From chaos to clarity – Leverage Marketo to streamline non-linear buyer journeys

Imagine this scenario – 

You are the captain of a ship sailing through the treacherous waters of the modern buyer’s journey. You have potential customers with you on board, each with their preferences and needs. While some look forward to purchasing your products, many are still testing the waters. 

As you sail through the choppy waters, you realize your buyers’ journey is not linear. Fret not! With a tool like Marketo, you can streamline those waves and make their journey smooth and hindrance free. 

If you are alien to Marketo, read on to unfurl everything you need to know about non-linear journeys and how to make them linear using Marketo. 

Let’s get started! 

What is a non-linear buyer journey?

Suppose you are in a shopping mall. As you make your way through the crowds, you witness all kinds of distractions like visually appealing displays, stores giving free samples, etc. Just when you are about to enter a shop, you get sidetracked by a beautiful store selling vintage bamboo furniture at a fantastic discount. This is a non-linear buyer journey and is often seen during their purchase journey. 

It happens when buyers’ are on their way to finding a solution to their problem but are constantly distracted. It can be due to a blog, social media ad, etc. As a marketer, your moral prerogative should be to create a customer journey marketing strategy and guide them back on track to make purchase decisions. It can be done by placing a retargeting ad or running a fantastic promotion. The key here is not to let the ship sink. 

Marketo is a comprehensive marketing automation software that enables you to streamline and automate your marketing campaigns, manage your leads, and monitor your marketing performance. 

One of the most significant advantages of using Marketo’s email marketing platform is its ability to automate campaigns across different channels, including email, social media, etc. This allows you to create more personalized and targeted campaigns that reach where your customers are most active. 

Another prominent feature of Marketo is its lead management capabilities. The tool provides a platform to manage, nurture and track leads throughout the sales funnel. This ensures you target suitable leads at the right time, increasing the chances of converting them into existing customers. 

Ways to streamline non-linear buyer journey using Marketo 

Let’s explore how you can successfully leverage Marketo to streamline your buyer’s non-linear journey. 

• Understand the non-linear buyer journey 

The first step is to understand the process. In a non-linear buyer journey, your customers do not follow a set path from awareness to conversion. Instead, they move back and forth between the different stages of the journey, researching, considering, and comparing multiple options before making a purchase decision. 

You can leverage Marketo email marketing to streamline the process. However, you must understand the journey and identify the key touchpoints influencing the purchase-making process. This includes figuring out their motivation, preferences, and channels that they use to interact with your brand. 

• Map the buyer journey 

Once you clearly understand the buyer journey, the next step is to map it out. The process involves creating a visual representation of your customer’s journey, comprising their interactions with your brand. 

Mapping the customer experience journey will help you identify the gaps and opportunities and enable you to create a more personalized approach for each stage of the journey. Marketo enables you to create detailed maps showcasing different touchpoints and their connection. 

• Create a customer-centric strategy 

Personalization is critical to streamlining non-linear buyer journeys. Creating targeted and personalized content lets you engage with your customers at every touchpoint and keep them moving through the marketing funnel. 

Marketo’s Content AI feature can help you create personalized content that resonates with each customer’s persona. The feature uses machine learning algorithms to analyze customer data and generate personalized content recommendations based on their behavior and preferences. 

To streamline customer experience, you must create a customer-centric strategy that aligns with your customer’s needs and preferences, and Marketo can help you achieve that. 

For instance – You can leverage your customers’ previous purchases and browsing history to create personalized recommendations, or you can show different images based on a customer’s location, behavior, and industry on your website. This can help you make your content more relevant and engaging and keep your customers interested in surfing and exploring. 

• Include lead nurturing 

Lead nurturing is building a relationship with prospects by providing valuable content at each stage of their buying journey. Using Marketo, you can leverage lead nurturing to automate the process and provide relevant content to the customer. 

Additionally, you can use lead scoring to identify which prospects are likely to convert and use targeted messaging to move them along the buyer journey. 

• Leverage automation to streamline the process 

As mentioned earlier, the critical benefit of Marketo is its ability to automate the marketing process, including lead nurturing and segmentation. Using Marketo, you can set up automated workflows that move customers through the different buyer journey stages based on their engagement. 

For instance – you can set up automated workflows that send targeted emails to customers who have abandoned their shopping carts or provide personalized recommendations based on their browsing behavior. This will help you streamline the process and ensure your customers receive relevant and timely communications at every stage of their buying journey. 

• Measure and analyze results 

Next, you need to measure and analyze the results of your campaigns continuously. This includes tracking customer journey metrics such as engagement, conversion, and customer retention rates and leveraging the data to optimize your marketing efforts. 

Marketo can help you track the performance of your campaigns and measure the impact on your customer’s journey. Doing so will help you identify the most effective campaigns for moving customers through their journey. 

• Refine your strategy 

Once you have measured the results of your campaigns, you can refine your strategy based on the insights you gather from your data analysis. This involves identifying the gaps in your strategy and testing different approaches to see what works best for you. 

Calling It A Wrap! 

Streamlining non-linear buyer journeys with Marketo is like an adventure. 

You can harness the power of Marketo to conquer the hurdles of modern customer experience. 

You can create a seamless and tailored customer experience with Marketo’s automation and personalization. This helps to whisk your customers to the correct destination without them even realizing it. 

However, that’s not it! Marketo doesn’t only help streamline your buyers’ journey, but it also saves you from the clutches of chaos. It’s like a super organized tool that keeps all your marketing efforts in check, ensuring everything runs like a well-oiled machine. 

We hope this blog will help you conquer the non-linear landscape and gain satisfied customers that rave about your brand!