Are you leveraging your path to
Hans Raemdonck
purchase as a path to growth?
Marketing against the path
to purchase
An important feature of the path to purchase framework
in Figure 1 is that it distinguishes between consumers
who are ‘on an active path to purchase’ and those who
are ‘dormant’. In any given market, at any point in time,
the majority of consumers will be dormant. This point is
illustrated in Figure 2. If one omits new category entrants,
people buy a new cell phone about every two years. But
the path to purchasing a cell phone is relatively short.
From our own research, we know that, on average, only
two weeks lapse between the time of the trigger and
the actual purchase. This implies that, at any given time,
only 2% of candidate cell phone buyers are on an active
path to purchase – meaning that 98% are dormant.
Ignoring the difference between dormant and active
consumers is a very inefficient way of spending
marketing budget. There is a need for a new approach
that markets towards the path to purchase and optimizes
the marketing budget as follows:
• Target the right people
• At the right touchpoint
• With the right message
• At the right time in the path
• With the optimal investment
Most marketers do not take this difference between
dormant and active consumers into account. For
instance, above the line advertising is usually deployed
in an undifferentiated way, trying to reach all potential
category buyers irrespective of whether they are in the
market or not.
Figure 2
ACTIVE DORMANT
2% 98%
4