18 Apr The Key Ingredient You Might Be Missing From Your Marketing Mix

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As marketers, we’re always interested in learning about new tools and hoping to find that ‘magic bullet’ that propels our efforts. With ever-changing trends and technology that offer new ways to market, finding the perfect mixture of marketing strategies can be a challenge.

Today we want to talk about the key ingredient in your marketing mix you might be missing. It’s something we refer to as journeying or leading your clients or customers through a series of your communication pieces that ultimately walks them through a sales cycle or journey.

Journeying can occur in a variety of different ways. Whether it’s generated from your social media pages, directing traffic to your website, then to a YouTube channel, the end goal is all the same: your customer learns more about your organization through a series of actions that they take, at their own pace, by reading and interacting with your content and communications pieces.

Journeying is a great way to walk someone through a sales cycle from a resource-driven and informational point of view. If you’re not factoring journeying in your marketing, you might want to consider the revenue being lost.

Each effort for marketing, on average costs thousands, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours. If your audience knows how to get to your website but doesn’t have any direction to interact with you from there, you could be leaving money on the table. So, let’s review how journeying works.

Company ABC puts a blog on their website. The blog has great content that they’re keeping up-to-date. But who is reading it and what does the blog do? In some cases, this is where people might get ‘stuck.’ However, company ABC knows that by setting a journey for their customers, they can allow a pathway for them to walk through the blog, which may lead them to a link to download a lead magnet or a content piece that might provide value.

There are many types of lead magnets to entice a customer to continue the journey. These can include a complimentary white paper, vlog, e-book or survey. In this case, let’s say the customer downloads the white paper that company ABC put together; now what? After downloading, they receive a thank you email from the company with social page links and a reminder to become a fan on their social media sites.

Customer thinks, ‘oh yeah, let me go to Facebook and click LIKE.’ Without this gentle reminder, they may have forgotten or not thought to seek out social sites. They are physically doing something (clicking LIKE) that further engages them with the company. When someone physically does something to engage, they are demonstrating a higher likelihood of purchasing behavior.

Now the customer LIKES the Facebook page, has visited the website and downloaded the white paper. Now what? Does it end there?

Absolutely not! Go ahead and continue the journey with the next blog post, lead magnet, case study or webinar. Once they get to the next action, then ensure you are providing more links for them to click on additional information or providing an opportunity continue the engagement.

Amazing, right? Company ABC now has a customer journeying through their communications pieces, at their pace, on their terms, which probably feels good to the customer, too. They’ll receive valuable analytics that show these actions are taking place. This opens the door of opportunity for Company ABC to follow up with this person, make a phone call or send them an email.

Whatever your choices are, make sure your customer has plenty of opportunity to continue learning and hearing from your company. Never let a lead die for lack of content or activity.

Journeying can be the key to making it all work effortlessly. Enjoy the ride. It will be a profitable one.

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