More and more B2B marketers see the value of customer journey maps to effectively tailor customer experience touchpoints that generate purchase readiness. However, many marketers are challenged with even developing a customer journey map.
We outline these 5 must-haves for successfully creating and activating your customer journey map to reach, engage and retain new customers:
1. Ensure Customer Journey Map Is Persona Based
2. Define Buyer Phases Unique to Your Organization
3. Assess Effectiveness of Buyer Touchpoints
4. Align Marketing Campaigns with Personas & Buyer Phase
5. Use Customer Journey Map to Develop Marketing Strategies
PERSONA BASED CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS
Personas are the customer roles that have varying level of involvement and influence at each stage of the buyer journey. By developing the personas that play an active role in the buyer journey, your organization can begin to map each touchpoint to the right persona. This is a critical step to ensuring your touchpoints are effective in driving customer engagement and forward movement in the buyer journey.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS WITH DEFINED BUYER PHASES
Critical to developing a customer journey map is tailoring buyer phases to how your customers buy and the internal process that support. While standard buyer phases are generally representative of a customer’s forward progression from awareness to purchase, there may be interim phases with expanded touchpoints that need to be defined for your business.
For example, one of our clients included “Proposal” as a buyer stage between “Consideration” and “Purchase” to reflect the extended time period and steps required for their customers to buy. By defining this interim phase in their buyer journey, they were able to refine the touchpoints along with the cadence to improve their close rate.
ASSESSING TOUCHPOINT EFFECTIVENESS
Measuring the success of your customer touchpoints is key to extracting value from your B2B customer journey maps. And not all touchpoints are equal. Some touchpoints are critical to forward movement, while others have significantly less baring, but still form an impression of a brand. Assessing the effectiveness of digital and offline touchpoints is key to creating a customer experience that moves customers forward in the journey to purchase.
ALIGNING CAMPAIGNS WITH CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP
B2B marketers that understand the critical importance of how buyer journey touchpoints can propel customers along the buyer journey realize greater performance. Campaign messaging and content need to align with personas and where they are in the buyer journey to move them forward. When lacking the clarity of a customer journey map, B2B marketers often make assumptions and miss the mark resulting in a missed opportunity.
DEVELOP MARKETING STRATEGIES USING CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP
Lastly, using your customer journey map, begin to develop marketing strategies that give you a competitive advantage and outperform your goals. When B2B marketing strategies align with a persona-based customer journey map that results in creating inspired touchpoints, you will drive a wedge between you and your competitors.
To learn how Overground helps our clients achieve their growth goals starting with a customer journey map, contact us today!
