Buyer Journey - Engage and connect when and where it matters most - Authentic branding (2023)

The last few years and especially the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly changed the customer journey and customer experience. People today expect more from brands: a smoother bridge between digital and in-person interactions and deeper, more authentic brand-customer relationships.

As companies realign their operations for a post-pandemic world, they need to review their purchasing journeys to re-evaluate how the sales and marketing process intersects with them. Importantly, businesses need to consider the post-sale relationship they maintain with their customers. Companies that don't consider retention, advocacy, and loyalty strategies will miss out on important branding and revenue opportunities.

In this month's virtual panel, we interview Authentic Brand Fractional's CMOsBarb Bertsch,interest kiger, SheKris Paulsonto learn more about the critical role marketing plays in defining the buyer's journey and facilitating the connection along it. Fractional CMOs shared tips on how companies can better support prospects on their journey, increase conversions and build lasting customer relationships.

1. What advice would you give to growing companies trying to better understand the buyer journey and identify ways to support buyers more effectively?

Tongue:Documenting the buyer's journey is a fundamental element of marketing. Knowing how and why your customers are buying from you helps marketers understand how best to target them and helps sales know how best to engage with them. It's also an effective tool for determining which messages are needed to capture customers' attention and drive their actions through the purchase funnel, ultimately leading to a purchase decision.

When marketing fully understands the buyer's journey, it is better equipped to support the sale. The same applies to sales. When sales understand exactly what their buyers are thinking and feeling at each step of their journey, they are better equipped to respond more effectively, thereby shortening the sales cycle.

Interest:The shopper journey starts with raising awareness of your product or service. This means you need to activate strong awareness marketing activities, including search engine optimized content to attract potential customers to your website or strong brand messages at trade shows to attract them to your booth.

Understanding your buyers' pain points at each stage helps your business create the right content at the right touchpoints, which ultimately helps you nurture loyal customers. By knowing your audience and the channels they use, you can establish clear communication with them and build strong, lasting relationships.

Another important way is to build trust with your brand through the content you create for each stage of the customer journey. Trust is an essential part of the purchase decision. consequentlyEdelman Trust Barometer Message81% of consumers worldwide said they must trust a brand before they buy it.

Kris:A deep understanding of your customers is essential for any business. Not just who they are, but also how they find you and what they need from you. Once you have that idea, you can influence them so that buying from you is in their best interests.

Your potential customers find information long before they contact you. They need to answer questions and provide value at every stage of the buyer journey. That means developing content that helps them move in your direction.

Without them, you're missing out on potential customers you didn't even know existed.

2. What are the lasting impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the buyer's journey, and how should businesses continue to address those impacts?

Interest:Before COVID-19, most consumers were already preparing to use technology more easily in their lives. The digital transformation accelerated by the pandemic in everyone's life. The workforce needed to be productive from home, and Zoom and Teams calling became the new way for sales teams to showcase their products to clients. Talk about old students going to a new school and having to quickly adjust to all the changes at once!

Customers now want a digital experience and expect seamless transactions and personalized experiences throughout their journey. It's important to align all customer-facing departments (eg, sales, marketing, customer service) and ensure they have the tools they need to continue to build trust by listening to customer needs and delivering solutions that to fullfill expectations.

I think the last few years have taught us that we need to adapt and adopt new strategies and technologies while keeping our customers' priorities in mind.

Kris:The COVID-19 pandemic has definitely taken a toll on marketing and sales, but the stages of the buyer journey haven't changed. The difference is that shoppers are now doing more online research than ever before.

Marketing and sales have to adapt to changing buyer needs. This means companies need to invest in the creation of digital assets to remain more competitive than ever. Online content should be a focus area to ensure potential customers can access the information they need about your business to gain trust and influence them.

In short, marketing and sales must adapt their strategy to the needs of today's buyer.

Tongue:on onerecently published McKinsey article, COVID-19 was observed to have changed the way B2B buyers and sellers interact:

"B2B companies view digital interactions as two to three times more important to their customers than traditional sales interactions."

B2B companies need to change their game when it comes to digitalization. Buyers explore businesses across multiple digital channels (i.e., omnichannel). We must react accordingly. Don't have a chat option? find one Not appearing on social media? You might want to reconsider this.

Customer preferences for interacting with sales have shifted from phone calls to digital engagement. One of my clients experienced a dramatic shift from selling via outbound calls to communicating via email and online chat. In addition, they experienced greater interaction with digital ads. This customer structures their BDR program with far fewer outbound calls and higher spending on paid advertising, more automated email, and maybe even text messaging.

Understanding the buyer journey today and having a documented plan to adapt to the new ways buyers are coming to your business has never been more important. Businesses need to respond quickly to this shift and “emerge” differently to serve customers where they are. Shoppers want to be a little more self-sufficient and rely less on human interaction.

3. What do companies often overlook when it comes to the customer engagement, advocacy, or loyalty stage of the buyer journey? How should they think more strategically about these phases?

Kris:We've all heard it a million times: it's cheaper to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. Yet many companies continue to focus their resources and money on acquisitions and neglect efforts to improve customer retention.

Every business needs new customers, but retaining them is just as important. The customer journey does not end with the sale. You've done the hard work to acquire them, and now you should be working hard to keep and feed them.

New customers are critical to growth, but if you focus primarily on acquisition and neglect existing customers, customer churn is inevitable. Yes, churn will always exist, but it's also manageable.

Therefore, you need to find the right balance between the two.

Tongue:I can only agree with Kris. Existing customers are affordable fruits that need nurturing and regular follow-up to strengthen that relationship and generate additional revenue. It's no different than cultivating friendships.

What happens after the sale? When sales and marketing are aligned, a post-sales process should be in place for all new customers. Whether it's setting up a QBR in 3 months to track sales, tying marketing into an advocacy campaign, or something as simple as setting up a follow-up call in a month. How you manage the relationship should depend on how that customer or end user prefers to communicate with them.

Interest:Now it's time to start the lifecycle process and start tracking Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Part of the lifecycle process is determining how often you target customers after the sale. This could be sending out an email newsletter, inviting them to a webinar, calling customer service to make sure the product or service is what they expected, or sending a sales manager to visit them and find out if it other ways to help them are you. you. You can get customers to share their experiences and advocate for your brand by continuing the conversations with them after the sale.

Data is also very useful and important for these stages of the buyer's journey. Use the data as a tool to continue the customer relationship. For example, one of my clients used data from their CRM to gather information about clients who 1) haven't bought anything in a long time, 2) bought a product but not another, and 3) bought a product but not a service. Realizing the opportunities found in this goldmine of information helped the client make plans to create an even stronger customer experience. Defining the buyer's journey and identifying opportunities for greater engagement and connection with the customer is complex and requires a holistic and strategic view.Authentische Branded Fractional CMOsThey have mapped journeys for companies of all sizes and types across multiple industries. Contact us to discuss how our strategic leaders can help your business rethink the buyer's journey and find new ways to drive growth and nurture customer relationships.