Tools to guide them on the #buyersjourney – #marketingautomation

I always compare the Marketing Stack to all the roads on which a customer may choose to make their journey from visitor, to prospect, to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and finally to customer.  The Buyers Journey is the roads that they actually choose to follow.

Their journey is not random.  As marketers, we try to guide them through that journey with a variety of tools and techniques.  Relevant online ads, relevant convertible assets (like whitepapers and webinars), well structured landing pages and many other tools are at our disposal in order to hasten the customer journey to MQL, where we then pass them over to sales for the close.

You have to know how to wield those tools to get the most out of them.  Take a look at the video below of the “Animated Directional Arrow”

Do you see something wrong here?

The goal is to get the driver to move to their right.  The arrow points to the right.  However, instead of building the arrow from left to right, reinforcing the desired action, and getting their eyes moving in the direction that the construction crew wants them to go, the arrow builds right to left.

Not a big deal.  Just a small point, but someone went to the trouble to build the sign to be used in a specific way to be more effective, and the person who set it up didn’t set it up correctly, lessening the effectiveness of the message.

Marketing tools must be looked at in the same way.  Each tool has been designed for a purpose.  Make sure you understand the intended purpose of a tool and that you are using it properly.  Otherwise, you might be disappointed in the results.