Click here to read about our latest workshops, Outside-In Selling and Outside-In Selling: Mastering the Virtual Sale.

Anthony Rocha

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Cutting Through the Noise with Precision Marketing

In today’s world, buyers have become so overloaded with marketing material that most is deleted without a second thought. Even content about offerings they are actually interested in still fail to impress, focusing too much on what the customer already knows instead of bringing new insight or value to their situation.

Sales and marketing technology platforms often compound this issue. While they have the potential to be the most powerful tool in any organization’s arsenal, in many cases, they only enable businesses to do bad selling and marketing faster. So how do we fix this? how can we get the right message to the right role using the right channel at the right time?

In order to cut through the noise and deliver relevant, valuable content, we must start by developing a deep understanding of the target market’s end-to-end Customer Buying Journey. 

The Inaccuracies of Modern Marketing

Our research shows that sales and marketing are typically engaged in less than 10% of any Customer Buying Journey. That short effort is disproportionately focused on raising awareness and gaining interest using readily available information, assuming commitment, acquisition, and adoption will naturally follow. However, gaining organizational alignment, commitment, and managing the change and anxieties associated with any new approach is the most effort intensive part of every Buying Journey for customers. This is especially true for complex offerings involving multiple decision influencers.

Although they are necessary to advertise, your offering details and associated benefits should only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your messaging. However, most firms do not sell this way. More than 70% of marketing energy is directed at proving value, while 90% of buying concerns slowing and stopping purchases continue to go unaddressed. That is why there is an urgent need to rethink marketing and adopt a far more targeted approach based upon how the market buys.

Sharpening Your Approach with Outside-In™

Understanding who your customers are, how they buy, and where they are in the Buying Journey should directly affect how you position your product and engage with a prospect. Without that knowledge, any investments in your marketing projects are subject more to luck than design.

Here are four key factors to consider when planning around your Customer’s Buying Journey:

1. The Right Message: harmonizing your messaging to your customer’s decision-making style is key. You should always align your marketing to their values and the way they see your brand, not what you think their values are or how you may want to be seen. This will help you more effectively manage buying concerns as they arise.

2. The Right Person: equally important is getting your message to the people who count. Not everyone willing to listen to your message is going to be a customer or can help a deal progress. That is why it is crucial to not just know who your customers are, but who plays what role in the overall decision-making process.

3. The Right Channel: a great targeted message is only helpful with the proper delivery vehicle. This involves both the form of the message and how it is delivered, such as a new white-paper in your newsletter. Regardless, your message needs to be delivered how your customer wants to see it or be available where they are expecting to find it.

4. The Right Time: this is where the Customer Buying Journey really comes into play. Everything from your customers concerns to the way they perceive your brand can change as they move through their buying process. New people can be involved while existing players have changing roles and levels of authority over the acquisition.

Bringing it all Together

This interplay does not simply end with the right timing, as none of the four elements are ever isolated. All key players cannot be appealed to in the same way, just like one channel might naturally be preferred for a specific type of message. Even so, these granular details are still a major aspect of the Customer Buying Journey that we like to call the Buying Journey DNA. Though it can seem complicated, it’s worth untangling when you know specific markets purchase in predictable ways and that it will likely be the same buying concerns, key players, and touchpoints at the specific steps.

With all that in mind, what we are recommending is a far more precise and engineered approach to developing marketing messaging and content. Your strategies are most effective when centered around positively influencing the Buying Journey. Instead of underscoring what your customers already know and focusing on why they should buy, help them through how they buy and actualize the value they are seeking from the offering.

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The Power of Listening to the Customer

If I were to contend that during the COVID-19 pandemic, your customers started buying differently, you would probably laugh and say, “Tell me something I don’t know.” But it’s true. While there have been ongoing changes in the buying process for decades now, the pandemic has certainly accelerated some and disrupted others. Since the beginning of 2020, we have been consulted more times for longer sales cycles, decreasing forecast accuracy, and difficulties in forming customer relationships than ever before – all of which are byproducts of not adapting fast enough.

