B2B business marketers have long used the term “customer journey” to describe the process their clients go through when evaluating and making purchasing decisions. The concept of customer journey orchestration builds on and updates that idea, steering it into much more personalised territory.

Today’s B2B decision makers don’t want to feel sold to or like they’re being told what to care about. Ultimately, they want to be the ones to define their ongoing experience and relationship with the brands they buy from. 

However, they still need information, guidance, and options that will adequately address their needs. And that’s where the journey orchestration strategy comes in.

While the traditional model of the customer journey typically outlines broad phases like awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy, it's crucial to recognise that these stages only provide a high-level overview. Effective customer journey orchestration requires delving into the subtleties within each of these stages.

Each customer’s path is unique, and their experiences within these phases can vary widely. By mapping out these journeys in greater detail, businesses can identify specific touchpoints and interactions that are critical to the customer's decision-making process, allowing for a more granular understanding of customer behaviour and preferences.

It’s not enough to know that a customer is in the consideration phase. Businesses need to understand what exactly they are considering, the factors influencing their decisions, and how they are interacting with various marketing channels at this point.

This deeper level of insight enables more effective and targeted marketing strategies, ensuring that every interaction with the customer is relevant and impactful. It's about moving from a one-size-fits-all approach to a tailored strategy that recognises and responds to the individual journeys of each customer.

Why B2B Businesses Need Customer Journey Orchestration

Buyer expectations have been changing rapidly for years. Customers today expect an experience that is more personalised and dynamic than it might have been even a few years ago.

Today, much of a brand’s success in nurturing leads and encouraging meaningful customer engagement is about correctly anticipating expectations throughout every stage of the buyer journey. An additional challenge for brands is that this level of personalisation must also be maintained at scale. 

Your customers are inundated with marketing messages. Personalisation offers the opportunity to differentiate by offering tailored experiences that resonate on a personal level. By orchestrating each step of the customer journey to align with individual buyer’s needs and preferences, you can create distinctive customer experiences that not only attract attention but also foster lasting loyalty. 

Purchases are increasingly digital

Pre-Covid, B2B marketing world was already experiencing a major shift. However, the pandemic really kicked things into high gear. Brands and buyers alike pivoted to embrace digital channels.

Although trade shows and in-person events have made a comeback, buyers are used to digital alternatives and expect them from brands they trust. For this reason, the future of B2B marketing lies in hybrid selling that encompasses more channels, more options, and greater personalisation across the board.

Journey orchestration streamlines the process of meeting these expectations consistently.

Consistency is crucial

We’ve become so accustomed to highly-personalised marketing campaigns that it’s jarring when a customer experience doesn’t meet our expectations. When everything from email marketing correspondence to online advertising feels hand-selected specifically for you, all it takes to derail a sale can be for one or two messages not to land properly.

Imagine searching for answers on a challenge you’re facing and finding an in-depth whitepaper that promises to help you navigate it.  However, when you receive it, you quickly realise it’s filled with generic information that doesn’t deliver as promised. 

Or maybe you receive an invitation to a VIP webinar to help your team to get more out of some software you’ve purchased. But when they attend, the webinar is pitched at a more basic level than their current product knowledge and doesn’t offer anything new or valuable.

You’d be irritated, and your ongoing sense of trust in that brand would take a knock. At the wrong point in the purchase decision, it might never have the chance to recover.

Misses like these can also give a customer the impression that you don’t properly understand their needs or simply don’t have control over your marketing efforts. However, airtight journey orchestration can help ensure mishaps like these don’t happen.

Orchestration builds customer-brand relationships

B2B products or services tend to represent important buying decisions that will affect a company for many years to come. 

Customer journey orchestration helps to ensure decision makers are fully informed about products or services before they finalise a sale. It also streamlines the process of orienting a customer to a new product, helping them get the most out of it, and handling any issues the minute they arise.

The more customer expectations and needs evolve, the more important it will become to keep the customer journey at the centre of how your brand functions. Naturally, making this happen efficiently at scale can be a problem. However, the right resources – like journey orchestration platforms and marketing automation – can be incredibly helpful.

The Role of Real-Time Data in Journey Orchestration

These days, there are multiple ways for brands to connect with existing and potential customers, and every buyer will have their own preferences. However, what can be said for most B2B decision makers is that they prefer relevant, seamless experiences that come without too much friction.

In an ideal world, the perfect solution would materialise in front of them as if by magic, saving them time on research and comparisons. Effective customer journey orchestration can deliver this experience, but it needs plenty of real time data in order to do so. 

• Data helps marketers understand how, where, and when customers interact with email marketing material, blog posts, key brand assets, and more.

• Data shines a light on the issues customers are facing, and the information they require at different stages of the customer journey.

