From Awareness to Advocacy - Understanding Your Customer’s Journey (Your Revenue Funnel)
Consider what your customer (or potential customer) is going through right now. That’s right, close your eyes and picture them in your head. If you are a B2B (business-to-business) company, your customer might be sitting at a desk and researching online; maybe they’re attending a trade show (or attending a virtual event) to learn about the latest and greatest in your industry. They might talk to their peers about what companies they work with and ask for more details on ones that might be right for them. If they’re already a customer, they might be using your product daily. Is the product working as expected? They may need service, parts, or support for your product. Are they getting a great experience? Next time they meet up with their industry peers, are they sharing their experiences with your company?
Would you be surprised if I told you that each of these customer stages was an opportunity to drive revenue for your company? That’s right - all the way from awareness to advocacy, your company has opportunities to drive revenue. To market. But unfortunately, many companies only consider the first half of those scenarios when they think of “marketing” or how they’re going to grow their business.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…marketing is all about lead generation and branding and advertising and whitepapers and lists…right? Not entirely. But we’re not going to talk about just ‘marketing’ today; not the way you might think of marketing, anyway.
We’re going to talk about your customer and their journey and how your company interacts with them along it - from the time they know who you are (awareness) to the time they tell their industry peers that you’ve done a great job for them and are worth checking out (advocacy). And we’re going to talk about how focusing on the entire journey can drive more revenue.
What Your Customers Really Want (it’s not to buy your product)
Your customers really don’t care that you sell a product, did you know that? What they care about is that your product can solve their problem and continue to solve their problems over time. So before you start thinking about how you’re going to talk about a product and find people or companies (scratch that - companies don’t buy things, people in companies buy things) to buy it, you need to understand the audience you are trying to serve and make sure you’re taking care of them all the way through their journey with you, not just up until you make a sale. Marketing does exist beyond the sale. Let’s explore that a little bit and learn what each function actually does throughout the course of the customer journey.
What Are Marketing and Sales For? (And Service?)
Marketing, sales, service - they all have specific functions in the business. But the customer doesn’t care about your internal departments. They see one story, one experience across all departments. Here’s how your departments might work (you can see where there should be overlap with other departments - nothing ever falls into just one department).
Early on, marketing is for:
Determining the company’s best competitive position within a market
Identifying markets/audiences and who to target
Understanding customer needs through market research
Communicating those needs to product developers
Your Customer’s Journey: At this point, your customer is living life, struggling with something that you’re about to solve for them.
As we start to promote our product/service and gain feedback, marketing is for:
Creating messaging / story development
Producing content and marketing communications to drive action from target audiences
Developing effective sales tools
Communicating new product or service improvements and developments
Enhancing brand experiences from awareness through advocacy
Generating qualified leads and setting expectations with the customer
Your Customer’s Journey: Now your customer becomes aware of you; they see an ad, hear about you on the news or in a blog, they read a feature in a trade publication about your new product. They may wander to your website to learn more, and they find all kinds of helpful info; it looks like you might be able to solve their problem! They download something or sign up for a newsletter with more tips to help them solve their problem.
Once marketing has generated qualified leads, sales is for:
Nurturing qualified leads
Presenting to customers
Further qualifying opportunities
Building relationships
Your Customer’s Journey: Your customer makes contact - after being on your list for a couple weeks, he really needs more answers about how he would incorporate it in his business. Through the contact form on the website, or a call, the customer reaches out to talk to someone.
As relationships develop, information/feedback is gathered, and customers are ready to buy, sales is for:
Quoting
Closing the sale (the promise of what will be delivered)
Your Customer’s Journey: The customer wants to know the real impact of buying from you and wants a quote, timeline, and other details, bringing the purchase closer to reality. He is weighing a few different options and wants to know that this is the best choice among them, giving the information he has available.
If the lead isn’t well-qualified or ready to buy, sales is for:
Communicating and providing feedback to help adjust the messaging (expectations) or product/service offering (delivery of the promise)
Follow up
Your Customer’s Journey: The customer determines that the timeline to implement is much shorter than expected, and his company isn’t quite ready yet; reach out in 6 months.
Then, marketing is for:
Continuing to nurture leads
Educating customers
Enhancing the brand experience
Keeping the brand top-of-mind
Refining the target audience and adjusting the message
Developing late-phase sales enablement tools
Your Customer’s Journey: Over the next 6 months, he’s still on the email list and gets more helpful tips, reinforcing his almost-decision to choose you. He still sees the ads that first attracted his attention - wait, they’re different; they are offering a new product catalog or white paper about a different company like his that implemented the product. That would be very helpful as he prepares to add this to his company.
Once the sale is made and you have a new customer, service is for:
Delivering on the expectations and promises made by sales and marketing
Enhancing the brand experience
Delighting and retaining customers
Asking for new sales/upgrades/referrals
Gathering feedback
Your Customer’s Journey: In 6 months, the customer signed the contract. The first week was stressful because it was a large purchase and he was hoping that implementation would go smoothly with his employees. After the first few months, they had a hiccup and had to call the service department. To his surprise, they immediately resolved the issue by sending a local service employee to fix the issue. No charge. He gets an email a few days later asking how his experience was. He was happy to share that it was great because the company went above and beyond to solve his issue so he could keep business running.
A year later, another service issue comes up and the local service employee makes a visit. This time, the two chat and the customer asks about another product that the company offers. Because the service member is knowledgeable, he can provide some information and ask for a follow up from an account manager. Perfect. Two problems solved.
