For many manufacturers and retailers, the holiday season can be a “make or break” time period for generating sales and achieving revenue goals. For this reason, it is critical to understand your customer’s holiday shopping attitudes, behaviors and motivations. This is SIVO’s strength. Through approaches like in-store shop-alongs, mobile missions, online communities and in-depth focus groups, SIVO can dig deep into understanding the mindset and behaviors of your target customers, while immersed in the holiday season. Now is the time to act! Let SIVO help you understand your holiday shoppers so you can anticipate their needs and preferences to… Win the Season!
In your brand's early development stages, you likely gave much thought to the idea of a buyer persona.
You researched who you expected to purchase your products, how they would interact with your brand, and which factors would influence them to choose your brand over a competitor's. You painted a picture of what their needs are, what they do, and how their key motivators would align with your offerings.
Now, it's time to see that journey in action.
The path to purchase describes the journey that your target buyers take from the moment they first discover your product or service until they ultimately decide to buy it. The better you understand this journey, the easier it is to connect with them at key milestones and decision points to convert them from awareness to consideration to purchase, and then to repeat purchases.
Today, we're sharing how to conduct this research effectively and what to do with the results you uncover.
Put simply, the path to purchase encompasses all of the steps that your users take as they convert from a prospect into a paying customer. This can include multiple different channels, touchpoints, and platforms.
While each person's brand experience will be nuanced and unique, most leads take a few central steps as they travel along this journey. These include:
Also known as a customer journey or buyer journey, the path to purchase can be a valuable part of your audience analysis. It allows you to climb inside the mind of your prospective buyers, and current buyers and understand why and how they're engaging with your brand.
Let's break these stages down a little, explaining the important aspects to research and analyze.
The first step in the path to purchase is awareness. This is the moment that your prospective customers first learn about your brand, and it sets the tone and the stage for the rest of your interactions together.
Years ago, mass marketing campaigns were more effective than they were today. Modern buyers want customization and personalization at every turn, and 80% are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers tailored experiences. This means that gone are the days when you could send out one e-mail blast or a generic postcard to your leads and expect them to convert.
Now, the most effective ways to reach your target audience include:
Not only should these outreach measures be personalized, but they should also include a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages users to take that next step. Do you want them to check out your website, sign up for your e-newsletter, contact you to set up a consultation? Remember to make the CTA clear, actionable, and easy to follow.
Once you've initiated the path to purchase, you can track your marketing efforts, e.g., engagement and response rate, to understand how effective your chosen tactics were. For instance, with inbound marketing campaigns, most website analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics, or CRM systems, such as, HubSpot, allow you to easily monitor the traffic going to your website, the number of views each blog gets, or the success rate of your paid online ads.
Regularly review these numbers to understand which channels are the most successful. Then, fine-tune the most profitable ones and look for ways to eliminate or phase out the ones that aren't as fruitful.
For larger brands with national distribution, you can also conduct advertising and brand awareness tracking research to understand the percentage of consumers who are aware of your advertising and brand, pre vs. post the execution of your marketing campaign or in regular intervals such as, one or two times per year.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
Piquing the interest of your target buyer is only the first part of the path to purchase. Next, the prospect will consider all of the features that your company or product offers, comparing them against others in your same space. They're looking for differentiators that set your brand apart, such as price point, quality, speed of delivery, product features, and more.
To perform this competitive analysis, they may perform the following steps:
At the core of this step is the buyer's need for information and insights. If you can provide this intelligence about your solution better than anyone else can, then you're more likely to move them from this phase of the buyer journey to the next.
In this step, you'll need to research and manage your online presence and reputation. Do you know what your target buyers will see when they search for your brand name online?
There are reputation management tools that can help you uncover and respond to your company reviews. In addition to the reviews on your website or Google Business Profile, remember to also check common and industry-specific third-party review sites.
