Chapter 15
Inbound Strategies Match the Buyer's Journey
Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end in mind.”1 Inbound organizations begin their strategy with the customer in mind.
It may not be obvious but each customer has a unique buying journey. There are similarities, but each person follows a slightly different pace, intensity, breadth, and process before they buy.
Before the onset of inbound marketing in 2007, the buyer journey was primarily a sales journey with most buyers going through a very similar process. In that era, the buyer's journey consisted of salespeople engaging with prospects starting at the beginning of the research phase. Prospective buyers needed to talk to salespeople for preliminary research because salespeople had exclusive access to essential purchasing information. The only way a buyer could thoroughly investigate a solution was to talk with a salesperson.
The salesperson then followed a very defined script and moved the buyer through a structured sales funnel by asking them qualifying questions to determine priority, timeline, budget, and pain. If the buyer met specific criteria, the salesperson would move them to the next stage of the funnel, which typically consisted of a product demo or reviewing a catalog of product features. If the buyer passed through that stage, they entered the answering objections stage, and finally to the defining purchasing terms stage. The salesperson then moved into a closing sequence, pushing the customer to purchase at the salesperson's pace. Once the product sold, the buyer rarely heard from the salesperson again, unless it was a major account that could generate additional revenue with subsequent purchases.
The journey was more about how the sales process applied to the buyer. Understanding the buyer journey was rarely considered as a differentiating factor or competitive advantage. After 2007 this journey became buyer-centric to the point where it no longer resembled a funnel. Now the process is a buyer-controlled 3D amorphous cloud that follows a unique path and cadence with hundreds of variables and bears very little similarity to other buyers and their journeys.
Today, the journey is all about the buyer, and it starts early with online research. One of the guiding principles of inbound is to give value before you extract value. Inbound marketing developed as a philosophy to help companies connect with buyers in this early stage of the process and provide value to searchers as a way of building trust and starting a relationship.
Creating tangible value at every point in the buyer journey makes for a better customer experience. This customer experience becomes the primary influence on the relationship.
Inbound is about recognizing the buyer and their issues and anticipating why, when, and how they buy. The next step as an inbound organization is aligning everyone in every department so that they are prepared to make it easy for prospects to get what they need to start the relationship.
“Customer experience dictates business success these days,” says Adam Robinson, VP of marketing at Cerasis.2
Rachel Leist, HubSpot's director of marketing new business funnel, says this about buyer journey:
Before we make any decision regarding how to nurture our users, we ask if this decision is in the best interests of the customer. We learn from the customer what is in their interest by giving them options to communicate with us like chat, email, phone calls, and our library of content. We gather qualitative research by asking them what they need or want at each stage of the buying journey. We also review quantitative data from the product itself to understand how people are using it. We put ourselves in their shoes to understand from their perspective how our decisions look. We follow the golden rule of inbound marketing—don't market to them in any way we would not want to be marketed to.3
Inbound organizations use technology and automation to make the buyer journey easier and more accessible. A familiar example is using a car-sharing app to find a ride versus the randomness of a cab showing up on the exact street corner at the exact time you need one. Other examples include offering apps, chat, email, and touch-to-dial phone numbers on a website, allowing searchers to connect with you when and how they choose. In the industrial sector, a manufacturer creating a free ROI calculator and buying guide that helps buyers make sense of the purchasing process is another example.
Customer experience is…the difference between what the customer expects and what the customer gets. Companies that deliver experiences below customer's expectations are disasters, and of course, those that deliver above expectations are winners.4
Inbound organizations deliver a great transaction wrapped in a remarkable customer experience.
The primary general stages of a buyer journey consist of:
Awareness- Consideration
- Decision
- Success
Awareness
The Awareness stage starts when a buyer realizes they have symptoms of a problem and begins looking to find a solution. Buyers begin this stage by discovering a definition for their issues and challenges. They research the source of their particular problem online and start to build ideas of how to solve it. The goal in this stage is to help buyers identify, categorize, and define the problem. At this stage, the buyer is looking for helpful information rather than to complete a purchase.
