Discovering Key Moments in B2B Purchasing Decisions
The process of requesting a sample
How contextual interviews gave deep insight into the 5 most influential moments in purchasing decisions made by district administrators.
Employer
McGraw Hill
Year
2024
Project background
A project to better understand the challenges and opportunities their customers face when requesting product samples.
The goal was to uncover specific opportunities within the experience and identify areas where their marketing team could capitalize. Specifically, they aimed to gather insights to inform improvements in their digital sampling process and reduce the costs associated with physical materials.
Kickoff
I reviewed any existing documentation related to the sampling experience. This included old interviews, surveys, and marketing data.
I also met with members of the marketing team to discuss the current process. These efforts were aimed at gaining a comprehensive understanding of the sampling process and closing any knowledge gaps on my part.
Workshop & previous research board
Participant detailing their usage of different parts of the sample
Contextual Interviews
Conducted 15 contextual interviews (90 minutes) with customers who had recently requested product samples. The goal was to map out the end-to-end process of requesting a sample.
Key objectives included :
Uncover decision points during the process.
Understanding where the physical product sample influenced purchasing decisions and which ones didn’t.
Identifying any pain points in the experience.
Survey
After the interviews, I launched a survey to quantify the findings. Additionally, we wanted to explore the time and effort invested for product reviews
Key objectives included;
Identifying the overall time available for reviewing samples or full products.
Uncover how many samples are being reviewed and by who.
Exploring if the review process involves multiple stages.
Slides from the follow-up survey
Deliverables, Impact, and Insight
A comprehensive deck detailing the sampling journey was presented to the marketing team and their leadership. In the deck was an in-depth walkthrough of all the channels, touch points and customer work arounds of the sampling process.
This in-depth exploration identified five key areas in the sampling process where the team’s impact could be most significant, highlighted the crucial role of certain print samples, and uncovered opportunities to enhance their digital strategy.
