Ultimate Guide to the New Buyers Journey

1 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE NEW BUYER’S JOURNEY
image
Objectively envisioneer
manufactured products via
standardized interfaces.
Phosfluorescently embrace
timely e-tailers via integrated
synergy partnerships and
innovative metrics.
The Ultimate Guide to
THE NEW
BUYER’S JOURNEY

The Ultimate Guide to
THE NEW
BUYER’S JOURNEY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: The New Customer Buying Journey................................................................ 4
PART 1: Rethink Your Segmentation And Let Analytics Lead the Way..................................... 8
PART 2: Prevent Customer Detours Through ProActive Digital Engagement ....................... 13
PART 3: Align Your Content Marketing Strategy to Every Buying Stage................................. 17
PART 4: Take the Long-view in Customer Engagement with Online Communities............... 21
PART 5: Unlock Billions in Hidden Revenue............................................................................... 25

ABOUT MARKETBRIDGE
MarketBridge is a leading technology enabled
services firm, providing digital marketing, sales
enablement, and customer analytics solutions for
Fortune 1000 and emerging growth companies.
We help companies improve sales productivity
by increasing digital customer engagement and
building robust customer analytics engines that
focus marketing investments and sales activity on
the right customers, with the right messaging and
solution, through the right marketing and sales
channels.
Our unique RevenueEngines™ and SMART™
Analytics solutions deliver data-driven digital
customer engagement by connecting marketing
and sales to increase pipeline volume, velocity,
close rates, and customer loyalty. Our solutions
are powered by best-of-breed technologies
including social, marketing automation, CRM, and
business intelligence, all of which dramatically
improve revenue performance, cost efficiency and
customer experience.
Corporate Website:
www.market-bridge.com
MarketBridge Community:
www.the-digital-bridge.com
Phone:
1-888-GO-TO-MKT
Corporate Headquarters:
4350 East-West Hwy, 6th Floor,
Bethesda MD 20814

INTRODUCTION
The New Customer Buying Journey
We’ve all seen the stats. According to CEB, B2B
buyers are 57% of the way through the buying
process before they engage a sales rep and
Gartner and Forrester research has suggested
that by 2020, >80% of the buying process will
occur without any direct human-to-human
interaction. Customers are turning to digital
channels to self-educate about products and
services, and they are waiting later in the buying
process to speak directly with a sales person. As
a result, organizations need to rethink their
customer engagement strategies in order to
align to the new way customers are buying.
If you have not evaluated your target customer’s
buying journey to understand how it has
changed and how you should align to it, you may
be left behind. The average firm leaves millions
of dollars in revenue potential on the table
by waiting to respond to this changing buyer’s
journey.
New and innovative channels are playing a
major role in the way customers purchase goods
and services, and this landscape is evolving
rapidly. Furthermore, the data to provide deeper
intelligence about customer needs, preferences,
and behavior is widely available (although often
difficult to identify and integrate). Organizations
who are winning in today’s environment are
building digital channels and data analytics
into their go-to-market strategy in order to
dramatically improve the productivity of their
sales and marketing resources, increasing
revenues, reducing costs, and improving the
customer experience.
However, firms that are not embracing these
new techniques are seeing sales productivity
fall of a cliff as conversion rates drop,
pipelines slow, and opportunities are missed.
Customers today know what best-in-class digital
engagement “feels like”, giving them a standard
by which they evaluate all other businesses
(including yours).
The world of sales and marketing has
changed; the question remains, has your
organization changed with it or are you being
left behind?
In this whitepaper, we will outline the series of
steps your organization needs to implement
in order to address this change and realize
untapped revenue opportunities.
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
CONTENT
MARKETING
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY

At MarketBridge we have the privilege of working with hundreds of marketing and sales leaders every
month. In those discussions one thing is abundantly clear: the customer buying journey is rapidly
changing and organizations are struggling to keep up.
Independent research by Gartner and Forrester suggests that by 2020, 80 percent of the buying
process will occur online without any direct human-to-human interaction. Industries that rely heavily
on sales teams today may not require any direct phone or face-to-face sales engagement with
customers five years from now.
While these dramatic shifts in buying behavior are well documented, today’s organizations continue
to over-rely on traditional marketing and sales channels to reach, engage, convert, and expand their
customer relationships. The cost of this failure to adapt is HUGE. The average firm will leave millions
of dollars in revenue productivity and cost efficiency on the table.
“By 2020, 80% of the buying process will occur without any direct human-to-human interaction.” -
Gartner and Forrester

It’s no secret. Digital and online channels are playing a major role in the way customers purchase
goods and services, and this landscape is evolving rapidly. Most customers conduct pre-purchase
research to understand their options via a combination of channels including search, social, email,
and a number of competitive vendor websites. Increasingly, sophisticated customers go a step
further. They engage selectively with traditional offline resources only when their interest has been
peaked via digital engagement. Effective marketers must learn how to not only engage the new
digital buyer, but to align their online and offline resources to the buyer journey.
Customers know what best-in-class digital engagement “feels like,” giving them a standard by
which they evaluate all other businesses. For example, most customers today will react negatively
to unsolicited contact by a salesperson, but they do want a real-time response when they decide
the time is right. This reinforces the growing need to connect marketing and sales via data and
technology to provide the tools marketers and sellers need to drive revenue performance.
To further complicate this issue, the shift to digital has led to an explosion
of marketing and sales technologies that have created considerable new
hurdles for organizations to overcome, such as:
• Data Management and Infrastructure Realignment
• Technology and IT Alignment
• New Organizational Processes
• Need for Fractional Deployment of Specialized Capabilities
Every company we speak with is aware on some level that they must shift resources away from
traditional marketing and sales models to new technologies, digital engagement, and data practices.
However, the infrastructure and processes that have long served them now get in the way and slow
their progress.
“The infrastructure
and processes that
have long served
organizations growth,
now get in the way
and slow their
progress.”
The implications of the change in buying behavior

