This is part seven of our series Marketing in the Service of Sales – about how marketing professionals can demonstrate to their sales counterparts and the rest of their organization that they bring real value to the table as an equal partner in the marketing-sales relationship
Mapping your buyers’ journey – understanding how, when and why your target audiences make buying decisions – can significantly increase the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts. It provides the sales and marketing teams with a roadmap for how to move customers from initial awareness through post-purchase loyalty. Developing B2B buyers’ journey maps may sound daunting, but even basic mapping can pay big dividends for your organization. Here’s a foundational approach to better understanding your buyers’ journeys.
Where to Start
For each of these stages, think through the following:
These stages of the buy cycle and the questions provide a basic but very effective matrix that helps to provide insight into the buyers’ journey.
Matrix, Map or Digital Tool?
Once you’ve filled in the basic buy cycle matrix, your marketing and sales teams have the information they need to more effectively move buyers through the purchase process. The buyers’ journey map can take any form that marketing and sales agree is useful, from a simple spreadsheet to a fully designed map to an interactive digital tool.
Using the Buyers’ Journey Map
Regardless of what form it takes, the most important thing to do with your buyers’ journey map is to use it as the focal point for collaboration between marketing and sales team efforts. For each step in the buy cycle, these teams should agree on who is responsible for reaching the prospective buyer, what format that connection will take and what information will be provided. It’s also important to come to a consensus on how marketing and sales will know when the buyer has successfully moved onto the next step of the journey, so marketing and sales can begin the next phase of outreach.
Basic buyers’ journey mapping, as outlined here, can result in significant improvements in marketing and sales metrics. For more information about or assistance with mapping your buyers’ journeys, contact Mark Shevitz.
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Part 3: Developing Customer Personas
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Part 5: Programmatic Media Buying
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Part 9: ABM—Focus and Pursue to Win
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Part 10: 3 Ways PR Influences Sales