Many years ago when I first started in Marketing I worked for a computer company. Though the company had excellent technology and loyal customers, it was struggling to expand after its initial period of growth. Looking back, I can see that we were doing some things that held us back.

• We communicated too much about our product and not enough about the problems that our buyers experienced. Our customers questioned us about uses and applications, upstream and downstream effects, and integration with current systems. They found our answers inadequate. Many potential buyers were not even aware or convinced that they had a problem which required attention.
• We conducted programs and campaigns, but couldn’t tie our activities together or measure their results. We had little idea which of our Marketing investments were working and which ones weren’t. Buyers leaked out of our funnel and we didn’t know why.
• We communicated logically and rationally – problem, solution, benefits. Yet our buyers worked in a complex social environment that included Finance, IT, Operations, and executives. They all had to convince each other that we were the right choice. We did little to facilitate their decision-making. We lost more deals to “no-decision” than we ever did to a competitor.

Does this sound familiar?

Some technology companies when faced with these challenges move toward a consumer approach to marketing and sales – lots of direct mail and promotions.

Others come to rely ever more heavily on their direct sales force to do all the heavy lifting. They use marketing primarily to create awareness and build a brand.

Is there a third way? A way that would align Marketing and Sales with the entire buyer’s journey: from lack of awareness of a problem – to awareness – to making choices?

Here is a method that responds to these questions:

• Identify the stages of your buyer’s journey.
• Map your marketing operations to the stages in the buyer’s journey.
• Choose marketing activities that help buyers move from stage to stage by answering questions and working with them to solve problems.
• Measure the results. Do more the of the activities that are working and less of the ones that are not.

The Buyer's Journey

Companies are more likely to find and win new customers when Sales and Marketing are aligned to the way businesses buy, when they understand the stages in the Buyer’s Journey and the actions that motivate buyers to move from stage to stage in their journey.

When Sales and Marketing understand the stages of the buying cycle, they can help buyers move forward on their journey. They can achieve more control over their marketing results, increase their flow of customers, and deliver more profitable revenue.

The problems in Marketing and Sales are familiar:

• How do we attract new customers?
• Why don’t our customers buy? Or, why DO they buy?
• How much should we invest in Sales and Marketing? Where should we invest it? How do we know if we are getting a good return?
• Which Marketing and Sales activities are producing results? What should we measure?

These challenges are compounded by the fact that power has shifted to the customer. In most of the world, customers have lots of choices and supply exceeds demand. The internet makes more information available to buyers. Information that sellers used to control is now widely available.

And the business buying process is more complex. More people are involved, products are more technical, buyers face integration issues, budgets are difficult to get approved.

Consequently, buyers face a lengthy journey in order to solve complex problems at their organization. At each stage of this journey they must answer certain questions and solve specific problems before they can continue to the next stage.

The Buyer's Journey

Organizations that want to help their buyers solve a problem know what to do. At each stage they help buyers answer their questions, solve their problems, and motivate them to continue to the next stage.

This, then, is the response to the challenge. The primary function of Marketing and Sales is to create value that motivates buyers to move from stage to stage in their journey.