People – Do you have all the expertise you need
in-house to set the right strategies, manage and
analyze vast amounts of data, make decisions on
and manage the technologies, and execute the
right campaigns and programs?
Process – Given the changing marketing and sales
landscape, have you developed and installed a
scalable process to effectively connect marketing
and sales to produce predictable pipeline growth
and conversion? Have you connected the “top of
funnel” lead generation activities to “bottom of
funnel” conversion with customer engagement
platforms that support the new buying model?
Technology – Given the hundreds of technology
options, which ones should you focus on and
why? How are these technologies integrated
to work in unison as opposed to point-to-point
solutions?
Data – What are the strategy and infrastructure
requirements to manage the petabytes of data
that are generated through today’s technologies
(and which hold the promise of significant
performance improvement if managed correctly)?
What should organizations do about it?
Best-in-class firms are adopting new strategies to address these challenges, focused on
evaluating their current state across four key levers:
In the following chapters, we’ll delve more deeply into how best-in-class organizations are
aligning marketing and sales using digital engagement and data to address these issues.
Furthermore, we will outline specific techniques that will lead to new opportunities that drive
revenue, reduce cost, and improve the customer experience.
Process
Data
Technology
People

SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
CONTENT
MARKETING
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
PART 1
Rethink Your Segmentation and
Let Analytics Lead the Way
1
Part of the power of the new buying behavior
is the opportunity associated with the millions
of touch points which customers make
with your online platforms. This data (when
integrated and married with social, CRM, and
transaction history) can provide clarity into
customer behavior and preferences, and can be
predictive of customer value, needs, expected
behavior, and the best buying channel.
However, trying to map out the buyer journey
and integrate all of these data points can feel
overwhelming, even impossible. The right
segmentation and analytics strategy can make
mapping your customer buying process a lot less
complex.
Most organizations struggle with too many
forms of segmentation and no clear strategy.
Many are confusing buyer personas, customer
profiles, and segments in terms of the broad
definitions they use to understand and engage
their customers. Almost all organizations struggle
to make their segmentation actionable and few
can point back to how it is making them money.
A great segmentation strategy should have a few
key common characteristics. How can you
re-think your segmentation to drive value?
Continue reading…

As buyers interact with us in multiple ways, the
myriad impressions via both media and channel
are startling. Not only is the journey complex,
but different buyers take different paths. If used
correctly, segmentation can bring organization to
the chaos. If used incorrectly, it can compound
the challenge.
When you ask sales or marketing professionals if
they use “segmentation,” the answer is typically
“Yes”. But, if you ask whether that segmentation
is based on behaviors, life stage, value, lifecycle,
attitudes, or interest, the answer is typically “No”.
In fact, most organizations are overrun with
too many forms of segmentation and no clear
strategy.
Segmentation is, according to Merriam-Webster,
the process of dividing something into parts.
For sales and marketing, it is simply a method
to organize customers and prospects into
meaningful and actionable groups.
To take it a level further, building a segmentation
strategy to deliver measurable value to sales
and marketing should take on a few key
characteristics. A great segmentation solution
should:
1. Be led by strategy
2. Come to life when applied in practice
3. Serve as a platform to unify the sales and
marketing functions
4. Be flanked with other tools
“Most organizations are overrun with too many
forms of segmentation and no clear strategy.”

Build: Generally speaking the most important thing to consider is whether or not your
segmentation criteria is well-aligned to your objectives. Everyone’s objectives are different, so while
there are lots of best practices, there is no single best way to build a segmentation. The key is having
the experience to know which approach is best to use given the objectives.
Implement: Once you settle on the right approach to build the segmentation, you are not done.
Now you have to figure out how to apply the segmentation, whether that is in your CRM system,
marketing toolset, site personalization engine, call center, or POS system. The fact is, anything you
build will not provide value if it simply sits on a shelf. It is critical that you build the implementation
plan before you build your segmentation, as implementation priorities are core to ensuring that you
build it the right way and that you are able to operationalize it in practice.
Make money: Once we have the segmentation built, and implementation strategy set, you need to
continue the design effort and think through our supporting process to ensure that we actually use it
and make money from it. Our planning processes and tactical processes need to evolve around how
sales campaigns are developed, executed, and measured.
Let’s put the horse first, cart second, and think through what our segmentation solution needs
to accomplish and if segmentation is even the right tool. This sounds easier than it is. Many
organizations throw segmentation at everything. Others go big, they build it, then try to use it but get
hamstrung trying to operationalize it. In both cases, teams fail to set their strategic objectives across
each step.
BUILD1 IMPLEMENT2 MAKE MONEY3
1
A cohesive segmentation strategy should be our
starting point.