To get past the Awareness stage, you have to make the short list for vendor consideration. An information exchange drives engagement, and sellers have the opportunity to demonstrate how they work with prospects and customers on an ongoing basis. Remember, 74% of sales go to the first company that was helpful, so your website must be helpful and informative rather than self-serving and product focused.5
Buyers may not know exactly what they are looking for in this stage—they know they have an issue, but they may not be clear on the severity, know the potential options for a solution, or know if the problem is even worthwhile to solve. Inbound organizations reach out to their ideal buyer persona contacts and help them ask the right questions. Sometimes the buyer's conclusion in this stage is that they are not ready yet or the issue isn't a major problem and a considered purchase is not a good investment.
Inbound is not all about waiting until someone searches and finds a blog post you wrote about a topic. If you know and understand your persona, if you recognize the issues they face, if you can provide experienced guidance, and if you can add value to their situation, it is acceptable to reach out directly to them and offer to help.
The Awareness stage can last for a long time, sometimes years even for the most basic purchase. Based on economic conditions and business priorities, problems may linger, and buyers stay inactive for long periods of time. Buyers determine when they are ready to move to the next stage and sellers must stand by and support, educate, answer questions, add value, and help until the buyer is ready to move to the next stage. It is counterproductive to force the buyer to move further into the process before they are ready because you risk violating trust. If you skip ahead to the Decision stage, you may lose credibility.
Your website is increasingly the place for buyers to make the first contact or hit the Zero Moment of Truth6 during the Awareness stage. Almost all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products and services in their local market and 93% of all B2B purchases start with an Internet search.7 This increasingly takes place on mobile devices so online assets become critical to starting the relationship process with buyers.
Understanding what triggers your persona to start looking for solutions is also an important part of understanding the buyer journey. A trigger event is an action taken that starts a buying process, such as technology changes, industry disruptions, economic changes, new rules and regulations, competitive pressure, financial moves, employee shake-ups, and product advancements.
In the Awareness stage, buyers are looking to educate themselves, so content should be instructional rather than sales or product oriented. “How to” content—including checklists and “Do you have this problem?” videos are all effective at this stage when you are starting to establish a relationship. Blog posts, e-books, videos, and research-based information have an additional value because they help to attract potential buyers. If you demonstrate that you are an expert or thought leader and create deep and impactful content, you are more likely to get found online. Search engines have evolved to understand the context of search queries and ignore shallow and weak content. Defining your expertise via great content gives you a chance to rise to the top of the massive quantities of content already available online.
Questions you should be able to answer about your target persona in the Awareness stage:
- How are potential buyers defining their problems and goals?
- What vocabulary do they use to describe them?
- Where do they go for information about solving these problems?
- What happens if they decide not to pursue a solution?
- How do buyers prioritize this problem?
Consideration
In the Consideration stage, buyers know they have a problem and have made progress in defining it. They have identified potential outcomes and begin narrowing options for the type of solutions they will evaluate. In this stage, buyers have usually given a name to the problem or opportunity. They realize there is a wide range of solutions to choose from and they have built a short list of requirements and identified a short list of potential vendors. They may have well-defined decision criteria and a financial budget, decided on a decision process, and figured out a timeframe for getting the problem resolved. Buyers are searching for vendors that have the right expertise to solve their problems in their niche. Buyers in the Consideration stage are moving toward a commitment to change.
Webinars, case studies, demo videos, and Q&A content engage buyers in this stage because they have a better sense of their problem and have whittled down potential solutions; therefore, they are ready for product specific information.
The Consideration stage is an opportunity for the seller to continue to build trust and deepen the relationship. If sellers insist on pushing their specific product or service at this stage and move away from being helpful, they can be eliminated. Buyers are interested in understanding a bit more about why they should consider your solution to solve the problem.
Salespeople help in the Consideration stage by framing the solution in a particular way, asking questions that the buyer didn't consider, running through prerequisites, setting expectations for budget and timeframe for implementation, and leveraging their experience.
