When Digital Marketing is mentioned, most people immediately think SEO and keywords. Which of course are very important. I am sure you can find a lot of information on how to optimise your SEO.  However, my sales management background automatically gets me thinking about automating and mapping the buyer’s journey.  You’re probably thinking, “too hard!!”.  Well, mapping the buyer’s journey may be easier than you think.

we can help you map buyer’s journey

we can help you map buyer’s journey

Mapping the buyer’s journey

we can help you map buyer’s journey

After reviewing your website and making sure you’re happy with the look and feel, messaging, content and SEO, you’ll probably turn to Google or Bing Ads and Social Media. However, I would argue that before doing that, you should identify your buyer personas and map the buyer’s journey. Once this is done, you can define the content needed, and then you can then focus on ads and social media.  Why?  Because once you have defined your content, your SEO and social media will be far more successful.  Mapping the buyer’s journey is the first stage of understanding your content requirements.

we can help you map buyer’s journey

we can help you map buyer’s journey

BUYER PERSONAS

Let’s have a look at the process. Firstly, setting up buyer personas are important.  This will help you understand your buyers, what they are looking for, where they go on the internet to find information, what pains they are are experiencing etc.  Results 2Day have also written a blog and created a buyer persona template to help you.   You can read the blog here and download the buyer persona template here.   You can start with a few buyer personas and extend them over time if you wish.  The best way to understand your buyers is to interview your customers and prospects.  It might be time-consuming, but it’s worth the payoff.  You get an excellent understanding of your buyers during this process. Results 2Day have created a sample set of interview questions.  Contact us if you would like a copy.

we can help you map buyer’s journey

we can help you map buyer’s journe

The Buying Process

We then need to define your product’s buying cycle. For the purposes of this blog, I will use buying cycle and sales cycle interchangeably.  Here is an example:

we can help you map buying process

Many marketing systems will suggest three buying stages in the cycle: Awareness, Consideration and Decision. Some products may work with three; however, at Results 2Day we believe that buying cycles are generally more complex than three stages, so we have defined five.

Once you understand your conversion rate and your buyer’s journey/cycle, you can identify your KPIs. We all love a good set of KPI’s don’t we? For example, how many social media views do you need to get the click through rate to your website? How many website visitors do you need to get qualified prospects? How many trials do you need to get your revenue numbers? You get the gist. KPIs are critical to keep you on track.

We now need to review and create your content to make sure it is answering your prospect’s needs and moving them through the buying journey.  The Buyers Journey is a term coined by Hugh MacFarlane of the MathMarketing Group.  It is a map of the decision making process that buyer goes through in order to make a decision.

Buyer’s Journey Stages

Explore: the buyer is unaware of the need for the product. At this stage the marketer feeds education information

Buyer’s Journey Stages

Interest: the buyer is aware of the need for the product but may not have a project/budget at this stage. The marketer feeds scenarios to indicate the importance of acquiring the product

Buyer’s Journey Stages

Delve: the buyer is now in the market for the product. They have need and budget/project. They are evaluating options and coming up with a list of vendors. The role of the marketer is to feed differentiating/value information. Why is this product better than most and what is the value proposition of the product?

Buyer’s Journey Stages

Test: the buyer is now creating a short-list and selecting a solution and testing the viability of the product. The role of the marketer is to provide a trial, comparison charts, differentiation.

Buyer’s Journey Stages

Buy: the buyer makes the decision and purchases

Buyer’s Journey Stages

In addition,  a set of potential questions and objections need to be identified that your content needs to answer to help you move your buyer to the next stage.  It looks simple, however, covering all the bases, understanding the information that your buyers need and handling the potential objections so that you progress your buyer through to the next stage can be tricky. So spend some time here, survey lots of customers and talk to your experienced sales people.

Content Library

Once you have defined your content types, you’re ready to create your content library, which matches up content to buyer personas and buying cycle. This is one level of detail down into the specific content that you need.

Sales Conversion Rates

Next, let’s understand your sales conversion rate is key. This will define the volume of marketing required. It is often difficult to understand your conversion rates, especially if you are new to digital marketing.  Results 2Day has written a blog on digital marketing conversion benchmarks which may assist you. You can read it here

Content Schedule

You now can setup your social media content schedule. Here is an example:

Tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite will help you automate social media posting.

You are now ready to embark upon Google, Bing Ads and Social Media.

If you need help, contact us at Results 2Day: contactus@results2day.com.au or (02) 8354 1554

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If you would like more information, tips, techniques and templates on digital marketing and mapping the buyer’s journey, please contact us: here