In the world of marketing, one size does not fit all. Different stages of the buyer’s journey and various audience segments require distinct approaches to engage, convert, and retain customers effectively. In this guide, let’s explore when and how to use different marketing programs and metrics based on your customer's position in their buying journey and the nuances of marketing to the whole world, your total addressable market (TAM), serviceable addressable market (SAM), and share of market (SOM).
Be aware that in a product growth phase, you have customers at all points in their buyer’s journey and you need to implement programs specific to all the stages of adoption.
Setting a Foundation: What is the buyer’s journey and why does it matter?
The buyer’s journey is a fundamental concept in marketing that serves as a strategic framework for understanding and guiding customer interactions at different stages of a buyer’s purchasing decision.
If you haven’t seen the journey mapped out before, here is what it looks like:
Thinking about how prospects move through different stages in their journey helps marketers in several ways. It is a valuable tool to conceptualize, strategize, and optimize marketing efforts and guides decisions on messaging, content, channels, and resource allocation. Using this approach to plan marketing efforts can lead to more effective marketing campaigns and improved customer acquisition, retention, and advocacy.
Here are some things to consider when using the buyer’s journey to define your marketing strategy. Keeping these concepts in mind can help you implement and track your marketing programs more effectively and efficiently:
Understanding Customer Behavior: The buyer’s journey framework provides a structured model to analyze how potential customers move through various stages of engagement, from initial awareness to becoming loyal advocates. This understanding enables marketers to tailor their efforts to meet customers' needs at each stage.
Segmentation and Targeting: By recognizing that not all customers are the same, marketers can segment their audience effectively. They can create targeted campaigns, messaging, and content to address the unique challenges, interests, and preferences of prospects in different buying stages and with differing interests.
Optimizing Conversion Rates: Marketers can identify where prospects drop off or stall in their journey and implement strategies to optimize conversion rates at those points. This may involve refining product messaging, improving user experience, or providing additional information to overcome objections.
Personalization: The buyer’s journey framework highlights the importance of personalized marketing. As prospects move through the journey, they seek more relevant and tailored information. Personalization ensures that you provide the right content and experiences to nurture leads effectively.
Resource Allocation: It helps allocate marketing resources wisely. Knowing which stage of the journey needs more attention or resources allows for better budget allocation. For example, if the metrics indicate a high drop-off rate at the consideration stage, more content or nurturing efforts may be needed there.
Measuring Progress: The buyer’s journey framework offers clear checkpoints for measuring progress and success. Marketers can track metrics specific to each stage, such as website visits, click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer retention. These metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
Customer Retention and Advocacy: Beyond initial conversion, the buyer’s journey framework emphasizes the importance of customer retention and advocacy. It reminds marketers to nurture and engage existing customers to turn them into loyal advocates, which can lead to organic growth through referrals and positive word-of-mouth.
Alignment with Sales Teams: The buyer’s journey framework, especially when coupled with the sales funnel, provides a common approach and language for both marketing and sales teams to understand the customer journey. This alignment ensures that marketing-generated leads are solid and handed off effectively, improving the overall customer experience and close rates.
Continuous Improvement: Marketers can use data and insights from the buyer’s journey framework to iterate and improve their strategies continuously. By understanding where bottlenecks occur and where customers are most engaged, they can refine tactics and campaigns for better results.
Your 4-Step Guide to Customer Journey Marketing
Now, let's delve into how to tailor marketing and engagement tactics for each of these stages in the buyer’s journey, keeping in mind your target audience segments and the appropriate metrics to track progress.
1. Expand Your Brand Awareness, Speak to the World
Stage: Awareness
Audience: Share your brand with the world
Objective: The majority of the “world” are not your potential customers, so you want to get your brand out there as widely as possible, so you hit those who are. Build brand awareness with a large audience and messages with broad appeal so you can begin to develop an identity for your business. This tactic can be helpful if you don’t have access to your target TAM and need to build your marketing database from scratch.
Tactics: Leverage tactics that have a large reach (mass marketing), like social media posts, influencer testimonials, press releases, and SEO. Start “social listening” to hear what your audience is discussing and be part of the conversation.
Example Channels:
Social media, PPC (Pay-Per-Click), and SEO with the right keywords
Influencers
Press releases in general media outlets
Search engine optimization (SEO): Capture keywords that are commonly used when searching for your services or products and make sure your website content and backend descriptions/tags reflect those phrases.
Suggested Metrics:
Website Traffic: Analyze traffic sources to see which global regions are showing interest and what messages are resonating.