“The buyer journey is a two-way conversation and, increasingly, it’s on the buyer’s terms.”
To bring a segmentation to life, it should be articulated through three core components: profiles
(what the segments look like), personas (their needs and attitudes, defined through research or
extrapolated from other data), and buying scenarios (where we begin to frame out the buyer
journey to gain clarity on how each segment buys).
This is a key step—and that persona imagery in the binder and on the boardroom wall is very
important. It serves as a starting point for executive buy-in and organizational momentum. If done
right, this will be a journey and not a small project.
Once we have buy-in and move into implementation and execution, these insights and data
points play a critical role in defining our map by informing:
• Who (target audience)
• What (offer, product, message, content, script)
• When (contact cadence)
• Where (media and channel)
We’re accustomed to using segmentation for push communications but it should also be leveraged to
respond to pull-based interactions: a buyer hits the site—what content should render? A buyer calls
the call center—what’s the script? The buyer journey is a two-way conversation and, increasingly, it’s
not on our terms as marketers and sales professionals but on the buyer’s terms.
2 The segmentation should come to life.
1
At a minimum, this should include sales and marketing but also potentially service and product
development, too. The segmentation should act as a common language by which the organization
can talk about both current and potential customers in a way that is not defined by organizational
structure (for example, product, region, or industry). We all know that while these are common
organizing principles for us to run and manage the business, the customer couldn’t care less. When
we ignore that, our interactions are disjointed and are not optimized against the buyer’s journey.
A good segmentation will help an organization overcome this by unifying how we think, plan, and
execute—focused on the customer.
3 The segmentation should serve to unify various functions

The segmentation needs to be paired with other
processes like layering (or micro-segmentation)
and other tools to be used as a targeting
application, arguably its most common use.
Layering pulls in dimensions that are a critical
part of your business but are not defining factors
of your segmentation.
This is where some of those organizing principles
may come into play, as long as they help optimize
that customer journey and don’t detract from
it. The layers you choose add complexity but,
if chosen wisely, should drive incremental
value due to the lift you’ll gain through added
personalization, message versioning, offer and
other customization.
The segmentation allows us to organize our
prospect and customer base, but it is a broad
tool. Scalable tools of precision, paired with
segmentation, are necessary to highly intelligent
targeting. Targeting techniques are often based
on predictive modeling, either delivered using
batch, near-real time, or real time methods for
both off- and online decisions. These are typically
trained on attributes like value or propensity to
respond, buy, click, or engage.
Even if you’re planning, rebuilding, or trying to
leverage an existing segmentation, don’t forget to
lead with comprehensive planning and strategy,
consider how to bring your segments to life, and
don’t shy away from creating a cross sales and
marketing solution to drive the best possible
value from your efforts.
4 The segmentation cannot stand alone.

1
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY
CONTENT
MARKETING
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
PART 2
Prevent Customer Detours Through
ProActive Digital Engagement
2
We’ve already established that digital and online
channels are playing a significant role in the
purchasing decisions of today’s consumers.
Organizations need to create digital strategies
for a multitude of online channels, including
but not limited to, SEO, Digital Advertising,
Social Media, Websites, Communities, Blogs, Etc.
Furthermore, organizations need to optimize
these strategies for inbound marketing,
outbound marketing, content marketing and
digital sales coverage. Most companies deploy
digital tactics, however, the critical part of the
new buyer’s journey is not creating digital tactics,
it’s how your organization engages prospects
once they engage digitally. When the appropriate
digital engagement does not take place around a
key consumer segment, the potential revenue
loss could be massive.
But not all customer engagement is created
equal. Research shows that customers who
engage on social media expect a response
within a few hours but those who take
other digital actions, such click on a PPC ad or
download a whitepaper on your website, typically
do not want to be contacted right away by a
sales rep. Carefully plan out when and how you
engage with perspective and existing customers.
A lack of engagement in the digital space when
your community is ready to vent or overly
engaging when your customers are not ready to
buy can mean the customer terminating their
journey with you or, worse, your competitors
offering them an alluring detour. Don’t let
your competitors provide a better customer
experience than you, it’s a sure fire way to lose
revenue.
How can you digitally engage with your prospects
and customer to ensure loyalty and continued
engagement? Continue reading….

We’ve established that the customer buying
journey has changed significantly given the new
role digital and online channels now play in the
way customers purchase goods and services.
Buyers today are extremely selective in how
and when they will engage with traditional,
offline sales channels until they have sufficiently
conducted online research around a product of
interest or a digital marketing effort grabs their
interest.
Once the buyer is actually ready to engage with a
human inside a given brand, they will do so quite
often through a digital channel and will expect a
real-time response.
When the appropriate digital engagement doesn’t
take place around a key consumer segment,
revenue loss is a very real scenario.
While we often talk about marketing or sales
engagement in terms of lead nurturing for new
opportunities, the reality is that the buyer’s
journey is still in play for existing contacts.
After all, an increase in current customer
yield or buying frequency is an equal revenue
opportunity. With the emergence of digital (and
specifically social) channels, the journey of these
existing consumers is becoming an increasingly
important area for digital engagement, where the
absence of engagement means the potential for
significant revenue loss.
““Brands are spending too much time and effort
on widespread marketing but are not engaging
customers directly.”
@#