Todd tells this story from his time as the vice president of sales and marketing at an industrial laser company:
We identified some buyer journey commonalities that we turned into a competitive advantage. In every case, a potential marking laser system buyer asked for a sample of their material marked using our laser. The buyers used these samples to compare the quality of the mark, as well as the competence of the supplier. We realized that this sample was the main selling tool of the engineer or project manager as they were discussing our lasers with the rest of their buying team. As a small company competing against much larger companies, we knew we needed to stand out.
Our policy was to return the samples within one working day if at all possible, and overnight ship them back to the buyer. We figured they were asking multiple other laser companies for samples and we wanted to be the first ones with samples back in their hands. We were committed to providing them with a perfect sample and a nice professional report on the equipment and process settings we used to make it.
This activity won us a lot of business. Our internal process ensured that we knew how to respond to an inquiry for a sample while customizing the response to each buyer. Each laser marking application request was unique, but our process for managing this critical first step in the relationship made a big difference through the rest of the buyer's journey.
As buyers transition from Awareness to Consideration, inbound organizations have to make tough decisions about whether the buyer is a good fit. Persona information becomes critical to making that assessment. In the pre-2007 era, sellers sold to everyone. Today, an inbound organization is very selective in the type, size, and attributes of good fit buyers and sets the right expectations to ensure a better and happy customer base. Telling a client you are not a good fit is hard, but it's the best thing for both parties involved. Committing to a niche and an ideal buyer persona makes it easy for you to create a reputation for honesty, trust, and effectiveness, potentially leading to more business.
Questions you should be able to answer about your target persona in the Consideration stage:
- What types of options do buyers have for different categories of solutions?
- Where do buyers go for information about these options?
- What are the advantages and weaknesses of each option?
- What factors do buyers weigh most heavily when deciding which option to choose?
- What are the objections for each solution category?
Decision
In the Decision stage, buyers have determined the type of solution or method they want to pursue and are evaluating the specific buying options that are available. Buyers have narrowed down the choices and determined the final options, including a short list of potential vendors. Buyers are comparing the best two or three alternatives, testing them, and planning for implementation.
When buyers move to the Decision stage, they are deciding on the specific vendor and solution options and comparing them against one another to determine which one is the best to help solve their problem. Free trials, proposals, consultations with experts, and references are influential at this stage. If you have created engagement and built credibility through the early stages of the process, you are now in a position to make a compelling offer that moves the buyer to a decision.
Questions you should be able to answer about your target persona in the Decision stage:
- Do we understand who this buyer is and what they need?
- Are they a good fit for our solution?
- Would this buyer make a great customer?
- Do we understand the problem, goals, plans, challenges, and timeline?
- Do we understand the decision process and decision criteria?
- What are the barriers to making a decision?
Once a buyer decides on the specific solution and selects a vendor, the Success stage begins. Now a seller concentrates on solving the problem. They move their relationships from vendor to the preferred supplier and, hopefully, from partner to trusted advisor.
Success
Inbound success has one job: to make sure buyers are ultimately successful solving the problem that they originally defined.
Today, success is defined in terms of the buyer's goals and expectations. It is developed during the Consideration and Decision stages. The goal of the Success stage is to keep the customer so happy that they become a reference and then an advocate for your company and solution.
Inbound organizations create post-sale content designed to drive customer success starting with account set-up and installation. They invest in training videos and instructor-led webinars or training, onboarding help, project plans, frequently asked questions lists, periodic update reviews, surveys, and customer support. Effective inbound success programs reinforce the buyer's decision and deepen their relationship with your organization by driving their success. Once the buyer is through the initial launch phase, content should be focused on helping the buyer get the most from their solution.
Questions you should be able to answer about your target persona in the Success stage:
- How do we make onboarding, installation, and implementation easier?
- How do we provide ever-increasing, ongoing value?
- What related problems do we solve that would enhance the relationship?
Inbound organizations understand the details of the buyer journey, map it, and use that knowledge to design a customer experience that the target persona loves. Creating inbound strategies that solve for the customer at all points in the buyer journey creates a competitive advantage.
Once you have determined your inbound strategies at each stage of the buyer journey you then develop plays to implement them. MSPOT plays describe the detailed projects required to execute the strategies.