Survey: Marketers Expand Focus to Full Spectrum of Buyer Journey

A shifting buyer landscape has made it necessary for marketers to consider the entirety of the customer experience and invest across the buyer journey. A recent study by the CMO Club and IBM shows marketers are spending their budgets fairly evenly across the customer experience.

The buy stage and discovery stage grab the greatest budget percentages with 21 percent and 20 percent, respectively.  Learn (16 percent), try (16 percent), advocate (14 percent) and use (13 percent) are the other major budget areas.

The report noted many of the surveyed marketers remarked on the impact of digital disruption over the last decade with customers dictating the journey more than ever.

“The customer is now using digital to dictate the journey and it has flipped our entire purchase process,” said Michael Lacorazza, Head of Integrated Marketing at Wells Fargo, one of the marketers surveyed.

The CMO Club partnered with IBM to survey 100 Chief Marketing Officers to get an understanding of the evolving market. About 54 percent of the CMOs surveyed were B2B marketers.

Quantifiable Results Leading to More Experimentation

Marketing budgets are increasing over the next 2-3 years, the respondents said. One of the drivers behind growing budgets is the increasing ability to show quantifiable results and return on investment (ROI).

With solid numbers to back up work, marketers are getting access to budgets for strategic and innovative programs. More than half (53 percent) of those surveyed said they are experimenting more because of the need to generate higher revenue. Increased metrics allows marketers to identify and measure the effectiveness of the method and pivot programs accordingly.

Customer Journey is part of Overall B2B Marketing Strategy

A Nov. 2014 study by Salesforce and LinkedIn found 37 percent of B2B marketers have incorporated the customer journey into an overall business strategy. To support this shift, marketers named CRM tools, marketing analytics and content management as essential tools for success.

“Customer journey mapping, or illustrating important touch points along the customer journey and the different ways customers might respond to them, will be an important area for marketing leaders to oversee,” wrote the authors of the study.