Let’s illustrate this with a real case study. In
December 2013, Ryan Holmes wrote in the Wall
Street Journal about Twitter user Jay Rooney (@
RamblingRooney), a current AT&T user who,
curious about the value of T-Mobile’s free
international roaming deal, took to Twitter to
vent:
Jay Rooney @RamblingRooney
“Just found out that @tmobile doesn’t charge extra for
overseas data. What the hell am I still doing with @
ATT?”
What emerged was a social face-off between the
two carriers. The engagement eventually involved
John Legere (@JohnLegere), CEO of T-Mobile
choosing to engage with this response:
John Legere @JohnLegere
“@RamblingRooney bet @ATT’s CEO isn’t going to
join the convo. Come join the #WirelessRevolution! “
With that, the deal was sealed and T-Mobile
had effectively stolen a customer (and probably
several of his friends) away from their rival simply
because they were willing to engage immediately
and personally when the consumer simply sent
up a rogue question about services into the
Twittersphere.
Think these stories are few and far between?
Guess again. Lane Douglas, Leader of the
Social Practice @MarketBridge, was one of the
thousands of recipients on the bad end of UPS’
Christmas shipping debacle. He sent out a simple
tweet just before the holiday stating,
Lane Douglas @LaneDouglas
“#Amazon Prime doesn’t mean jack when #UPS tells
you they had a carrier delay.”
Within 24 hours, the tweet was being showcased
on the front page of USA Today and within 48
hours Lane had received personal messages
from The Today Show, NBC News, ABC News
and several local affiliates all seeking to interview
him for the story. But did he ever hear back from
UPS? Nope. Which is why since he has opted
to contact companies directly rather than go
through Amazon and specifically asked for FedEx
delivery.
Why is this concerning? Studies still show that
brands are spending too much time and effort
on widespread marketing but are not engaging
consumers on a direct level. In a recent study
done by Simply Measured, it was shown that
54% of Interbrand 100 companies send less than
one @-reply per day. The point is this: in the new
customer buying journey, you need to think of
your existing customers as buyers too, or the
new sales you realize through marketing will be
canceled out by the loss of your current contacts.
Digital Engagement - Case Example

A lack of engagement in the digital space when
your community is ready to vent can mean the
customer terminating their journey with you
or, worse, your competitors offering them an
alluring detour. As we previously stated, best-
in-class firms address the new challenges of the
changing buyer journey by focusing on four key
areas: people, process, technology and data.
Here is how they can be practically employed
around the area of engagement:
People – In most firms, marketing and sales
teams focus on new leads and opportunities.
Customer satisfaction often falls to the Customer
Service reps and brand image falls to the PR
teams. For engagement to be effective in the
digital space, these resources need to be
connected. Don’t simply leave it to a junior
staffer in your PR department to close (or keep)
the deal.
Process – In Holmes’ Wall Street Journal article,
he raises a great question, “Was Legere glued
to his Twitter stream, searching for mentions
of T-Mobile?” Doubtful. Instead, the more
likely scenario is that an employee saw the
conversation evolving (or devolving as it was)
and took the initiative to forward it to him. If you
don’t have the staff necessary to manage your
social platforms then social monitoring and
listening tools are necessary to track industry
and brand conversations. This process is critical
for success, where people with eyes on the digital
space know who should be notified when the
brand is mentioned.
Technology – Enterprise-level listening platforms
have come a long way in the past several years
and employing them (or outsourcing to a firm
with the expertise) inside the social space is
an absolute priority to succeeding in digital
engagement. Additionally, many of these
platforms now allow for you to build out your
resources, roles, and processes and setup
automated flags and notifications anytime
certain criteria are met: volume drops, volume
increases, brand is mentioned, etc. Leveraging
this technology will ensure the engagement
happens quickly, and by the right person.
Data – Engagement strategies do not need to be
built on a “listen-and-wait” tactic. Data, such as
share of voice, influencer reach, and #hashtag
mentions can be collected over time to map
trends, inform marketing strategies, and provide
targeted content inside an enterprise-level CMS
that allows for dynamic segmentation based on
prescribed user pathways. Having this data on
hand as a monthly, if not weekly, reference is
becoming more and more critical to winning in
the digital space.
As you begin to address the evolving customer
journey, don’t forget that engagement is a critical
factor to ensuring there is no needless revenue
loss.
4 Key Areas to Focus on for Digital Engagement
Process
Data
Technology
People

1
CONTENT
MARKETING
SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
PART 3
Align Your Content Marketing
Strategy to Every Buying Stage
3
Content Marketing was the biggest buzz-term in
Marketing in 2013 and the trend is continuing in
2014. However, whereas as in 2013 organizations
were primarily focused on creating an array
of content and building an extensive content
library, in 2014 the focus needs to be on creating
engaging content. After all the infographics,
whitepapers, e-books, newsletters, webinars,
videos, blog posts, and case studies were
created and distributed, Marketers were left
wondering what were the results of all that
effort? Unfortunately, for most Marketers the
answer was not good. What many came to realize
is that just having an abundance of content is
not enough to move prospects down the buyer
journey to an inevitable purchase.
In 2014 the key to a successful Content Marketing
strategy will be the ability to have engaging
content in the right channel, at the right time,
to reach the right audience. Furthermore, the
ability to provide the right content at the right
time will heavily rely on organizations effectively
mapping content to each stage of the buyer’s
journey. Efforts should be spent on developing
content that generates awareness, then
pushes prospects to consider your products
or services, and eventually helps them make
a purchasing decision. This type of content
process flow will be critical in today’s fast-paced
digital environment. Additionally, creating a
content piece that works across all stages of the
buyer’s journey will help organizations maximize
their marketing efforts in a cost effective way.
What types of content can be used across all the
buying stages and what are the best practices
for developing engaging content? Continue
reading……

