Customer Journey Mapping

I don’t run TOFU, MOFU, BOFU campaigns anymore. I run two types of campaigns, because there are only two things that matter: ↳ Building mental availability and consideration with out-market prospects ↳ Convincing in-market prospects to choose you over competitors Out-market campaigns hit our total ICP list. We run high-frequency ads built around strategic, data-backed messaging to drive reach and recall. The goal: “When they move in-market, we’re the name they remember.” We mix ad formats but optimize for audience penetration, frequency, engagement rate, and dwell time. To measure success, we track ICP company visits, share of search, and growth in engaged ICP accounts over time. This tells us we're not just hitting vanity metrics, but actually getting on the vendor list. In-market campaigns are laser-targeted. I recently shrunk this audience from 40K to ~8K. Given our full ICP list is ~180K, that tracks as only ~5% are in-market at any time. The goal: convert pipeline, drive revenue, shorten sales cycles, increase AOV and LTV. Here’s what that structure looks like: We ditched generic retargeting (website visits, video views, ad clicks). Instead, we focus on high-intent page visits—service, pricing, offer pages. Add in AI-driven intent-signals from Dreamdata and G2. Then, layer an ICP filter over the top to ensure we're not wasting spend on poor-fit prospects. Unlike most B2Bs, we don’t exclude existing pipeline from targeting. We keep reminding them why we're the best option. They’re not closed until they’re closed. Funnel logic makes sense for a linear funnel. But B2B buying journeys aren't linear. Smart B2Bs market the way buyers actually buy. Not the way they wish they would. 🤘 — P.S. Struggling to make LinkedIn Ads work? Have a KlientBoost Growth Strategist build your custom free marketing plan based on proven playbooks like this one. Hit the link to get yours: https://lnkd.in/eMpcnvQX

Most marketing strategies fail for 2 reasons: - They don't adapt to the prospects' buying journey. - They don't show what the buyers need to see, to buy. Actually, they do the opposite: - They brainstorm internally, and skip research. - They are seller-centric, and plan randomly. Now here's what you need to do instead: You need to develop a 'customer-centric' marketing. Problem: every customer is different, and buying journeys are complex. But across 9 years, I've identified a pattern. Customers often go through 4 stages: 1/”We’re always listening” 2/”We have a problem to fix” 3/”Let’s look for potential solutions” 4/”Let’s compare 3 providers and decide” It can take weeks, months, or years. And across these 4 stages, the champion has a decisive role. - He collects content about the problem; - He identifies the best potential solutions; - He leads the buying committee & negotiations. Now the question is: "how do you adapt to these 4 stages?" - You need to research your buyers' journeys - You need to adapt your marketing & content - You need to align marketing and sales efforts Here's exactly how you should do that: 1/ Create educative content to position your brand as a choice To cover stageS (1) and (2), you should not create salesy content or aggresive sales sequences. Instead, publish easy-to-digest educative content about the industry, its problems, and ways to solve them. → Keywords: Thought Leadership & Educative Content 2/ Prove that your company is the best choice with trustworthy content To cover stage (3), you need to position your business as a solid option. You can't rely on short videos anymore; you need in depth content that shows you can really fix the problem and how. → Keywords: Clarity & Trust 3/ Close the deal with high quality sales-enablement content For stage (4), the most important factors are (a) the relationship between the champion and the seller, and (b) the quality of sales-enablement content. Here, you need to align sales and marketing efforts. → Keywords: Relationship & Sales-Enablement Content *** Follow me Pierre Herubel for daily marketing tips. Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly marketing guides.

