Solving the Disconnect

[OCoppinger]

Recently I have been running into the issue where the business or individual purchasing my company's product is not the same person who would be considered our target market. What I mean by this is we will get data from people and their activity, but I cannot attribute a purchase to that person because they usually are not the ones making the final purchase. Is there a way to solve this disconnect? Or is it something that I am overthinking? 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @OCoppinger,

This is actually a pretty common situation, especially in B2B sales or industries where the end user and the buyer are not the same person. Think of software used by designers that is actually purchased by a company's procurement team or a parent buying a toy for their child. The disconnect you're noticing between your product's users and the actual purchasers isn't something you're overthinking. It just means you need to think about your customer journey in two layers – the user journey and the buyer journey. Each one has different motivations and pain points, and you might need separate messaging or strategies to address them both.

One way to bridge the gap is by understanding and mapping out the influence chain. If you can identify that your core users are influencing the purchase decision, then your marketing should empower them to make a case internally. This could mean providing better sales collateral, clearer ROI metrics, or even direct outreach to decision makers. On the flip side, if the buyer acts independently of the user, you may need to start collecting data and feedback from both parties to get the full picture. It’s not necessarily a problem to fix, but rather a dynamic to understand and work with strategically.

Hope this helps!