But where we’d start disagreeing is if I asked how we need to start selling differently. Suddenly, a million voices cry out at once with a different suggestion citing conflicting evidence and a contrasting priority. Yes, it seems everyone can recognize that customers are buying differently in the virtual world, but what’s fallen by the wayside is, “How do we know and what do we do about it?”

Why Their Voices Matter

At some level, we are all aware of these changes anecdotally. Just like many of us are guilty of checking a text or an email during a video conference, almost all of us have caught a prospect doing the same thing. However, while this might be indicative of a broader trend, can you say for sure? could you tell me why this is happening? and more importantly, could you tell me what do about it?

The answer is simple: you can’t, but your customers could.

Listening closely to your customers always paints a better, more accurate picture of their reasoning, experiences and needs than behind-the-desk guesswork. Yet given the sheer amount of training courses and publications being released about these pandemic-driven changes, it is alarming how little focus there has been on actually talking to buyers – learning what they are challenged by and hearing what they now expect from salespeople. Worst of all, those that do bring research to the table are often using the limited scope of surveys or focus groups as a replacement for in-depth, one-on-one interviews.

Take for example the difference between, “From the survey, your customers slightly to strongly agree your presentations are too long. We suggest cutting the deck in half.” versus, “During our interviews, your buyers complimented the quality and depth of your content but said your presentation style hasn’t translated well to the virtual space. In their words, here’s how you can make your deck feel shorter by making it more engaging.”

Letting your customers speak candidly and as individuals can drastically change your understanding of their wants and the best course of action.

The Outside-In™ Recommendation

For the past 20 years, our Outside-In™ approaches and programs have always started by speaking with customers to decode how they buy. Our unwavering belief is that when you listen to your buyers, there are always surprises and valuable insights to be gained. That’s why we have sat down with well over a hundred customers across various industries about how the pandemic impacted their buying process and shared some of those findings earlier this year.

As always, we are here to recommend taking the initiative and speaking to your own customers about how they buy and why they don’t. Making assumptions about their buying process might be easier, but it won’t help you sell better. Those improvements can only be discovered when we are open minded, actively listening, and asking thoughtful follow ups. That way when someone asks us, “How do you know?” or “What can we do?” we can begin where we always should, with, “Our customers told us…”

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Market-Partners Inc. Interviews UXPressia

Last month, our book, How Customer’s Buy…& Why They Don’t, made UXPressia’s user suggested must-read list for 2021. For the unfamiliar, UXPressia is a software company specializing in Customer Experience and Buying Journey mapping tools, and coincidentally, we began using their program for ideation and collaboration during our own shift to virtual. After some email introductions, we were fortunate enough to “sit down” and get some of their thoughts on the importance of the Customer Buying Journey. Here’s what their team had to say.

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: The UXPressia Team has been providing Buying Journey Mapping software and resources since 2015. What originally drew you to the concept of mapping and managing the Buying Journey? 

UXPRESSIA: It was a desire to build a better world where all services are human-centric. Bad products and services (and poor customer experiences, of course) had always been our pain, something that triggered us to take action. One day we thought that we could help others build better products and services by providing them with appropriate tools.

Since we were UX and CX professionals by ourselves, we knew such tools well. And among other tools, there was one that stood out for us: Customer Journey Mapping. We intuitively knew (and soon realized that it was true) that Customer Journey Mapping is just a generic term for journey maps that share the same features but might be a little bit different in applications: Buying Journeys, user journeys, employee journeys, etc. 

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: From your perspective, why do you believe that it is important for businesses to map their Buying Journeys? What results have you seen when clients change their approach?

UXPRESSIA: It may sound like a cliche, but we all have seen businesses that don’t map their Buying Journeys. Remember the times when you felt that business didn’t care about you as a customer, didn’t take into account your needs and communication channels you prefer, didn’t speak your language (literally and metaphorically). You would never have any deals with such services unless you are in a situation when you are forced to.