It's easy to fall into the "doing things just to do them" trap in demand gen and ABM.  👉🏾 Launching campaigns because "it's our typical approach." 👉🏾Creating content because "we have to."   👉🏾 Chasing every lead with the belief that "more is always better." But with AI and automation making it easier than ever to produce generic content, it's even more crucial to pause and ask, "Why?" ✔️Why this campaign? ✔️Why this content? ✔️Why this account? ✔️Does it truly align with our ideal customer profile (ICP)? ✔️Does it resonate with their needs and challenges? ✔️Does it get results on our goals? Generic #ABM is just...marketing. And generic #demandgen is a waste of resources. 👉🏾 To break the autopilot cycle, be specific about your ideal customer. Use tools like 6sense or ZoomInfo to gather rich data, going beyond basic demographics to understand their firmographics, technographics, and psychographics.  👉🏾 Then, map your content to the buyer's journey. Don't just create content for content's sake. Use tools like HubSpot or Marketo to address their pain points and provide real value at each stage. 👉🏾 Analyze intent data. Tools like Bombora or G2 Buyer Intent can tell you which accounts are actively researching solutions like yours, allowing you to focus your ABM efforts on those showing high intent. 👉🏾 Don't forget to make it a personalized experience. Use AI-powered platforms like Persado or Phrasee to tailor your messaging to individual accounts and show a deep understanding of their needs. 👉🏾 Finally, measure what matters. Track metrics that align with your goals, not just vanity metrics. Tools like Google Analytics or Bizible can help you measure the true impact of your ABM and demand gen efforts. 👉🏾 And most importantly, find someone to challenge your thinking. A colleague, a mentor, even a (kind!) competitor. Someone who asks: ✔️Why are we targeting this account? ✔️Will this content truly resonate? ✔️Does this campaign align with our overall strategy? Break free from autopilot, be intentional, and be strategic. Then, watch your ABM and demand generation results grow. What tools or strategies do you use to focus on the "why" behind your marketing? #b2bmarketing #marketingstrategy

I cannot tell you the horror stories I’ve heard from buyers about coming in with a super high-intent inbound and being forced sit through 1-2 initial meetings where there was zero value for the customer. The call was solely for the benefit of the selling company trying to “qualify” when the buyer came in ready to buy I want us to take a step back and really think about what this process looks like from the outside. Here I am, someone interested in a solution. I reached out to the sales organization to learn more Then I got handed to someone for an initial conversation who just asked me a bunch of questions and then when they described the product, it wasn't tailored to my needs. Every...and I mean every B2B company needs to embrace customer journey paths that triage buyers as fast as possible and match the customer's desired path I’m going to introduce an easy concept here that will help you to understand what real intent looks like with the concept of Vetted, Educated and Cold. Vetted: At least 5 of the below Have met with a competitor or reviewed their offerings online Have researched your offering via a peer or online resource Have an understanding of pricing Have a clear business outcome they are looking to achieve Have a clear timeline Have already defined the evaluation process They do not have to be a decision maker Educated: Must have completed these three Have researched your offering via a peer or online resource Have a clear business outcome they are looking to achieve Have a clear timeline They do not have to be a decision maker Cold: Have completed less than three of the criteria in Vetted The goal prior to every potential customer that we interact with that is “Cold” is to get them to be educated BEFORE we meet so they can self guide and we can meet them at this stage. This should be done digitally as much as possible. Then when you understand where someone is...you better skip the BS steps you are told "have to happen" and instead use common sense to get the right buyers through the process faster. It's 2024 - the one size fits all sales process is done. Buyers don't have time for it so start here. Start by thinking about these paths and how could your team react faster to high-intent buyers DM me or book some time and happy to talk through teams are implementing more dynamics sales processes for 2024

No B2B buyer ever said: "Hey, I'm interested in being your MQL. Please, send me your automated email nurturing cadence and transfer my email and phone number to your Sales Rep. I'd love to spend a few hours on a qualification call and then hang out with your Account Executive." B2B buyers don't engage with marketing content, sign up for webinars or field events, because they are READY to buy. They engage because the topic resonated with them, and they'd like to learn more. We have a fundamental problem here. Because of siloed sales and marketing, marketers are under the pressure to generate leads. Nobody even questions the LEAD definition. Hence, marketing collects any engament (sign-ups, downloads, email link clicks) and handovers it to sales. If, eventually, sales generate an opportunity, this opportunity is presented as marketing-influenced. But in the most cases it ends up with blaming each other at the next board meeting. Stop thinking about conversions at each touchpoint. Start doing this: 1. UNDERSTAND YOUR BUYERS. - What do my best customers have in common? - What triggers their research? What attracts their attention? - Where do they learn? Hang out? Whom do they follow? - What are their jobs-to-be-done and their daily challenges? 2. BE PRESENT IN THE CHANNELS WHERE YOUR BUYERS ARE. Clicks and downloads doesn't matter. Account awareness and nurturing matters. Stop: 1. Dropping links to your website in every social post. 2. Create mediocre articles based on high-volume keywords 3. Producing low-quality PDFs to collect MQLs and transfer them to sales 3. CONNECT AND ENGAGE WITH YOUR BUYERS. In complex B2B the relationship is what drives the revenue aside from a strong brand and content. Enable your marketing and sales to be active on target social platforms and communities to connect and engage with the target buyers, not pitching them. 4. DISTRIBUTE CONTENT. Creating great content without making sure your target audience consumes it is a waste of time. Develop a content distribution workflow through: - Own assets: newsletter, social profiles, etc. - Sharing with adjustments to the rules in communities - Paid and 1-1 distribution to target accounts 5. CAPTURE THE DEMAND. Sales-ready buyers will reach out to you. Here's what to do with the others: - Remove friction from the buying process - Do a progressive profiling - Add target accounts that hit an engagement threshold to ABM playbooks - Develop personalized warm-up and activation --- Stop living in a funnel utopia. "LEADS" are the consequence of brand awareness, demand generation, joint marketing and sales nurturing and activation, customer advocacy, and great product. --- On Thu 19th I'm joining Andy Culligan and Vlad Gozman on the last webinar this year sharing how to develop a full-funnel strategy focused on revenue in 2025. Sign up and join us here: https://lnkd.in/dp9-3unP

