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3 MIN. READ
Customer experience is everything. It’s a significant differentiator for B2B sellers, and it’s one of the keys to unlocking loyalty.
However, understanding how the experiences you offer shape the way buyers make decisions can be challenging. As a B2B marketer, you need to use a customer journey map to visualize this aspect of the buying process.
The customer journey is a series of tasks and experiences that take a buyer from the early awareness stage to purchase. It’s a tool that illustrates how buyers make decisions, the pain points they encounter along the way, and how they interact with your content.
Creating a map can help you achieve several goals:
• With 45% of the B2B buyer journey being conducted independently, a customer journey map can give you greater insight into this stage of the buying process.
• A map can reveal gaps in the experiences you offer and help you develop new touchpoints to better meet the needs and expectations of your target audience.
• A majority (79%) of marketers say personalization is the best way to engage buyers. With a customer journey map, you can tailor your content and messaging to the stage of the journey a prospect is in.
• You can use your map to predict behaviors and identify the moments when a prospect needs nurturing to keep progressing in their journey. Delivering the right information at the right time can increase confidence in buyers, a factor that is often linked to customer satisfaction and increased spending.
• Sales, marketing and other departments can use the map as a reference. It will improve communication and help everyone adopt a unified vision of your target audience’s needs and pain points.
You can use a variety of templates to create your map. The best model depends on your goals and on how complex the typical buyer journey is for your industry.
A linear map shows how a buyer progresses through the awareness, research, decision, purchase and service stages. It’s a useful tool for identifying important touchpoints along the way and for mapping content consumption.
An emotional map focuses on a buyer’s thoughts, emotions and experiences. It’s also a linear model, but this template illustrates how the buyer moves from one defining experience to another. It’s a helpful tool for uncovering the most impactful moments of the journey.
Using a chart is a great way of developing a content-rich map. You can use the same stages as for the linear model, but introducing a table format allows you to include more information for each stage. You can identify decision-makers and influencers for each stage, list pain points and goals, and include touchpoints and preferred channels.
You can get started with mapping the industrial B2B customer journey by following these steps:
• Set some goals for the map. It will help you choose the right format and methodology.
• Gather insights about your target audience. Web analytics and sales numbers can help, but you can also use interviews and surveys. Salespeople and customer service representatives can share valuable insights regarding the questions they get the most.
• Use your research to develop buyer personas. Working with one or more buyer personas lets you adopt the perspective of your target audience and qualify leads.
• Break down the journey into steps that reflect the way your target audience makes decisions. For instance, some B2B products are complex and have a lengthy research stage, while others are subscription-based and have an important life cycle management stage after the initial purchase.
• Identify key buyer activities for each stage, including where and how users consume content and connect with your team. Outline expectations, goals and pain points for each stage.
• Look for the pivotal moments that help customers move to the next stage of their journey. By analyzing what leads to these moments and what it takes for customers to make a decision, you can develop formulas for making these moments happen and boost your conversion rate.
• Update your map regularly. Continue to collect data and think of how the customer journey will change as you release new products or use new channels.
A customer journey map is a valuable tool you can use to offer better experiences and boost sales. An IndustrySelect subscription pairs well with this endeavor, providing live access to detailed profiles of 460,000 industrial businesses and one million executives contacts. With IndustrySelect you can research your target audience, build a list of ideal prospects and contact them directly at any stage of the buying process. Try a free demo today!
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