Effective digital engagement demands digital
content. CEOs and CMOs are well aware that
buyers no longer want marketing materials to be
pushed on them to help them make a purchasing
decision. Instead, they now instantly pull the
information they need whenever and however
they want.
Buyers are paying less and less attention to
the traditional marketing messages they are
bombarded with every day and have become
desensitized to what brands are trying to tell
them or sell them.
Online “surfing” is such an integral part of our
daily lives that buyers barely notice those flashing
online banners anymore, let alone read print ads
or open that pile of direct mail. In the midst of
this media frenzy, we have to ask: What can we
do to make buyers start paying attention again?
What is the best channel to reach them? What
will make them react?
From those questions was born the idea of
“Content Marketing,” or as it’s defined by the
Content Marketing Institute, the “technique of
creating and distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly
defined and understood target audience – with
the objective of driving profitable customer
action.”
Businesses of all sizes are now shifting gears to
include Content Marketing as one of the pillars of
their marketing strategy. As they race to create
more content - 73% of B2B marketers said they
are producing more content now compared to
one year ago – their biggest challenge of all
is producing content that actually engages
buyers.
“The information overload typically developed
for the masses will not create memorable impact.”
Biggest Content Marketing Challenge
36%
21%
20%
11%
9%
3%
Producing
Engaging Content
Producing
Enough Content
Budget to
Produce Content
Lack of
C-Level Buy-In
No Answer Producing a
Variety of Content
Figure 13
B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends
MarketingProfs/Junta42

1 Stage 1: Education & Discovery
To truly engage buyers, content needs to be relevant, valuable, and relatable across every
stage of the buyer’s journey.
Buyer researches internal (friends/family, colleagues) and external (forums, blogs, social media)
sources for the best solution to address their problem or pain point.
2 Stage 2: Acknowledgement & Consideration
After careful research, buyer typically select 2-4 brands to consider and compare. Buyers develop
selection criteria that is important to them or their business and assess the criteria against a
competitor set.
3 Stage 3: Validation & Decision
Buyers want confirmation that the product or services promised fulfills their expectations. Demos,
samples, or trail offers are provided at this stage.
Education &
Discovery
1
Acknowledgement
& Consideration
2
Validation &
Decision
3
Purchase
4

Marketers need to know how to attract, acquire,
and engage with that extremely sought-after
buyer and need to assess how they can match
the right content type and format to the
corresponding buying stage. This is a critical
factor when developing a content strategy.
A webinar is an excellent example of a content
piece that works across all stages of the buyer
decision-making process. With a webinar an
organization can address consumer pain points,
explain product benefits and advantages, and
provide a product demo. Use webinars to not
only address all stages of the buyer’s journey
but also to move prospects along all stages of
the buyer’s journey. Registering for a webinar
indicates interest, attending the webinar
indicates consideration, and responding to a
webinar follow-up invite indicates validation.
Today’s buyers are not only harder to impress,
they’re also pressed for time, making their
decision-making process dramatically shorter
than it used to be. Buyers need to know only
what matters to them now and what fits their
needs at their immediate buying stage. The
information overload typically developed for the
masses will not create a memorable impact.
The key is to figure out what content will best
provoke first consideration and then decision for
your product or service. A segmented analysis
of buyers’ interests and pain points will help
marketers define which messages matter and
narrow down what will resonate with buyers.
New marketing technology tools make content
personalization easier and more effective than
ever before. Personalization today goes far
beyond adding someone’s first name to an email
greeting. Effective content personalization is
when the consumer feels as though they are
receiving content that was written especially to
and for them—and that addresses their needs
specifically.
In the discovery stage of the buying process,
personalization can include qualitative
information such as presenting only case
studies matching the buyer’s industry or
providing solutions that match the buyer’s
pain points. Infographics, flash demos, social
media platforms, blogs, and video testimonials
can address the specific needs of your target
audience to provoke consideration, while
validation and decision can be facilitated
through sales presentation of competitive
strengths.
Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

1
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
CONTENT
MARKETING
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
PART 4
Take the Long-view in Customer
engagement with Online Communities
4
In today’s digital environment we’ve established
that buyers can take several different paths
to reach a purchase decision. However,
that journey to a final purchasing decision
can be a long, intertwined and winding road
for some customers. Trying to map out
those array of potential paths for targeted
customers can almost be a herculean feat for
most organizations. Moreover, sometimes
segmentation and content marketing can only
take you so far. As a result, many organizations
are creating their own online communities
to bring potential customers to on central
location where they can be nurtured until they
are ready to purchase.
Within an online community, organizations have
the ability to move prospects along the buyer’s
journey giving the individual an opportunity
to education themselves, engage with like-
minded people and consume content without
feeling pressured to make a purchasing decision.
The beauty of online communities is that they
allow customers to come to you and gives you
the ability to serve up tailored content without
having to go hunting and fishing through
different online channels to find them.
What are steps needed to build an effective
online community? Continue reading….