The best growth leaders don’t think brand marketing vs. performance marketing vs. 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. They start by understanding how buyers actually commit. Most companies take a funnel-driven approach—capture attention, generate leads, push them to sales. But buyers don’t move in a straight line. They go through an emotional journey, filtering noise, forming opinions, and only engaging when they’re ready. After more than a decade working with fast-growing SaaS companies and scaling revenue engines, I’ve refined a model I call the 𝗜𝗖𝗣 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 - a framework to align marketing with how buyers think, evaluate, and decide. Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Noise – Buyers are overwhelmed with content and tune out most of it. 2️⃣ Attention – They recognize you but don’t fully understand what you do. 3️⃣ Consumption – They engage passively: reading, watching, or listening. 4️⃣ Consideration – They actively research and shortlist solutions. 5️⃣ AHA! – They realize this is exactly what I need. 6️⃣ Commitment – They buy, and the real work begins. I wrote a long-form article breaking down each stage, where companies fail and where the best growth & growth / revenue leaders succeed. If you’re in growth, demand generation, or revenue leadership, I’d love to hear your thoughts! --- I’m Hugo Pereira, co-founder of Ritmoo and fractional growth operator. I’ve led businesses from €1M to €100M+ while building purpose-driven, resilient teams. Follow me for insights on growth, leadership, and teamwork. My book, Teamwork Transformed, launches early 2025.

When I was head of growth, our team reached 40% activation rates, and onboarded hundreds of thousands of new users. Without knowing it, we discovered a framework. Here are the 6 steps we followed. 1. Define value: Successful onboarding is typically judged by new user activation rates. But what is activation? The moment users receive value. Reaching it should lead to higher retention & conversion to paid plans. First define it. Then get new users there. 2. Deliver value, quickly Revisit your flow and make sure it gets users to the activation moment fast. Remove unnecessary steps, complexity, and distractions along the way. Not sure how to start? Try reducing time (or steps) to activate by 50%. 3. Motivate users to action: Don't settle for simple. Look for sticking points in the user experience you can solve with microcopy, empty states, tours, email flows, etc. Then remind users what to do next with on-demand checklists, progress bars, & milestone celebrations. 4. Customize the experience: Ditch the one-size fits all approach. Learn about your different use cases. Then, create different product "recipes" to help users achieve their specific goals. 5. Start in the middle: Solve for the biggest user pain points stopping users from starting. Lean on customizable templates and pre-made playbooks to help people go 0-1 faster. 6. Build momentum pre-signup: Create ways for website visitors to start interacting with the product - and building momentum, before they fill out any forms. This means that you'll deliver value sooner, and to more people. Keep it simple. Learn what's valuable to users. Then deliver value on their terms.

