Inbound Organization

Chapter 15Inbound Strategies Match the Buyer's Journey

Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end in mind.”¹ Inbound organizations begin their strategy with the customer in mind.

It may not be obvious but each customer has a unique buying journey. There are similarities, but each person follows a slightly different pace, intensity, breadth, and process before they buy.

Before the onset of inbound marketing in 2007, the buyer journey was primarily a sales journey with most buyers going through a very similar process. In that era, the buyer's journey consisted of salespeople engaging with prospects starting at the beginning of the research phase. Prospective buyers needed to talk to salespeople for preliminary research because salespeople had exclusive access to essential purchasing information. The only way a buyer could thoroughly investigate a solution was to talk with a salesperson.

The salesperson then followed a very defined script and moved the buyer through a structured sales funnel by asking them qualifying questions to determine priority, timeline, budget, and pain. If the buyer met specific criteria, the salesperson would move them to the next stage of the funnel, which typically consisted of a product demo or reviewing a catalog of product features. If the buyer passed through that stage, they entered the answering objections stage, and finally to the defining purchasing terms stage. The salesperson then moved into a closing sequence, pushing the customer to purchase ...