companies must be able to create meaningful customer engagement.

Twelve years ago, I had a meeting with a client to discuss their approach to customer acquisition. The meeting was filled with whiteboard diagrams and posters of initiatives, as well as discussions about the strategy. A director stated that if we were to focus on marketing to customers only, we would fail in our goals.

He said, “If we were only able to renew 10% our customer base, it would generate $40 million in incremental revenues this year.” He had done his research and attracted everyone’s attention.

Data disaster

He was correct in his analysis. However, the greatest obstacle to focusing your attention on the customer base was their customer data. It was, to put it mildly, disastrous, according to their admission. His point was valid. While they could concentrate on new customer acquisition which is important, they had a greater opportunity to market to their existing customer base.

This is the area where many marketers fail — engaging customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle. CMOs often focus on new customer acquisition when they speak to me.

They are not maximising customer lifetime value (CLV). This can only happen if you build relationships at all stages of the customer journey, and then continue to nurture them after the purchase. Note: Customers must be engaged throughout their entire lifecycle before purchasing anything.

Determining the customer’s lifecycle

Many marketers have written extensively about the customer’s lifecycle. With clients, I use mine (represented by the image below).

Engage, nurture, convert and retain customers requires concentrated effort at each stage. This requires unification of sales, marketing and customer support.

The customer journey orchestrated

I spent a lot time helping clients develop and implement their customer journey orchestration strategies. I prefer “journey” to “lifecycle.” This implies that there is an end. That is not what you want for your customers. When I speak with prospects or clients about the orchestration of the journey, we immediately talk about the technology.

Technology is something I love, but it’s not strategy. It won’t get you closer to customer engagement. Technology is there to help you orchestrate your strategy. That’s all. Once your customer journey engagement strategy has been defined, you should stop investing in technology.

What if customer journey orchestration does not involve a specific technology? Here is the definition that I use:

• “Customer Journey Orchestration” is a strategy that orchestrates customer engagement at each stage of the customer journey. Technology then enables this strategy.”

Get deeper: Customer Journey Orchestration: What is it and why marketers should take care

Feelings are important this time

My definition of meaning is “meaningful” in the above definition. It is easy to forget that B2B does not market, sell, or support accounts. People want great experiences at all stages of their lives. We work with them. This is what we demand in our consumer lives.

Customers want to experience the entire journey. Organizations need to understand this. This is especially challenging for B2B where there are often multiple roles involved at different parts of the journey. Each role has their own motivations, perspectives and behaviors. Marketing should be the leader in gathering buyer insights that will inform every stage of customer journey strategy.

These insights should include personality traits as well as an understanding of customers’ expectations and desires from brands. These insights can be gathered in a number of ways.

• Ask your customers questions. This is a great practice to have in your company, but it should not be a constant one.
• Customers and sales have many insights they can share that will help you shape your strategy.
• Additional information can be gleaned by conducting research into the industries where your customers work. This is not a one-time task, but a continuous process.

Argument for full lifecycle engagement (meaningful)

Executives often ask me how they can justify the full journey engagement cost. First, change the language to reflect investment instead of cost. It will pay off if you deliver meaningful engagement. A Harvard Business Review study found these following for both subscription-based and transaction-based businesses:

• Transaction-based: Customers who have had the most memorable past experiences spend 140% less than customers with the worst.
• Subscription-based: Customers who have had the best experiences in the past have 74% chance to remain members for at least one more year. Customers with poor experiences will have a 43% chance of becoming members one year later. In fact, members who had the highest CX scores are more likely to stay with us for six years.

The significant ROI shows that engaging and delivering an exceptional experience at each stage of the journey is a greater competitive advantage than product or price.

This is the best place to start:

• Cartography of the entire customer journey (use this graphic if you need).
• Identify the customer roles at each stage.
• Define the experience they want.
• Align their expectations with the roles within your organization that are responsible for delivering the engagement and experience.
• Identify the technologies required to support engagement strategies.

2015 was the year I published “Driving Demand” a book. While many of the principles in the book still apply, I am now aware that organizations cannot just drive demand for their products or services. They must consider all aspects of the customer lifecycle to achieve growth. This is how organizations win customers who become advocates.

Next month I will be writing more about retention and how organizations can improve it by focusing on one segment of the journey.

Why B2B Brands Must Focus on Customer Engagement originally appeared on MarTech.