Unleash Greatness
Unleash Greatness
For many B2B marketers, the traditional steps within the marketing funnel that motivate prospects to self-identify and then move to a sales funnel are ingrained in our minds. However, the funnel has evolved to reflect a new customer expectation requiring sales and marketing to work in tandem.
With this in mind, manufacturers must evaluate how their current B2B manufacturing marketing strategy is aligned with the psychology of their unique buyer journey. In other words, B2B marketers must know how to craft a marketing strategy based on the predominance of the customer.
Going through the exercise to develop personas based on market and customer research is fundamental to understanding who your audience is, at what stage in the buyer’s journey each persona engages with the company, and what information each persona needs to move further down the funnel. Incorporating marketing personas makes websites two to five times more effective and easier to use by targeted users. However, only 44% of B2B marketers still use buyer personas. Ensure your B2B manufacturing marketing strategy includes persona-based experiences that move buyers forward in their journey with your brand.
Building out your influencer and decision personas to understand your target audience is only part of the process of laying a customer-driven foundation for your B2B manufacturing marketing strategy. Next is to map the persona touchpoints through all buyer stages. In order to close the loop from awareness to revenue, it’s critical to know the touchpoints along the journey that are motivators and detractors to influence all parts of the customer experience. When developing your marketing strategy, start by answering the question, “How do I craft a strategy with the framework that aligns with my customer’s journey to gain clarity and define priority?”
Read: How to Successfully Execute Customer Journey Mapping for B2B Manufacturers
Perhaps a no-brainer for a data-driven manufacturing marketing professional is to set clearly-defined metrics. With a heightened emphasis on personalization and customer experience (CX), goals and metrics must be established to measure the success of the strategy and supporting initiatives as customers progress through the buyer journey. Your comprehensive B2B manufacturing marketing strategy must outline how it will directly contribute to revenue and fuel growth.
The traditional hand-off from marketing to sales, with no feedback loop when a lead purchases, causes misalignment between marketing and sales teams. In fact, 25% of B2B marketers have no idea what their customer conversion rate is. Your marketing strategy should outline how to encourage inter-team collaboration between marketing and sales. Ensuring this alignment is crucial to creating a consistent customer experience along the entire buyer’s journey. Marketing professionals can take the first step by being intentional about sharing insights with sales to encourage collaboration.
With only 45% of B2B marketers confident they have decent, if not high, levels of customer centricity, the time to is now to author your new B2B marketing strategy that elevates you above your competition. At Crafted, we partner with middle-market and Fortune 500 marketing leaders to ensure their successful customer-centric B2B marketing strategy not only shows direct contribution to revenue but also fuels high growth for their organization.
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