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How to: mapping the buyer’s journey in inbound marketing

Do you know how your customers interact with your company from the moment they have a problem, until you deliver the solution? It is time to develop an understanding for your customer’s territory and map the buyer's journey. 

If your company hasn’t already done so, now is the time to map out the buyer’s journey from beginning to end. This is best done in a workshop that gathers together everyone familiar with your customers and your buying process. 

Not sure what we are on about? Read our previous post on this topic: What is the buyer’s journey in inbound marketing?

 

Download guide to inbound marketing & sales

3-steps-guide: How to map the buyer's journey

Step 1: Preparation

First things first, invite those who should be present. Our suggestions for who should attend this workshop:

  • Someone from support and someone from sales. They talk to your customers everyday and will know what they are concerned about
  • Someone new to the company that can see things with fresh eyes
  • Someone who has been with the company a while that can speak from experience

A good place to start is making sure that those invited are aware of what you will be doing in this workshop. Send them an agenda including some information about the buyer's journey.  

Step 2: The Workshop

In the workshop nothing should be held back, it is time to turn leave no stone unturned.

Again, put yourselves in the mindset of the customer and imagine their experience from beginning to end. What problem might they have in order to start looking for solutions connected to your services or products? What thoughts are going through their mind?

Move systematically through the whole process, through closing and into delight. Look at how you take care of them every step of the way – or how you don’t.

Each department should consider how they could improve the experience and identify areas of improvement, both in terms of customer care and content. At each stage the prospect should easily find content that is tailor-made to answer the questions they may meet at this point:

  • They have just started thinking about the problem = Awareness stage: answer general questions and explain terminology that might be new to the reader

  • They have identified their problem and are now evaluating different solutions = Consideration stage: provide content that outlines pro and cons of different solutions. 

  • They are ready to choose the best option = Decision stage: provide content that outlines why your company is the best option.

Does your company have content available for each stage? If not, get writing!

After the workshop it is important to assign responsibility for fixing issues or producing content that is lacking. Maybe you need a FAQ-page or maybe a support center is helpful.

Will you implement a chat function or make it even easier to contact sales? Does it seem like there are a lot of people that just leave the website before interacting with any of your content? Maybe the information is not useful.

Delegate the tasks to the team and set clear deadlines for implementations.  

Step 3: The follow-up

Make sure you gather the information from the workshop in a clear overview that everyone in the organisation has access to. Book in a review a few weeks after the initial workshop to ensure that all the tasks have been completed and gaps in the buyer's journey are filled.

Come back to this document at regular intervals to see if anything new can be improved. You can also interview existing customers to see if your view of the buyer's journey matches the customer experience.

 

Download guide to inbound marketing & sales