Obviously, there is a lot of overlap that should take place internally. Did you notice it? Product development and marketing. Sales and service. Sales and marketing. And so on. With that much overlap needed to carry the customer through their journey, why are departments so separated internally? Remember, the customer is going to feel like he/she has had ONE experience with your company in the end. By looking at the journey and the roles each internal function plays (set expectations > promise > deliver), it would make sense that all of those areas should be on the same page, right?
Left Side, Right Side - Why Take Sides?
This customer-focused approach is used frequently in marketing, or what is traditionally thought of as the “left side” of the funnel, but it typically stops when the customer gets to sales. If you’ve ever worked with marketers before or you have a marketing team, their work probably consists primarily on the “left side” where advertising, branding, demand/lead generation, trade show, brochures, product catalogs all live…all the way til you hit the sales function. Then leads are handed off to sales and your marketers start all over again. And once the sale is closed? A completely new group of people with a new set of goals and expectations internally (customer service or account managers) are responsible for taking care of your customer. Imagine (or don’t, because you’re living it) the disconnect that can occur and how that impacts the customer experience.
Where we can make significant improvements is by approaching the process as a whole, instead of in parts. We refer to it not so much as “sides” but as the Revenue Funnel or Customer Journey because that helps us get out of the siloed thinking of departments to a more cohesive journey for your customer with a common goal of driving revenue. Revenue is no longer just a sales goal. Yes - you heard that correctly. Marketing (and service) needs to start being responsible for revenue goals! Being able to combine efforts, feedback, and strategy throughout the customer journey provides a more seamless customer experience and more profitable operations.
Breaking Down Silos - You Want Me to What?
Trust me when I say that I know this isn’t easy, but don’t stress. Shifting to a focus on the customer journey may mean some change within your organization, but it doesn’t have to be full-on structural and cultural change. The goal is to get folks from all of these areas in the same room, focused on the entire customer journey, making better decisions and working toward the same goal. It’s possible, it’s realistic for many companies, and it can have a huge impact on your bottom line.
Driving Revenue Throughout the Entire Customer Journey
In the beginning of this scenario when we visualized your customer, I told you that each step along your customer’s journey is an opportunity to drive revenue. Let’s look at some examples of where you could be discovering revenue beyond your typical sales process:
(Awareness and Interest) Monetize your audience - if your audience is very focused and you’re publishing content on a regular basis, advertisers or sponsors may be interested in supporting your efforts; sponsors for brand podcasts are common, for example (potential new revenue stream).
(Awareness and Interest) Monetize your content products - sell your in-depth booklets, workbooks, or other content of true value to the audience (potential new revenue stream).
(Sales) Make it easier for customer to add-on to their purchase - start by auditing any e-commerce or existing sales process; each time a customer get frustrated, or if you’re not building trust throughout the process, it’s easier for them to decline or move on without considering something additional; make up-sells and add-ons hyper-relevant to their needs.
(Satisfaction) Be generous with your customer service and support - this builds trust, lets customers buy with more ease, and provides value that makes it harder for competitors to replicate; this may require a leap of faith, but it pays off.
(Loyalty/2nd Purchase) Be proactive with your service - take the first step toward gaining renewals or second purchases (especially if you sell something consumable) by checking in with customers to see how they’re enjoying their purchase; send reminders when it’s getting close to renewal time, giving you an opportunity to remind them of the value they’re getting, the ease of renewing/re-purchasing, etc. Offer one-click / one call options to make it exceptionally simple to keep their business (this will allow you to spend less gaining new customers).
(Advocacy) Build in ways to get regular customer feedback - ask your best customers if you can use their reviews or testimonials in your materials; social proof from existing customers can help boost your new customer sales; consider cross-product or cross-industry sharing of this info to encourage existing customers to explore other offerings.
(Advocacy) Build a community of people who use your product/service - when people buy, they become a “member” of that group offering them something socially special - exclusivity; take special care of this group in whatever way you can even if they’re small; this community can cultivate your raving fans.
(Advocacy) Seek out other customers who love what you do, but may not spend as much as others - they may have influence or connections, and if they love your product or company, they may willingly share that with customers who will spend more.
(Advocacy) Manage your referrals - be intentional about growing the business this way; track where referrals come from, make it a question or feedback point wherever possible, and reward those who are referring business; reward them WELL. Not only do they love the reward, but it gives them a story to talk about; surprise and delight them!
Where to Go from Here
If your company is already collaborating between sales, marketing, and service - congratulations! You’re one of the few companies who have an integrated approach. If you’re living in the siloed world, starting to have a conversation about the customer journey can be done with your existing sales, marketing, and service teams.
An Audit of Your Revenue Funnel
The best place we’ve found to start in this direction is to audit your current strategy and budget. Then align your budget with the customer journey - where you spend now vs where you should be spending. You may identify some quick wins that you can tackle right away (I forgot we were paying for that! Wait...why are we paying for that?), or see some gaping holes in spending that may account for lackluster results in that part of the journey.
Get a Fresh Perspective
For some help going through this process, feel free to reach out to us! This is what we do. If it’s been a while since you’ve really looked at your customer journey or you don’t have staff dedicated to marketing (marketers are usually hyper focused on the customer), having a fresh perspective can be really beneficial! We’ve been in a number of situations where, upon hearing a company’s challenges or goals, we simply ask different questions, and it opens up new ideas and opportunities that hadn’t been considered before, or just didn’t have a path to execution. Thinking that’s just what your company needs? Give us a call or send us an email to start a conversation.