Another area to research is how well you've explained and demonstrated your product or service. If a prospective customer wanted to learn more about how your solution works, are there online descriptions, manuals, sheets, videos, or in-store signage that make this step simple? The more transparent you can be, the easier it is to compare your solution against another.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
After a lead discovers and researches your brand, they may decide to take that next step and make a purchase. To help them get there, you'll need to provide information that reveals why your company or offering is the best fit for their needs.
Depending on the solution you offer, this could require the buyer to make a significant investment. They'll want to review all of their options and compare top features to make sure they're making a wise decision.
This final stage of the path to purchase is all about sealing the deal. Research your company's current methods for engaging prospects and moving them along the sales funnel.
Some companies with “Business to Business” (B2B) offerings might use this time to perform presentations, pitches, and demos to share how their products work. Others with “Business to Consumer” (B2C) offerings might use advertising, on-package claims, third-party endorsements and in-store signage to demonstrate their benefits to prospective buyers. . The nature of your business and the type of audience you serve will dictate the exact strategy you deploy.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
At each stage of the consumer path to purchase, you'll have the opportunity to gather insights into buyer behaviors. As you do, it's important to know what metrics to track, when to dive in, and who to involve. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of the data you obtain.
As brands seek to improve their buyers’ path to purchase experience, most are focused primarily on hard numbers, aka quantitative data, about the purchase, including volume, amount and frequency of sales, who and where purchased, percent of repeat purchases, etc. While this type of behavioral data is extremely important -, but don't underestimate the value of qualitative insights about the buying journey.
The ultimate goal of each phase is to understand the mindset of your buyers, and you can't get there with quantitative measurements alone. You need to understand the emotions that your prospective buyers are feeling, as well as what's behind their concerns, hesitancies, and excitement.
A few of the ways you can capture qualitative feedback include:
Not only are these insights helpful in directing your current and future campaigns, but they can also motivate your internal stakeholders. If you can share direct quotes and client feedback with your C-suite and marketing teams, it's easier for them to understand the human side of their work, in addition to the technical and economical side.
For some B2C companies, there is a primary shopper involved in each brand interaction. However, most B2B transactions involve other, behind-the-scenes decision-makers and influencers.
As such, resist the temptation to consider the path to purchase as strictly linear and one-dimensional in nature. In reality, it's more multi-faceted and complex.
Try to learn about the key stakeholders involved in buying decisions, as well as their specific roles. It also helps to understand how they interact with one another, as well as when each one enters and leaves the buyer journey. While some will be involved from start to finish, others may join and leave at different times.
To get the fullest view of your path to purchase, don't start your research at the first time the buyer and seller interact. Instead, go back even further to the pre-shopping stage. Increasingly, this means analyzing how buyers live, work, and how they find and compare offerings to meet their needs.
Today, most buyers are hopping online to discover new brands. In fact, in the B2B sphere, the average customer performs 12 different searches before deciding to engage with a specific brand. While it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly when a buyer first discovers your brand, spend time exploring different purchasing triggers to understand how to optimize these interactions.
As you research and learn more about your customerpath to purchase, you can customize and fine-tune your offerings and marketing communications to appeal precisely to those who are interested in them the most.
At SIVO, we're dedicated to helping our clients understand their buyers' needs, beliefs, and behaviors. We can help you gain visibility and address challenges by asking the right questions directly to your target audiences. Then, we'll work with you to turn those insights into actionable steps that can drive conversions, improve engagement, and build brand reputation. Contact us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or go to SIVOInsights.com today to schedule a discovery call and connect!
By Natasha Weith
Innovation is often seen as a creative pursuit—a way for businesses to stay ahead, differentiate, and drive growth. But for many companies, the innovation process feels uncertain. How do you know if an idea will resonate in the market? Will consumers adopt a new product, behavior, or service? How do you distinguish between a promising concept and a costly misstep?
Most innovation initiatives are guided by internal vision, expert intuition, and trend analysis—all valuable inputs. But in a rapidly shifting consumer landscape, these elements alone aren’t enough.