Social Media Metrics: Monitor reach, impressions, and click-through rates (CTR).
Influencer Campaign Metrics: Track engagement and conversion rates associated with influencer collaborations.
2. Build Interest, Target Your TAM
Stage: Awareness and Interest
Audience: Push your message out to your entire TAM
Objective: TAM is still very broad in reach but rather than building brand awareness, you will start to develop specific awareness of the solutions you offer and their value for potential users. You need to be more specific when targeting TAM, so divide your prospects into segments based on demographics, psychographics, pain points, and behavior. Then tailor marketing messages to appeal to each segment’s needs and build their interest, while still going for broad reach. Marketing to TAM is great when you have channels that are specific to your general audience but don’t have a robust marketing database yet.
Tactics: Utilize targeted advertising with segment-specific reach, like thought leadership content and media, PPC ads, email campaigns and society advertising.
Example Channels:
Automated marketing based on customer segments’ needs
Social media, PPC (Pay-Per-Click), and SEO with the right keywords
Advertising with media outlets targeting your segment demographics
Press releases in segment-specific outlets
Suggested Metrics:
Email Engagement: Measure open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates for segmented email campaigns.
PPC Campaign Metrics: Track impressions, clicks, and conversion rates for each segment.
Content Personalization Metrics: Use website analytics to assess the impact of personalized content on user behavior.
3. Drive to Conversion, Talk With Your SAM
Stage: Consideration and Conversion
Audience: Get personal with your SAM
Objective: SAM are prospects you can directly serve with your solution. You are not just building awareness anymore but genuinely competing for their business. People in your SAM require targeted nurturing programs to move them from consideration to conversion. Invest in campaigns and programs designed to make it easy for them to get the information they need to make a purchase. Your competitive advantages, how you solve their problems specifically, pricing information, or other data that drive decisions. Marketing to your SAM should be very personal and specific.
Tactics: Implement lead nurturing campaigns, personalized messaging, and product demonstrations. Highlight your unique value propositions. Consider eCommerce options and interactive content that develops a relationship between you and your prospects.
Example Channels:
Automated marketing with responsive content
Sales, education, and product/solution demonstrations
Champions and referrals
Suggested Metrics:
Marketing Automation Metrics: Monitor email engagement, lead scoring, and conversion rates from automated campaigns.
Content Engagement: Analyze how SAM prospects engage with personalized content.
Webinar and Demo Metrics: Track registration, attendance, and post-event conversions.
4. Build Loyalty, Win, and Keep Your SOM
Stage: Conversion, Loyalty, and Advocacy
Audience: Win loyalty and advocacy from your SOM
Objective: Now that you’ve converted your prospects to customers, you want to keep them. Customers are more cost-effective to keep than to acquire, so use what you know about your customers and your experiences with them to market directly to them with customized, personal messages that turn them into advocates who will fuel growth.
Tactics: Focus on channels that support and recognize customers as individuals. Messages should be very specific to the experience your customers have had with you. Programs should include customer retention, loyalty programs, and referral initiatives. Deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Metrics: Track market share, customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer lifetime value.
Example Channels:
Customer loyalty and referral programs
Testimonials
Sales and customer support personnel
Customer training and education/customer newsletters
Suggested Metrics:
Loyalty Program Metrics: Monitor enrollment rates, redemption rates, and the impact on repeat business.
Referral Program Metrics: Track referral leads, conversions, and rewards given.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Use NPS and customer satisfaction surveys to gauge loyalty and advocacy.
A Summary of Key Concepts:
To move customers through their buying journey, create content and experiences that guide them from one stage to the next.
Use personalized messaging, case studies, and product demonstrations to address their specific needs and objections.
After conversion, maintaining customer loyalty is key. Nurture ongoing relationships through exclusive offers, loyalty programs, and excellent customer support.
Encourage satisfied customers to become advocates through referrals and testimonials.
Monitor customer satisfaction, referral rates, and NPS to gauge advocacy.
In today's dynamic marketplace, understanding when and how to use different marketing and customer engagement tactics is essential for success. By aligning your buyer’s journey strategies with the sales funnel and target audience segments, you can maximize marketing effectiveness and drive sustainable growth. Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all approach; it's about delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time.
Start by assessing your current marketing strategies and identifying areas where adjustments can be made to better match the buyer’s journey, sales funnel stage, and target audience. With a thoughtful and tailored approach, you can move prospects through their journey and turn them into loyal advocates, ultimately driving long-term success for your business.
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