According to research by SiriusDecisions, in a blog written by their Vice President of Research, Megan Heuer, 67% of the customer’s buying journey is done digitally.
This provides organizations and their marketers the opportunity to influence buyer decisions early in the buying cycle. Creating a digital strategy to interact and engage with prospects in a timely manner is a critical first step. The strategy will comprise the target market segments, buyer personas, value propositions, relevant and compelling content and calls to action. Correctly executed, a digital marketing strategy can create an environment that accelerates decision making as a result of more informed and knowledgeable buyers. Beyond the initial sale, digital marketing also provides the opportunity for organizations to build relationships and engage customers throughout the customer life cycle, something which we will discuss at a later date.
Riverbed Reach, our demand-gen engine architected with our partners in mind, enables easier deployment of integrated marketing campaigns, a significant component of which is the digital enablement. It was designed with the buyer’s journey in mind and the need for online and offline touch points to influence buyers throughout their entire journey.
Developing the right digital marketing strategy
Given the degree to which buyers are already in their buying journey, accessing analytics that show ‘active demand’ information is key. It can help compress the sales cycle and result in a reduction in the cost of customer acquisition by targeting the right buyers with the most appropriate content. Equally, if customers have not yet started their buying journey, you want to be first in their minds when they do. This means understanding when ‘great to know’ information should translate into ‘need to know’ content.
To maintain top-of-mind awareness, your digital marketing strategy shouldn’t stop once the deal is signed. Regularly engaging customers post-sales through targeted digital marketing will help increase your customer success and open up further opportunities for upsell and cross sell. For example, understanding more about the benefits of the solutions they have purchased, helping them see what more they could be doing with their investment, and introducing them to other users.
Helping you integrate digital into your marketing plans
Through our Riverbed Reach program, we are helping channel partners to understand where the demand is (through advanced analytics), champion their own joint value propositions and create the most impactful digital content and assets for each touchpoint along the buyer’s journey. By creating frameworks to easily deploy digital tactics, we can help extend your market reach, focus your nurturing efforts on leads that are ready to be developed and accelerate your pipeline-to-cash opportunities.
With 80% of our own leads coming through digital, we know the difference that an effective digital marketing strategy can make. By tapping into this knowledge, and working collaboratively with you, we can guide you in your efforts and create the best possible return for you.
To find out how you can access the Riverbed Reach program to develop your own digital marketing strategies, visit Riverbed Reach.