Too many innovations fail—not because they weren’t good ideas, but because they weren’t validated in the real world before launch. The key to success? Embedding consumer input via market research into every stage of innovation instead of treating it as a final checkpoint.
Companies often assume they “know” their market. Here’s where innovation efforts commonly go wrong:
The result? Companies invest millions in ideas that sound good internally but fail to gain traction.
Consumers don’t just react to new offerings—they make trade-offs based on convenience, price, and habit. A product might be superior on paper, but that doesn’t mean consumers will switch.
To succeed, businesses must:
Without these insights, even a groundbreaking innovation can flop.
The most successful companies don’t just test ideas—they build them alongside the target consumer using agile, iterative research. However, even companies that invest in research get it wrong when they:
✖︎ Use Research as a One-Time final checkpoint – Instead of a continuous input, insights are only used for last-minute validation.
✖︎ Seek Confirmation Instead of Challenge – Teams look for data to support their pre-existing beliefs instead of stress-testing their assumptions.
✖︎ Over-Rely on Stated Consumer Intent – What consumers say they’ll do and what they actually do aren’t always the same.
✖︎ Fail to Connect Insights to Execution – Research reports sit in PowerPoints instead of shaping strategy and launch plans in real-time.
That’s where agile market research comes in. And let’s be clear: Agile research isn’t just about speed – it’s about making sure insights are integrated into the development process and at every decision point. Here’s how:
By embedding agile insights, companies create faster, more successful go-to-market strategies—without unnecessary spend.
It’s easy to get excited about a breakthrough idea. But without rigorous, real-time consumer input, even the most promising innovations can fail.
The best companies don’t just test innovations—they co-develop them with their consumer target. They ensure research isn’t a last-minute formality but a continuous input that sharpens ideas and launch plans and accelerates success.
As you think about your next big move—whether launching a new product, repositioning a brand, or identifying a growth opportunity—ask yourself:
If you’re not fully confident in the answers, it’s time to rethink how market research fits into your innovation strategy.
At SIVO, we help businesses turn market research into a competitive advantage. Whether you're validating early-stage concepts, refining go-to-market strategies, or optimizing post-launch success, we ensure that insights fuel smarter, faster decision-making at every stage of the process.
Our senior insights professionals specialize in agile, in-context research that goes beyond validation to actively shape breakthrough innovations. And with On-Demand Talent, we provide fractional research experts to scale your capabilities—without long-term hiring commitments.
Want to sharpen your innovation strategy? Contact us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or visit SIVOInsights.com to learn more.
by Cindy Blackstock
In Part 1 of our Jobs Theory series, we described how uncovering the underlying needs and motivations of consumer decisions leads to new opportunities for product innovation, renovation and positioning/messaging. Now let’s dig into the keys to success for Consumer Job Mapping.
“Jobs to Be Done” mapping works for all industries and any products or service to create a competitive advantage for your company or brand. There are a few points to consider when embarking on jobs discovery:
There are multiple ways to understand your consumer: in-home observation, longitudinal diaries, one-on-one interviews, in-context intercepts, etc. The optimal approach should be customized for your objectives and your consumers.
Enlist an experienced researcher to listen and interpret your consumers’ words and behaviours to identify the Job. For example, consumers cannot answer the question “What job are you hiring this face cream for?” Asking the right questions in the right way is key to uncovering hidden motivations.
A jobs map will be comprised of multiple jobs ranging from functional to emotional. Ensure each job has been defined – or structured – with context, motivation, and desired outcome. For example, a consumer statement such as “When (the situation) … I want / need (the motivation) … so I can (outcome).
Go beyond just identifying the job. Use activation sessions to translate the Jobs to address your team’s business goals. For example, mapping competitors against your jobs map identifies “white space” opportunities for new product innovation.
At SIVO, we have successfully helped our clients identify opportunities with Job Mapping including white space and positioning opportunities to win in the market place. Here are a few examples to bring it to life.
Innovate in an existing category
OPPORTUNITY: A food manufacturer wanting to find white space in the hot snack category to grow sales and earn a bigger share of consumers’ wallets.
