have received so much value from your organization they feel they owe you.
This means this buyer is in a state of mind where they are eager to offer a referral, testimonial, case study or review. It’s your job, as a marketer, to identify these customers and make the ask.
Where to Go From Here
Now that you understand the five states of mind your buyer can bounce among as they navigate through their buyers’ journey, you can use this knowledge to make sure your brand is along for the ride at every stage.
Take the time to look at each of your target personas and their needs at each of these states within the buyer’s journey. Do you have content to meet their needs? Are you effectively delivering that content? Is the experience you’re offering optimal to help them accomplish their goals?
Answering these questions will make you a better marketer and improve your results over and over again.