Identifying With Major-Life Purchase Marketers

We are huge fans of Seth Godin here at Jornaya. If you’re a marketer and haven’t been following Seth, you’re missing out! (Digression and shameless plug: Come see Seth at our Journey Summit in April.) A quote from his recent book resonates with me as Jornaya works to curate our own quality audience of customers, partners, and friends. “Marketers make change happen: for the smallest viable audience, and by delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages that people actually want to get,” he writes in his latest book, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See.  

This month marks my second anniversary with Jornaya. I joined a company that was already doing great things before I got here. It’s been gratifying to see the additional growth and accomplishments we’ve made—all of it due to smart, focused, hard-working teams. We’re fortunate to have built confidence and healthy collaboration with our customers and partners. And we continue to find mutual value in our relationships. As we jump into 2019, it’s energizing to embark on numerous new projects. One that I’m most excited about is our upcoming research initiative focused on helping marketers more deeply understand how consumers are making major-life purchase decisions.

People Like Us, Doing Marketing Like This

Back to Seth for a minute. Seth advocates doing work that matters for people who care. In response, we ask ourselves about the markets we serve and who the people are, in and around those markets, that we believe would be interested in what we do and how we do it. Most importantly, we push ourselves to discover why we do it (homage to Simon Sinek).

We love all marketers but, in the spirit of Seth’s words of wisdom quoted above, we are setting out to make a change happen for our viable audience: Major-Life Purchase (MLP) Marketers. Let me further explain what we mean…

Jornaya sits in a very unique position among hundreds of brands, performance marketing agencies, and comparison shopping services. These companies, of all shapes and sizes, are working to effectively position important products and services to consumers. Specifically, things every American adult generally needs for well-being or fulfillment. Purchases that are complex, involve lots of consideration, and entail a high degree of financial and emotional risk. Things like: financial assistance in the form of credit or loans, such as mortgages and personal lines of credit; insurance assistance to protect health, family, and possessions; a higher education to fulfill a passion or increase earning potential; and auto ownership that allows for freedom and mobility.

There have been lots of great companies and marketers doing excellent work and achieving strong results long before Jornaya came into existence. While we know these markets aren’t new, competition is greater than ever. And these markets, like most, are rapidly changing in the digital age. The ability to flood consumers with messaging and offers becomes easier and cheaper every day. Consumers have access to an abundance of information and are more in control than ever before.

You’re an Expert in This

The net-net? These industries require marketers who have a deep understanding of how consumers navigate these complex purchase processes. If you’re in these types of markets, we’re here to help you take up a stronger identity. We want to help you be recognized for your unique expertise as a Major-Life Purchase Marketer. Whether you’re marketing at a brand, an agency, a lead generation business, or a comparison shopping service, you have unique skills that differ from other marketers. MLP journeys are long, consumers are picky, and not every consumer is a fit or qualify for your product or service. Trying to make sense of it all, applying strategies, treatments, and technologies to get the desired results, all while making sure the consumer is ultimately served a great experience is increasingly difficult. In a time when 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, the best product doesn’t always win … the best marketers do!

So that’s where we, at Jornaya, hope to make a greater impact for you this year and beyond. We have been grateful to achieve a position in MLP Markets that allow us to witness over 200 million major-life shopping events every month: new, refi and reverse mortgages shoppers; home, auto, health and life insurance policy seekers; higher education applicants; and new and used car purchasers.

In the coming months, we will be releasing our first-ever MLP Marketing Report that will share valuable insights on how these purchase journeys are evolving:

• How long does my customer take from initial research to final decision? Is this timeframe growing or shrinking?
• How many unique sites does she visit for an auto insurance policy, mortgage refi, etc.? What kinds of sites are they?
• When considering changing providers, how early does my customer start shopping for alternatives?

By being able to help you answer these and other related questions, our goal is to give you the resources and information to be the best MLP Marketer you can be. Think about all you can achieve when you time and tailor your messaging more appropriately and precisely. You’ll delight your customers with relevant and desired offers. You’ll also gain a broader understanding, beyond those you see today, of the steps your customers are taking on their purchase journey.

Stay tuned as we put finishing touches on our first release in the coming weeks! If you’d like to make sure you get notified, please drop marketing@jornaya.com an email and we’ll make sure you receive it. Thanks for reading!

Matt Lohman is CRO at Jornaya.