SIVO APPROACH: We used a multi-phased approach to get a comprehensive view into the lives of their consumers. This included mobile journals, in-home ethnographies, in-store intercepts and product user immersion.
RESULT: With the Jobs Map framework, the client was easily able to identify and prioritize jobs signalling white space opportunities, and that led to the launch of a new and unique product to the hot snacks category.
Communicate with your target
OPPORTUNITY: An apparel supplier needed to more fully understand a new consumer target to develop effective messaging.
SIVO APPROACH: We dug deep with both consumers and the sales team to uncover hidden motivations for apparel purchases. We designed an approach that used online boards to capture longitudinal learning (multiple days of apparel choice) followed with webcam focus groups to dig deeper on what was uncovered during the online board.
RESULT: We learned how the target consumer “hired” her apparel and accessories to convey her personal style. This discovery was then reflected in our client’s Facebook and Instagram posts with a focus on the finer details and accessories that are unique to this apparel brand.
Position your new product
OPPORTUNITY: A tech start-up had developed a training app for athletes and were preparing for their next wave of fundraising. They needed to demonstrate they knew their target consumer and how to communicate with them. The company had a hypothesis around what their target consumer was looking for but needed to be sure.
SIVO APPROACH: We needed to capture the First Moment of Truth when exposed to the app and the Second Moment of Truth after using the app. We combined one on one interviews capturing the immediate reaction to the app, followed by a 2-week diary using the app, then one-on-one interviews to learn about the experience.
RESULT: SIVO uncovered an new consumer job, “I want to train like a pro” which was more compelling than the client’s original positioning for the App. The client shifted the messaging, in their introductory video, to focus on this job.
Are you ready to uncover, activate and deliver on your consumers’ jobs through data-driven product evaluation services? Please reach out to SIVO and we will help you build a Consumer Job Map that is full of opportunities to grow your business!
By Kerry Juhl
Managing a business is non-stop, full-time leadership. Typically, 90% of a leader's workday is focused on the daily needs of employees, customers, supply chain, marketing, sales, financials... and the list goes on. However, it is also a leader's job to present their team with a vision for the future, a "north star" that provides direction and goals for the organization, allowing them to compete effectively and transform opportunities into growth.
A great step in looking toward the future is to take stock of the landscape that you operate within, especially when there are changing dynamics in the external environment. The future growth of your business requires you to have a point of view on how your business will be impacted by changing consumer behaviors and preferences, the actions of your competitive set and external partners, and possibly the impact of new technologies. In other words, you need to have a vision of what your category/industry will look like in 5+ years to remain relevant in that future state and capitalize on future growth opportunities.
Trending
Do customers want to ‘hire’ your product?
Our team at SIVO has experience with helping clients build their category vision of the future. In fact, we have developed a step-by-step process that results in a defined Future-State Category Map to inform the Category Vision and Key Strategies for growth. A Category Vision not only demonstrates category leadership and anticipates the future, but it allows clients to take control and literally create their own destiny…a future where the business can thrive.
Define Current State:
Clients need to define the space that they currently play in. For some it might be narrow, for example, Skin Care. For others it might be broad, for example, Beauty Products. (There are pros and cons for how narrow or broad your category definition is and SIVO can guide your team to get to a definition that is relevant and actionable through our consumer insights solutions).
This step requires the gathering of category, competitive and consumer intelligence from a variety of sources, to answer questions, like:
Articulate Future State:
SIVO facilitates the client team through a small series of assignments and working sessions to envision the Future State of the category and to prioritize where to “place bets” within the category to maximize growth.
Create a Vision & Strategies to build Future State:
With the future state of the category defined, SIVO facilitates client teams through the creation of a Category Vision that serves as the "North Star", and Growth Strategies that the organization can put into action to drive category and brand growth for years to come.
A solid process with proven success. Are you ready to help your business create a category vision for the future? Schedule a discovery call today or reach out at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to develop strategies and plans that not only anticipate the future but create it!
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