“Fish Where the Fish Are Swimming.”
It’s an old, oft-referenced axiom in marketing.
In essence: don’t waste your time casting a wide
net. Focus your energy on finding where your
customers are, and engage them in the perfect
moment to hook and reel them in. Sure, it’s
catchy (we’re marketers, after all). But shouldn’t
we think bigger than that? Shouldn’t we as sales
and marketing professionals aspire to build
something beyond the obvious “hooks?” Why not
be more ambitious and set our sights on building
the pond itself instead?
The new digital realities dictate that it is
becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate
yourself from the myriad of other messages and
“hooks” being cast by a growing pool of online
and offline marketers. The fight for consumer
attention has never been more intense. Yet,
oddly, it’s clear that the traditional focus of
driving prospects and customers to an immediate
action, or goal, persists as the default goal for
most campaigns. While doing so often helps
us hit our short-term objectives and targets,
we end up missing out on an opportunity to
create a deeper, broader, and more impactful
engagement with our audience.
With the confluence of social tools and low-cost
digital assets the connected web has afforded
us, brands now have the ability, and imperative,
to think beyond end-of-funnel metrics. Instead
of simply driving prospects to sign-up for an
offer, trial, or service, we should force ourselves
to consider the long-view. Wouldn’t it be more
impactful to provide our prospects with a
destination, playground, or community in which
they can engage, learn, and grow?
Decide for yourself. Take the example of a brand
looking to break into a new segment with a new
target audience. To keep with the previously
established aquatic theme of this section, let’s
assume this new audience is “Boating and
Fishing Enthusiasts.”

Find/Reach: Locate the new audience in various online communities or social networks geared
towards boating and fishing topics and target them with relevant offers through online ads and
search campaigns.
Direct: Get the consumer to click-through to a targeted landing page to conversion, or collect more
information about the prospect.
Follow-Through/Convert: In a B2C environment, the call-to-action may be geared towards immediate
online conversion and getting the quick sale. In a B2B context, you may be more focused on setting
up appointments to move the prospect through the pipeline as the next step. In either instance, the
consumer will probably land in one of two camps: one, you’ve hooked them and they become a hot
lead or a sale or two, they unhooked themselves from the line – and they now get lumped into the
next round of retargeting campaigns.
Audience Generation – Case Example
Option 1 - Old School Approach
With this school of thought, you’re likely to see the following approach:

Find/Reach: You still want find the new audience through various online networks, but your offer is
very different. While it still needs to be relevant, the offer can include online content or tools to better
educate this audience (e.g., the latest strategies in fly fishing) and it may not even be branded with
your company’s name (pause for shock value). In many instances, we’ve found success in creating an
online destination distinct from the Brand’s core website – to create a broader and more comfortable
“pond” for your audience to interact with you.
Direct: Instead of driving consumers to a one-off landing page, you’re driving them to an online
destination that offers a variety of relevant content, tools, discussion forums, and expert dialogue.
Sure they may be able to find similar content on other websites, but you’ve got it all in one place.
Engage: Through this online community, not only are you capturing customer demographics but
you’re also capturing usage data helping you to round out your customer profile. This platform
enables a longer term relationship with the consumer by providing them with a range of interaction
mechanisms such as a combination of regularly updated licensed and original content; a forum to
communicate with other like-minded individuals and experts; stickier tools like tide calculators or fish
finder apps; and occasional live “Google Hangouts” featuring a well-known expert in the boating &
fishing community.
Follow-Through/Convert: Based on the newfound user data, you’ll be able to target each individual
with more timely and relevant product offers. Over time, consumers receive the right message at the
right time in their buying process. As always, the consumer will have the option to become a hot lead
or a sale, but if they don’t, you now have a safe place to “throw them back” to until they are ready.
While this is obviously a fictitious example, we’ve executed several similar programs for clients with
much broader audience categories, across industries. Time and again, building the pond has proven
to be the successful path in customer engagement.
Let’s agree to never let our customers know we refer to them as fish!
Option 2 - New School Approach
Build the Pond Approach. Here’s how things change with the more dynamic approach:

1
SALES AND
MARKETING
ALIGNMENT
SEGMENTATION
STRATEGY
SOCIAL AND
DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT
CONTENT
MARKETING
ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
PART 5
Unlock Billions in Hidden Revenue
5
When it comes to pipeline management, typically
marketing focuses on the top of the funnel with
lead generation programs and tactics while sales
focuses on the bottom funnel with opportunity
management tactics. So who focuses on the
middle of the funnel? And therein lies the
biggest hindrance in realizing the full revenue
potential from the marketing and sales strategies
we’ve previously outlined. Organizations need to
turn their attention to the middle of the funnel
where leads often disappear. The reality of
the new buyer’s journey is that after the initial
engagement most customers are not ready to
purchase right away. They continue to conduct
research, they validate products with friends or
colleagues, they meet with other stakeholders
for consideration, and they evaluate cost, timing
and need. This process could take months, so
instead of dumping them into a “black hole”,
create processes and strategies to manage them
in the middle of your funnel until they are ready
to purchase.
However, in order to manage the middle of
the funnel, you MUST have marketing and
sales alignment. There needs to be one
central process for both marketing AND
Sales, otherwise there will be a lack of visibility
when it comes to critical prospect data, such as
conversion metrics, purchase timing, and return
on investment. Marketing and Sales alignment
not only requires a mutual agreement between
marketing and sales on lead qualification, but
also, lead disqualification, lead follow-up and the
lead hand-off process.
If your organization could develop an approach
to address the middle of the funnel, how much
additional revenue could you expect to gain?
Continue reading…..