Your marketing strategy is addressing only 1/7 of your customer's journey and it's costing you sales. Only focusing on the "Buy" stage while neglecting the critical moments that lead to purchase decisions ignores the full needs of your buyer. There are 7 critical stages of a customer purchase journey and knowing each stage doesn't just refine your marketing—it transforms your entire growth strategy by helping you meet customers where they are, create targeted triggers, remove hidden obstacles, and build a complete funnel rather than just focusing on the purchase moment. The Customer Purchase Journey: 7 Critical Stages 1. First Thought  → When do prospects first realise something isn't working?  → Where are they when this happens?  → What are they struggling with? Most startups miss this stage entirely, yet it's where category awareness begins. 2. Passive Looking  → How do they articulate their desired outcome?  → What might spark their interest in solutions?  → What content are they consuming casually? This is where your content strategy should begin—long before they're actively searching. 3. First Trigger  → What finally triggers them to act?  → What's the circumstance that pushes them from awareness to consideration?  → Where are they when this happens? These trigger moments are gold for targeting and messaging. 4. Active Looking  → What are they searching for (exact keywords)?  → Who are they turning to for advice?  → Where do they inquire about solutions? This is where most marketing begins—but it's already the 4th stage. 5. Second Trigger  → What pushes them from browsing to the final stage?  → What objection did they just overcome?  → What new information changed their perspective? Identifying these accelerators can dramatically shorten your sales cycle. 6. Deciding  → What options are they considering?  → Where does this decision actually happen?  → What final questions remain? Understanding the actual decision environment is crucial for conversion. 7. Buy & Consume  → How do they purchase?  → What happens immediately after buying?  → How do they use your product? The journey doesn't end at purchase—it transforms into retention and advocacy opportunities. Why this matters for startups: When you understand all 7 stages, you can:  → Create content that meets customers where they actually are  → Design triggers that accelerate movement through the journey  → Identify hidden obstacles in your conversion path  → Build marketing that works at every stage, not just at the bottom of the funnel The startups I've seen scale fastest aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones who understand their customer's entire journey and show up at each critical  moment. Which stage of the customer journey does your marketing currently focus on? Share below 👇 ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost to share with your network.  ⚡ Want more content like this? Hit follow Maya Moufarek.

For years, companies have been leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to provide personalized customer experiences. One widespread use case is showing product recommendations based on previous data. But there's so much more potential in AI that we're just scratching the surface. One of the most important things for any company is anticipating each customer's needs and delivering predictive personalization. Understanding customer intent is critical to shaping predictive personalization strategies. This involves interpreting signals from customers’ current and past behaviors to infer what they are likely to need or do next, and then dynamically surfacing that through a platform of their choice. Here’s how: 1. Customer Journey Mapping: Understanding the various stages a customer goes through, from awareness to purchase and beyond. This helps in identifying key moments where personalization can have the most impact. This doesn't have to be an exercise on a whiteboard; in fact, I would counsel against that. Journey analytics software can get you there quickly and keep journeys "alive" in real time, changing dynamically as customer needs evolve. 2. Behavioral Analysis: Examining how customers interact with your brand, including what they click on, how long they spend on certain pages, and what they search for. You will need analytical resources here, and hopefully you have them on your team. If not, find them in your organization; my experience has been that they find this type of exercise interesting and will want to help. 3. Sentiment Analysis: Using natural language processing to understand customer sentiment expressed in feedback, reviews, social media, or even case notes. This provides insights into how customers feel about your brand or products. As in journey analytics, technology and analytical resources will be important here. 4. Predictive Analytics: Employing advanced analytics to forecast future customer behavior based on current data. This can involve machine learning models that evolve and improve over time. 5. Feedback Loops: Continuously incorporate customer signals (not just survey feedback) to refine and enhance personalization strategies. Set these up through your analytics team. Predictive personalization is not just about selling more; it’s about enhancing the customer experience by making interactions more relevant, timely, and personalized. This customer-led approach leads to increased revenue and reduced cost-to-serve. How is your organization thinking about personalization in 2024? DM me if you want to talk it through. #customerexperience #artificialintelligence #ai #personalization #technology #ceo

𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫? It’s probably because your content isn’t meeting them where they are. To convert leads into loyal customers, you need to create content that speaks to each stage of your buyer’s journey—from awareness to decision. Many businesses focus all their content on selling the product. But here’s the truth: → not everyone is ready to buy. Some are just discovering the problem, others are comparing solutions, and a few are ready to make a decision. If your content only targets one stage, you’re leaving money on the table. 👉🏻 Awareness Stage: Create educational blog posts, infographics, and social media content that addresses common pain points. 👉🏻 Consideration Stage: Develop case studies, comparison guides, and webinars to help prospects evaluate their options. 👉🏻 Decision Stage: Offer testimonials, product demos, and special offers to nudge them toward making a purchase. "One-size-fits-all content will work for everyone." Tailoring your content to each stage of the buyer’s journey ensures that you’re engaging with your audience at the right time, in the right way. Top marketers understand that the buyer’s journey is not linear. They craft content that nurtures leads from curious onlookers to committed customers, building trust and authority at every step. If you want to turn prospects into customers, you need to meet them where they are on their journey. Create content that guides them every step of the way, and watch your business grow. #socialmediastrategist #digitalmarketer #brandstrategist