Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.”
Computers running Mac OS X are invulnerable to malware.
Cracking one’s knuckles leads to osteoporosis.
Bears beat Battlestar Galactica.
These are common notions that are pervasive in society. You’ve probably heard them at one point or another. However, if you continue to believe them even now, you are wrong. They are actually some of the most common misconceptions that people believe about history, computers, human anatomy, and television.
There are numerous misconceptions about digital marketing. While this post is not intended to be a treatise on them all, it’s important that you familiarize yourself with four of the most common misconceptions about customer journey mapping, something more and more marketers are engaged in.
1. Creating customer journey maps is a strategic learning exercise
Many marketers believe that putting together customer journey maps for clients is solely an exercise in getting to know their clients’ customer base. False. Creating maps is actually a way to develop practical tools for your organization on customer thinking, motivations, and behavior that ultimately guide day-to-day marketing, sales, and customer service initiatives.
2. Develop one single customer journey map that can guide your organization.
Contrary to popular opinion, you must develop one customer journey map per buyer persona that you have for a client or their customer base. Each customer follows a unique buyer journey, making it impossible to utilize one single map for every single customer.
3. Customer journey maps should outline the purchasing patterns of principal decision-makers.
Even though most marketers have spent a considerable amount of time and resources marketing to C-level executives, focusing your marketing efforts on just decision-makers is limiting the reach of your campaigns.
It’s time to rethink buyer personas and customer journey maps for your clients’ customer base; you must focus on those who are primarily responsible for researching and championing a product or service.
As you outline the journey that a researcher/champion/influencer makes to understand and sell a product or service to the primary decision-makers—in effect, stretching your efforts and reach to include all stakeholders—you’ll see some significant changes in your ROI.
4. It is possible to develop customer journey maps without client or customer input.
This couldn’t be a larger misconception. If your marketing team attempts to develop customer journey maps without client or customer input, they’re missing valuable information that can influence the message your organization is presenting at various points of the buyer journey.
Instead, consider developing digital surveys that can be easily shared with your client contacts or distributed to a small sample of your client’s customer base. You’ll be surprised at what information you can gather from a 10-question survey that is designed to take 7-9 minutes to complete.
Understanding these common misconceptions about customer journey mapping will improve your marketing initiatives. This one’s true.
Did you ever fall for one of these misconceptions? Let us know in the comments below.
Much success,
Looking for more great reads? Check out these related articles:
- Getting Inside Their Heads Part 1: What is a Buyer Persona Anyway?
- Getting Inside Their Heads Part 2: The Science of Creating a Buyer Persona
- Getting Inside Their Heads Part 3: Using Buyer Personas & Customer Journey Mapping to
- Getting Inside Their Heads Part 4: Mind the Gaps, Filling Holes in Your Client’s Content Strategy
- Learn About Your Customers
