By: Nicholas L. Holland, VP of Marketing Hub at HubSpot
When thinking about the fundamentals of marketing, one thing stays the same: customer journeys happen whether you architect them or not. This isn’t groundbreaking for most marketers, however the most successful ones recognize how critical it is. They’re deliberate about understanding their customers’ journeys — from the very first touchpoint with their brand, all the way to repeat business.
Now, the approach to this varies with experience. Newer marketers should be intentional about every single part of their planning, whereas more experienced marketers know their customers already and can anticipate their next move. Regardless of where they are in their career, one thing stays consistent — the importance of crafting the customer journey.
But why? Well, if you don’t, the hard truth is that your customers will leave to find someone who will. In fact, 32% of customers will stop doing business with a company they loved after a bad experience. And that’s during the best of times.
Shifting focus during macroeconomic uncertainty
In a macroeconomic boom, there is less concern for generating quality leads as there’s typically a larger surplus to choose from in the first place. This leaves a lot more wiggle room for process inefficiencies and band aid solutions — or to be frank, mediocre marketing. In these times, the only real benefit to personalized journeys for your customers is efficiency. Better quality leads equals a greater chance to close business, which ultimately means hitting goals faster.
Now, in times of macroeconomic uncertainty, all of those best practices are thrown out the window. Every single action marketers take with their customers matters and it is more important than ever to understand exactly what your customers need, and why they care about your brand specifically. Neglecting to nurture that opportunity because you didn’t prioritize a personalized and unique customer journey is not only a tragedy, but will ultimately result in your customers becoming your competition’s customers instead.
So, what now?
If you’ve read this far, you not only understand the power of architecting your customers’ journeys, but also believe it’s imperative to success. So, what now?
Data hygiene and personalized automation are two critical first steps in understanding your customers, their behaviors and what moves them through their buyer’s journey. But, success requires a step beyond clean living and efficient processes. Success happens when you leverage those insights through a different perspective.
A new perspective on marketing
Connecting with customers continues to be top of mind at HubSpot, and investing in more robust ways to leverage reporting and automation is our latest approach. Traditional marketing automation and reporting tools give marketers a siloed view into their customers’ journeys. I like to think about it like standing nose to nose with a massive painting — you see only a small piece of a larger vision. Now, imagine taking ten steps back from that painting, and the entirely new perspective that would be uncovered.
Marketers need a way to take those ten steps back, which is why we built Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). CJA offers marketers out-of-the-box tools to leverage data comprehensively, without requiring a team of technical consultants. Having the ability to identify gaps and optimize marketing efforts without changing existing day-to-day processes offers teams detailed insights that would otherwise be a blind spot.
CJA’s automation and reporting capabilities offer marketers the key to unlock strong, comprehensive marketing campaigns. In other words, marketers are able to see the whole picture into their campaigns. This enhances the journey that customers are having, and ultimately enhances the experience customers have with your brand.
