Is the Path to Purchase Cutting It as a Marketing Framework?

// BACKSTORY

A month and a half in, I was given a new assignment. My first six weeks were spent learning the Neutrogena Suncare business and the category, working on product pages for Amazon and building reports in Nielsen. But now, the team was deciding to give me a more strategic project, something to really stretch my marketing capabilities. The assignment? Develop a digital content strategy... develop a what?

A digital content strategy. Essentially, what should we place where in the digital space—online, social media, mobile, ecommerce. OK great, but where do I start? Luckily, I was blessed with a very resourceful team, and they were able to provide me several frameworks and models I could use. Still, I was in my manager's office constantly asking questions.

I finally asked one morning, What is the point of digital? What are we trying to do with what we're doing on digital? A question my manager had already gotten several times from me, in some form or another. How is something created without knowing the purpose of it? We want consumers to use sunscreen. That was her response. And with that, I had something with which I could really work. To use the product—so basic and simple. But very direct and pointed. (Thank goodness for a wiz of a manager and an awesome team.)

// THE PATH TO USAGE

The Path to Purchase, or the Purchase Funnel, seems to be a rock in the marketing world. And for good reason—our jobs as marketers is to get people to buy our stuff. But my job now with this digital strategy was not necessarily to get consumers to buy, but rather to use. That got me thinking.

That thinking led to the Path to Usage, a reframing of the more traditional Path to Purchase, after which it is modeled. The Path to Usage is founded on the idea that consumers buy products in order to fulfill a need. Here's how it works:

Phase 1: Awareness

It all starts with the consumer realizing that there's a problem that requires a solution. That could be the consumer coming across this problem on his or her own, a friend or family member bringing it to the consumer's attention, or the brand letting the consumer know that the problem exists. Whatever it is, it is essential that the consumer understands that there is a problem that needs a solution.

Phase 2: Evaluate

Next is the consumer's evaluation of this problem, and more importantly deciding whether the problem is relevant to him or her. This phase is critical—if the consumer concludes that he or she doesn't have this problem, there is no reason for purchase. Thus, the brand needs to facilitate this evaluation.

Phase 3: Purchase

This is where the traditional Path to Purchase—awareness, consideration, purchase, loyalty, and advocacy—comes into play. While the linearity that marketers used to see with the progression through this path is changing to a more cyclical pattern, the relevance and applicability of a purchasing model still exists. In this phase of the Path to Usage, the consumer finds out about a product or service and then purchases it if it is right for him or her. (But the first two phases are important because if the consumer doesn't understand that there's a problem, there isn't a reason to purchase a solution.)

Phase 4: Use

Purchase and usage are very different—just because a consumer buys something doesn't mean he or she is going to use it. But a prime trigger of repeat purchase is usage, so why shouldn't the brand help the consumer make sure he or she is using it?

Phase 5: Advocacy

The final step in the Path to Usage is the consumer becoming an advocate for the purpose of the product or service, bringing awareness of the problem to family and friends who have it with the goal of making sure they address it.

// FURTHER CONTEXT

The Path to Usage was founded in a low-involvement and low-awareness category. People buy sunscreen so they don't get sunburnt, it's typically as simple as that. But even beyond that, something like 59% of U.S. households don't even purchase in this category. As important as it is that people buy Neutrogena Ultra Sheer and CoolDry Sport and Beach Defense, it's (maybe) more important that people buy sunscreen at all, be it Banana Boat or Coppertone or Private Label. That's part of the equity of Neutrogena Suncare—the education behind sunscreen usage, and the importance of it in decreasing the potential for skin cancer.

It follows, then, that this Path to Usage applies to similar-type categories: low involvement and low awareness. Oral care is a good example, allergy another one—many categories that are about the consumer's well-being, because the brand wants to help the consumer with something that isn't always top of mind.

But the Path to Usage has a place in other categories, too. Again, it is about satisfying a need. Oftentimes, the brand “creates” a need—enter the technology age. In these cases, it is imperative that the brand make that need known and relevant, and it is equally critical that consumers actually use the product or service if that product or service is to survive in the marketplace.

// WHY IT MATTERS

The Path to Usage is broader than the Path to Purchase. The Path to Purchase is oriented on the product or service, but similar to the new Consumer Journey model that has been created, the Path to Usage addresses the entire purpose for purchase. And it allows the brand to influence each touchpoint within the consumer's search for a solution to a realized problem.

Furthermore, assuming customer satisfaction, usage leads to repeat purchase, and repeat purchase is the best form of loyalty. And it's loyalty that seems to be every marketer's end goal. What is a brand if it has no loyalty? Unsustainable.

To answer the question posed by this writing, no, the Path to Purchase is not cutting it as a marketing framework—we marketers need to think more broadly than the purchase cycle to explore how we can affect the consumer's decision making from the very beginning to the very end. It is absolutely necessary that the consumer “buys” the need, and not just the product—otherwise, what's the purpose of buying the product? And the Path to Usage addresses that objective.

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twoframemktg.com, December 31, 2015