On the contrary, when your journey (as a buyer) is smooth and triggers positive emotions, you are more likely to stick with the service, become a loyal customer and brand advocate in the future. We’ve got a case study about that: Michelin Case Study.

One more reason for leveraging Customer Journey Mapping:  setting up a powerful marketing funnel is great, but it doesn’t answer the question “Why?”. CJM combined with the funnel helps you understand that, find flaws and fix them. Buying Journeys focuses on people who are using them, people that buy from them, on their needs, contexts, pains, etc. And all that helps to build better journeys, delivering a better buying experience, attracting the right buyers, bringing more value to both your clients and your business.

We were also able to speak with Yuri Vedenin, founder of UXPressia, who shared a story about buying flowers for his mom’s birthday in an online store: “Everything was perfect – the images, price, and delivery time. I used this service before. But it turned out that I completely forgot what I did last time. So I took all the necessary steps on the site, I put the item in the basket, I was on the last step of my Buying Journey and… I bought flowers from another service. Just because the first site didn’t accept my card. And my second card. And didn’t tell me the reason. Nor did it have any online chat to speak to anyone from support.”

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: What are some mistakes or misconceptions about Buying Journeys or Buying Journey mapping that you would like to clear up?  

UXPRESSIA: There’re a lot of misconceptions about the differences and similarities between buyer and customer journeys. We wrote a blog post on a similar topic a couple of years ago. 

Another problem is that many use demographic data to segment the audience, and it’s not always the right way to go (as well as build maps around such personas). We believe that it’s also essential to consider behaviors, goals, and motives that drive people’s decision-making.

One should remember that there is no one-size-fits-all Buying Journey structure. The structure can be different in each specific case. It all depends on the goals (business outcomes) you are trying to achieve. You can use a template to jump-start your initiative but be ready to adapt it to your business context.

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: A cornerstone of your program is displaying the Buying Journey graphically, releasing new visual templates and updates monthly. What benefits have you found from good presentation, UI, and UX in terms of adopting this more customer-centric philosophy? 

UXPRESSIA: As our customers say, aesthetically pleasing and straightforward design helps people grasp map ideas easily. Besides, a good presentation frequently simplifies getting buy-in from stakeholders. It helps the team “believe” in the journey they are being shown.

Templates are a great starting point for both journey mapping first-timers and experienced ones. They inspire, suggest some basic structure, contain useful domain-specific information (and images in many cases in the storyboard section), and can be customized to a specific business case. 

We believe that UXPressia’s ease of use and learnability do users a good turn: having a tool that is approachable and can be played with helps them to start experimenting with methodology.

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: As we all know, the shift to virtual work has caused a change in the way customers are buying. With many companies still without a plan to return to office, what do you believe are the secrets to success in the online world? 

UXPRESSIA: There is no silver bullet to succeed in the online world. Success is in doing and trying your best. It’s time to rethink the way you work and your Buying Journey. With switching to online, your Buying Journey certainly changed, and you need to understand how. 

Start with an online journey mapping workshop to co-create a Buying Journey map, generate journey improvement ideas based on it, and then put them into effect. Embrace the challenge to win!

MARKET-PARTNERS INC.: Recently, our book, How Customers Buy… & Why They Don’t, made your user recommended must-read list. If you’ve had a chance to read it, was there a section or idea you found particularly insightful?

UXPRESSIA: This book is very insightful, with lots of useful examples and case studies that help understand the concepts you describe. They all are so detailed and relatable! And so many of them are from your personal experience, which is inspiring. A personal story of how you came to the concept of the Buying Journey is just great. 

There were many ideas that resonated with us on many levels, yet we’d like to highlight the following one, and let us quote: “No one buys anything because of a sales process. Customers only buy because of their own Buying Journey.” Moreover, reading about modes of the Customer Buying Journey made us think about how to visualize such journeys in our tool. The same was with recursive Buying Journeys and buying styles, and especially with a macro Buying Journey.