As if there weren’t enough reasons for the largest
firms to rethink how they market and sell to
potential buyers, here are 120 billion additional
ones.
That number represents the revenue potential
trapped within the Fortune 500’s marketing and
sales pipelines. To understand that figure, let’s
back up to make an argument that by following
the new buyer’s journey companies can find a lot
more revenue growth.
If 2014 is anything like last year, revenue growth
targets mandated on Sales officers will be
substantial. According to CSO Insights, 75% of
CSOs were targeting more than 5% revenue
growth last year, yet 47% had concerns
regarding their organization’s ability to attain
that growth. A major threat to growth for most
large firms is that they have yet to effectively
respond to changes in how their customers
buy – aggressively adopting data analytics to
understand their buyers’ preferences (how
they want to learn about, compare, evaluate,
configure and eventually purchase goods and
services) and launching digital engagement
programs to align to those preferences.
What’s truly eye-opening is that for the largest
companies, the fastest path to new revenue
growth may be right under their noses—or
more literally, trapped inside their existing
prospect pipeline. It takes an innovative, more
coordinated approach between Marketing and
Sales to tap that reserve of revenue growth—one
that connects Marketing and Sales operations to
nurture and qualify the middle of the funnel to
produce more opportunities for Sales to close.

Hard work, for sure, but the payoff can be huge.
We’ve recently combined pipeline performance
improvement benchmarks from Marketing
Automation platform vendors with
MarketBridge’s program experience with Fortune
500 clients over the past year to calculate the
value tied up within the middle of most large
firm’s pipeline. This is the portion of the pipeline
where Marketing typically “hands off a lead” to
Sales. Unfortunately, in most large organizations,
that hand-off is broken.
Research from MarketingSherpa suggests that
only 27% of marketing generated leads are
qualified (just 1-in-4!), so Sales tends to discount
or ignore them as they’re not ready-to-buy (not
surprising since 65% of B2B marketers have not
established lead nurturing and 79% have not
established lead scoring). Better qualifying is
not just better for the prospect as you deliver
advice and insights needed to make an informed
decision, it’s better for Sales since reps will begin
trusting the quality of leads delivered to them.
So how huge can the payoff be? We estimate for
B2B-oriented Fortune 500 firms, an additional
1% of revenues may be trapped inside the
middle-of-the-funnel. While that may seem
trivial at first blush, adding an additional 1% of
revenues to the top-line would have increased
2013 growth rates by:
• 12% for Aetna
• 18% for Cisco
• 31% for 3M
• And More Than Doubled Dow Chemical’s,
AT&T’s, & GE’s growth.
In fact, the average Fortune 500 firm may have
$240 million in untapped revenue stuck in their
pipeline and all 500 collectively could have
$120 billion (1% of $12.0 Trillion in combined
revenues).
That’s how huge.
So why do companies that connect Marketing
to Sales realize better pipeline conversions?
Mainly, because they use technology to nurture
prospects with personalized content (based
on buying personas and past behavior) at well-
defined points in that prospect’s buying journey
to produce predictable outcomes. Basically,
they give customers what they want, when they
want more effectively than their competitors.
And since research shows that 95% of buyers
prefer brands that provide content throughout
the buying process that personalized digital
engagement gives them an edge. How much
of an edge? Companies that provide a great
buying experiences grow 2 times faster than
companies that provide average experiences.

Establish a unified, connected funnel from top-of-funnel prospect generation, all the way to bottom-
of-the funnel closed deals. Firms that maintain one funnel for Marketing and one for Sales are
postponing success and holding on to outdated, segregated processes that no longer serve their
business well.
1 Build a Single Connected Funnel
Buyers continue to squeeze out sales reps in favor of digital education and engagement. If you’re
not competitively present in these new distribution channels, or offering the right content at the right
stage to make their purchase decision easier, you’re not effectively aligning to new preferences and
you are creating a revenue opportunity for your competitors.
2 Digitally Engage Across the New Buyer’s Journey
In contrast to what many marketers think, most firms don’t need more leads. They need to nurture
the leads they already have (including existing customers!). A greater focus of resources to manage
and engage leads with relevant content to nurture them as they educate themselves and evaluate
vendors can yield big returns.
4 Attack the Middle of the Funnel
The beauty of increased digital engagement is the data that can be generated. Mining customer
interaction data from marketing automation, website, and social platforms combined with CRM and
purchase transaction history can identify the best customers and the path they prefer to learn about,
shop for, and buy your services.
3 Understand Preferences from Actual Behavior
Below are six best practices that are common among our most successful clients who connect
Marketing and Sales with data analytics and digital engagement programs:
Connecting Marketing to Sales can only happen when Sales receives what they need (qualified &
scored opportunities, not raw leads) and Marketing gets what they need (timely follow-up by Sales
to continue the buyer’s journey, not inaction or generic selling). The best way to accomplish this
connection is to establish clear SLAs (Service Level Agreement) between the two organizations to
produce the proper teamwork and unified direction in order to produce more deals.
5 Establish a Formal Hand-Off Between Marketing and Sales
The ultimate indicator of a successfully connected funnel is greater sales productivity (our bias is
that revenue trumps all other metrics). Better alignment to the new buyer journey by using digital
engagement and customer data analytics can be measured in connected pipeline metrics such as,
volume, velocity, conversion rates, deal size, and customer penetration.
6 Measure the Connected Pipeline from Sales’ POV
So, what’s an additional 1% of revenues worth to your business?

