B2B customer journey
Understanding and using the customer journey to your advantage
What’s a customer journey?
We've all internalised it by now: The customer is king. It’s essential to fulfil our customers’ wishes and needs to their complete satisfaction. But this is only possible if we know our personas. And the better we know them and the more precisely we can trace their "journey", the more successful subsequent marketing measures will be.
But what exactly is a customer journey? The term describes the customers’ complete itinerary – from initial contact with a product, brand, or service to a defined action (for instance, a purchase or newsletter subscription). The individual phases of the customer journey are linked by the totality of the consumers’ touchpoints.
1. Awareness
People have a question or a problem, and they are looking for answers and solutions: A certain trigger, also called a stimulus, makes potential customers "search". Infographics, blog posts, podcasts, webinars or service content are a small selection of marketing tools that you can use to draw attention to your company during the awareness phase.
Important: The content in this phase is primarily intended to be helpful and not yet product-related or product-specific.
The magic word is: thought leadership!
2. Consideration
Information was collected, a longlist of solutions and providers was created. In the consideration phase, B2B customers now go into more in-depth research to further filter out suitable companies. Business cases, trend studies or product comparisons are some of the tools that help them do this. At this point, companies can shine with expertise and know-how and thus make it to the top of the longlist.
3. Decision/purchase
The longlist has become a shortlist. The "chosen ones" will now be put through their paces again before a final decision is made. In this phase, the contract is usually awarded to the company that fully satisfies the customer's need for information and provides the most convincing arguments for its product. In the B2B sector, the decision-making phase mainly takes place on online marketplaces, in the online shop or via e-mail communication. Sometimes also via direct communication with a sales representative. Whichever one it is: The customer must be convinced to follow through with their purchase.
4. Retention/delivery
Many companies still neglect the fourth phase – the retention phase. And yet, it’s extremely important. Because: After the purchase is before the purchase. Ideally, customers are so enthusiastic about your products and services that they would be happy to buy from you again.
In the retention phase, it’s all about great customer service and support – and you need to implement them as quickly as possible. The contact points are: your help desk, service portals or social media channels. You should also keep your customers up to date on the latest deals and changes to your products via your newsletter.
5. Advocacy
Yes, the “recommendation factor” is becoming increasingly relevant in the B2B sector as well: What do others say? What are their experiences with a company, product, or service? Many buyers decide for or against something based on other people’s reviews and ratings. So: Turn your customers into brand enthusiasts and supporters and encourage them to leave a "like"!
Your to-dos: Provide your existing customers with appropriate information on an ongoing basis and never lose touch with them! You can do this by sending them regular e-mail updates and with targeted social media activities. Sharing buttons are also useful to encourage them to share your content on relevant business networks (for example, on LinkedIn or Xing).
- Who is my target group and who are the relevant buyer personas?
- What are their psychographic (e.g. attitudes and values), sociographic (e.g. age, gender, education, career status) and economic characteristics (e.g. income, possessions, budget)?
- What kinds of needs could each buyer persona have that can be satisfied with my products or services?
- What types of content are (not) preferred when they search for a product or service?
- What are possible stimuli and touchpoints of the various personas?
- At which touchpoints am I as a company already present?
- For which topics is the information need of potential customers not sufficiently satisfied yet?
- What does the tracking data on your own B2B website say?