This book is a must-read for businesses who want to understand their customers (from their, not business perspective) and their Buying Journeys and improve or rethink their approach to creating customers. We believe the book will be super helpful for B2B, but those from the B2C domain will also find lots of valuable information, thought-provoking ideas (we highlighted and bookmarked half of the book!), tools, and frameworks.

Thank you again to the UXPressia team for answering our questions! If you are interested in learning more about UXPressia and their philosophy, you can visit their website at uxpressia.com.

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Sales Wise Turns 15: 3 Enduring Lessons for Virtual Sales

In February of 2006, Market-Partners Inc. CEO and founder, Martyn Lewis, published his first book, Sales Wise. This loose collection of 32 vignettes not only contains our first ever thoughts on the Customer Buying Journey, but also a great story about a flying Volvo I am becoming convinced only funny to salespeople. Now, before you add several copies to your Amazon cart, eager to hear punchlines about magic Swedish cars, this article is not meant to be a book recommendation. At best, Sales Wise today serves mostly as an interesting piece of corporate history given how much more we know about how customers buy and why they don’t.

Yes, 15 years can certainly feel like a lifetime ago, especially when I glanced at the old tag line in Chapter 13 – “Selling from the Inside-Out.” Yet despite how much has changed just within the last 12 months, that doesn’t mean we should throw out everything we know about the Buying Journey. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Here are three Outside-In (or dare I say, Inside-Out) lessons from Sales Wise more relevant than ever.

1. www.com Is Not The Friend Of The Sales Professional

Back when Martyn was selling computer systems in the late 80s, his team had an important saying about the role of marketing material: “the selling stops when the brochure is delivered.” Sales Wise was quick to recontextualize this adage, highlighting the parallels between product pamphlets and your corporate web address.

With your URL closer to your fingertips than ever before, it is crucial to remind ourselves what websites are – excellent marketing tools. Referring someone to your domain during a conversation will not help you discover what your prospect is after, nor will it help you play a larger role in defining their job requirements. Anytime you hand a client your virtual “brochure” in a call, you are no longer managing the Buying Journey. You are actively relinquishing control over it.

2. Do You Know Why Someone Will Buy From You?

The transition to virtual has simultaneously made customers more and less accessible. On one hand, it is easier to put something on their calendar – despite your Zoom meeting being only one of a half-dozen they will attend this afternoon. It should be no surprise then that our latest research found buyers and key decision makers are looking for more focused content than previously thought.

The Sales Wise solution is simple. Imagine your prospect just called to say you lost the business – in sixty seconds, could you clearly express your value proposition in your customer’s words? If you can’t, then it’s time to condense, edit, and polish your value proposition around their Customer’s Buying Journey. As Martyn put succinctly in the book, “If you don’t know why your prospect would buy from you, don’t expect the prospect to know.”

3. Yours Sincerely

While the repetition of writing emails and LinkedIn messages definitely breeds efficiency, it can sometimes result in us sending something completely on autopilot. I have personally received a concerning number of copy and pasted communications still addressed to their original recipient. As much as I try to take these mistakes in stride, I cannot help but think of the old Sales Wise quote, “If it’s worth writing, it’s worth writing properly.”

Electronic communication seems more detached, but regardless of what closing salutation you use, you have stilled signed that message. Although our interviews show customers are expecting quicker communication in 2021 compared to other years, they also believe, “even an email is a request [their] time.” So before you press send, stretch your legs, refill your coffee, and reread your email one more time to make sure you are putting your best foot forward.

Want to know how customers are buying differently in the virtual world? Our latest course, Outside-In Selling: Mastering The Virtual Sale, is designed to help you increase your sales effectiveness, productivity, and closing ratio in the online space. View the offering and download the course description here.