As most organizations have realized, there has been an indisputable shift in the customers’ buying
process which has led to pain being felt by organizations that are slow to adapt. In this whitepaper,
we’ve outlined several key areas to focus on as your organization addresses changes in the buyer’s
journey.
As organizations implement new digital customer engagement and data strategies, to be successful
they must have expertise in four key areas - their people, process, technology and data
At MarketBridge, we’ve helped hundreds of clients implement new digital marketing and sales
strategies which has resulted in dramatic improvement in revenue performance. Based on that
experience, here are a few key recommendations we would like to share as you align your Marketing
and Sales strategies to the new buyer’s journey:
1. Rethink your segmentation approach so that it is informed by true customer behavioral data, is
actionable by your teams, and actually makes you money!
2. Once you identify the right customers, deploy digital and social tactics to keep them
progressing along the buying journey and focused on your products and services.
3. Ensure your content marketing strategy is structured to engage prospects and customers at
every stage of the buying process and drives them all the way to purchase. If you don’t have a
content marketing strategy, start building one today.
4. Develop assets which support prospect and customer nurturing, including digital platforms and
communities, to address the challenge of customers abruptly moving away from traditional sales
resources and into online environments and communities.
5. Focus on Marketing and Sales alignment, and integrate the activities of these teams to ensure
that prospects, and thus revenue, do not get stuck in the middle of your funnel
This significant change takes time, investment, and dedicated effort; no organization can do it all by
themselves. You’ll need a partner to help you set the right strategy, execute in the new environment,
and measure/optimize for success. MarketBridge can be that partner.
Contact us to learn more about how MarketBridge’s RevenueEngines™ and SMART™ Analytics
solutions can help your organization successfully approach the new buyer’s journey and unlock
revenue performance while reducing costs and improving the customer experience. Let us help you
realize the true revenue potential of your pipeline.
Corporate Website Phone
www.market-bridge.com 1-888-GO-TO-MKT
Conclusion

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Below are the authors who have contributed to this whitepaper:
Jason Robinson // SVP, Sales and Marketing
Jason Robinson leads MarketBridge’s Sales and Marketing teams. He is responsible for both direct
sales & marketing activities as well as go-to-market channel partnerships. Jason has over 15 years of
consulting experience in the Sales and Marketing space, and has worked with over 100 firms within
the Fortune 1000 in the technology, telecommunications, financial services, and business services
sectors.
Stephanie Russell // SVP, Business Analytics
Stephanie Russell leads the Business Analytics practice for MarketBridge, which provides solutions
which inform both online and offline sales and marketing decisions and range from predictive
modeling and segmentation solutions to web analytics and closed loop sales and marketing
effectiveness measurement.. She has 15 years of experience in CRM strategy, analytics, and enabling
technology.
Lane Douglas // Principal, Strategic Solutions Group
Lane Douglas is the Principal for MarketBridge’s Social Media Solutions where he leads the
development of innovative social marketing strategies and platform creation. With over 15 years
of online marketing experience, he and his team apply a strategic and systematic approach to
building measureable social marketing campaigns, customized analytics dashboards, competitive
benchmarking analysis, and professional reputation management for profitable growth.
Steven Lewis // SVP, Marketing Services
Steven Lewis is the Senior Vice President of the MarketBridge Marketing Services practice which
designs and executes demand generation programs based on MarketBridge’s RevenueEngines™
solutions. Steven has over 14 years of experience in sales and marketing consulting as well as in the
design, production, execution and assessment of digital marketing and sales enablement programs.
Rebecca Johns // VP, Marketing Services
Becky Johns leads the Marketing Services practice at MarketBridge. Her experience centers primarily
on building brand loyalty through customer acquisition, engagement and retention programs and
developing online and social media communities. In addition, she has expertise in enabling sales
teams through innovative training and sales readiness programs.
Mike Kelleher // SVP, Strategic Solutions Group
Mike Kelleher leads the MarketBridge Strategic Solution Group which delivers innovative sales and
marketing productivity solutions using MarketBridge’s technology-based solution architectures. Mike
has 22 years of consulting and implementation experience with a focus on innovative solutions that
combine traditional sales and marketing channels with emerging technologies including online and
social media tool.

Ultimate Guide to the New Buyers Journey

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Ultimate Guide to the New Buyers Journey

More from Evgeny Tsarkov

Recently uploaded

Ultimate Guide to the New Buyers Journey