Tip 3: Mapping the Customer Experience for your ideal target customer.
This is an update or follow-up to an article I wrote February 2017 titled "How to Create an Engaging Customer Experience" which can be found here.
As with any great end, there's a well-thought out beginning. This is true in business as I quoted Steve Jobs from my previous post "You've got to start with the customer experience and work toward the technology". This process - from end to beginning or beginning to end - involves Marketing AND Sales.
Mapping the customer experience together is a productive way to start working cohesively as a team. Since each step will take time, schedule a separate meeting for each step. Meeting multiple times will start a new pattern of communicating, create more opportunities for engagement between the teams and provide ample time to review each. With that, you will have a very comprehensive and agreeable road map at the end.
Below are the 5 steps and how each team can influence the entire experience:
Create a clear customer-centric vision
Start with your company's "WHY"
(Sales) Why do customer's buy from you today?
(Marketing) How responsive were they before they became a customer?
Brand differentiation and sustainability
(Sales) Is it your customer service (if so why and how do you know)?
(Marketing) Was it the information provided upfront that created trust in your brand?
What's your team (and you!) passionate about?
Does it show in how you represent your brand and yourself?
Identify the ideal target customer
Start with your "Why"
Create segments or "buckets" of customers
What do they have in common? What makes them different?
How can you reach these types of customers with marketing efforts and convert by sales (validation - make sure your actual customers and ideal target customer align with the company vision)
Draft a financial impact to the company
If all efforts from marketing are focused on attracting more of these high propensity to convert leads and sales converts a higher percentage, what financial impact does that make to the business?
Identify HOW TO make the emotional connection
According to Neuroscientists, consumers make 95% of their buying decisions based on emotion and justify it with logic.
With that research, it's even more important that Marketing (creates messaging) and Sales (makes the sale) work together
By providing the customer experience that creates the desired emotion, you're more likely to influence your target customers and how they feel about your product/service.
Marketing: What messaging has created more response, what platforms did the message appear, what experience did they have to that point?
Sales: What was the customer's emotional buying level when you started talking with them, how receptive were they to talking with you, how much did they engage with you before deciding to buy from you?
Drive key behaviors throughout the process
Look at the platforms and triggers of your ideal customers and evaluate the process from marketing to sales
Map out the process from start to finish, for example:
Where did the "lead" come from?
Was the first interaction downloading a white paper?
Did they click on links in the follow-up email?
Did they register for a webinar?
Did they follow you or engage with you on social media channels?
How many interactions with your brand did it take before they spoke to a sales person?
Once in the hands of sales, how did you interact with them?
Did you follow them or reach out to them on social channels?
Did you refer to previous interactions they had with your company while in the hands of marketing?
How many touch points did it take to convert to a sale?
Did the customer experience "buyer's remorse"? If so, why?
Just as the converted leads, it's important to understand what happened with prospects that dropped off during the same process
Choose accounts of different types (location, personas, social platforms, lead generation, etc.) and map out when and where they dropped off
This step process will help identify how to, and if, changes can be made
Measure and monitor the results
This involves marketing and sales
Identify data points that are important, how each will be measured, by whom and how frequently
The points of measurement should be identified upfront as what's important for both teams and the business
If needed combine the current reports then remove those that are no longer beneficial to both teams and the business
As you can see, there's a lot that can be done to align these teams. With communication, strategy, mutual understanding of who does what and when there will be an increase in results.
It will take some time to plan and align, agree and take ownership. it all starts at the top. When senior leadership buys-in, are passionate about the change and lead the teams, the communication that follows will help everyone involved understand the process and how they can positively impact their role, team, company and most importantly the customer.
"People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision." ~John C. Maxwell
What experience have you had leading a Marketing or Sales team and engaging with the other team? Comment below!
NEXT on the reading list: From MQL to SQL