• Data ensures each step taken in a brand’s collective marketing efforts leads naturally to the next step.

• With the help of the right marketing automation strategies, data can ensure marketing tactics are implemented at exactly the right time to engage customers and leads.

When data successfully facilitates personalisation, that’s when the magic customers are looking for actually happens. 

According to a 2023 global survey, 7 out of 10 businesses planned on making greater investments in personalisation moving forward. Around 62 percent of respondents said personalised experiences led to a noticeable boost in customer retention. Furthermore, 80 percent agreed that personalised experiences had helped boost customer spending, as well.

However, factors like adequate data acquisition and scaling remained big challenges for many businesses and brands.

The pivotal role of real-time data in journey orchestration cannot be overstated. Its immediacy transforms that customer journey from a static strategy into a dynamic, ongoing dialogue with your customers. It is essential for understanding and responding to customer behaviours as they occur. 

Real-time data offers a window into how, where, and when customers engage with your brand, providing invaluable insights that are crucial for tailoring the customer journey.

For instance, consider a customer who interacts with an email campaign, visits a key sales page, but then pauses in their purchasing journey. Real-time data allows you to quickly identify this pattern and respond with a targeted follow-up communication or offer, effectively re-engaging the customer at a crucial decision point. Conversely, if a customer does not engage with an initial marketing attempt, real-time data can guide you to adjust your strategy promptly, perhaps by trying a different communication channel or message.

This level of responsiveness and personalisation is only achievable through the integration of real-time data into your journey orchestration strategy. It enables you to not just map out a customer journey based on past behaviour, but to actively shape it as it unfolds. This is what makes each customer's experience personal, timely, and relevant. 

Implementing Customer Journey Orchestration as Part of Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Many B2B brands think of their marketing efforts as a chess match between them and their prospective customer. They do their best to predict a customer’s reaction to a particular tactic, watch them make their next move, and plan the next steps accordingly. But what if there were a better, more effective way to encourage engagement and close sales?

Customer journey mapping and journey orchestration invite marketers to apply customer journey analytics to a different approach. Instead of seeing customers as opponents to be beaten, they can be viewed as invited guests at a party.

Consider how a good host reacts when a guest RSVPs to a party. They leverage what they know about the guest to ensure everyone who shows up enjoys themselves. From catering to specific dietary needs to creating a playlist that creates the right atmosphere, they work hard to create an inviting experience that people will remember. 

Think of journey orchestration as a way to transform your brand’s B2B marketing strategy into a party target audiences won’t be able to resist. Here are some tips for getting started.

Ensure you’re leveraging the right data

Remember, data is at the heart of any solid customer journey orchestration effort. However, it’s crucial to ensure it’s the right data. Include transactional data, basic customer attributes, and customer service data. 

You should also integrate behavioral data so you can respond based on how customers interact with your website, any apps associated with your products or services, and so forth.

Integrate multiple channels into your strategy

Omnichannel marketing is an essential part of meeting buyer expectations and keeping your customer experience streamlined. Customers want to be able to interact using the channels they like best or that make the most sense for them. 

However, it's vital to focus not just on being present across channels, but on creating connected, personal experiences. This involves using insights from one channel to improve interactions on another, ensuring a cohesive journey for the customer and making each touchpoint more relevant.

For instance, potential customers who interact with your brand through an app or via social media should enjoy continuity of experience on your website or at any other point of contact.

This integration turns different channels into a unified journey, delivering personalised experiences that evolve with the customer's needs.

Understand the role of engaging content 

In a world where “just Google it” has become synonymous with the act of figuring something out, it’s unsurprising that most people turn to search engines to help with decisions.

This is just as much the case for B2B buyers as it is for anyone else. 

Engaging content that’s relevant to the buyer is key to the success of your journey orchestration efforts.

• It helps the buyer feel understood, heard, and that a brand’s products or services represent a good potential solution.

• It qualifies and nurtures leads, actively engaging high-value buyers, and encouraging them to take the next logical step.

• It helps to inform the buyer using educational content like case studies, whitepapers, long-form guides, and more.

• It personalises the customer experience by helping to identify and address pain points.

• It drives a desired outcome and encourages future advocacy for your brand

Ultimately, your content is likely to be the first point of contact a new potential buyer has with your brand, so it’s important to make sure your portfolio covers a little something for everyone. 

Create helpful, compelling resources to assist new leads at every stage of their buyer’s journey, and guides to assist existing customers in getting more out of their purchases.

Measure and analyse your efforts

Just as you should consult your existing data before launching a new B2B marketing strategy or tweaking an existing one, detailed data should remain at the centre of your efforts as you evaluate efforts. 

Comprehensive measurement techniques help you keep an eye on how your campaign is performing, evaluate customer engagement, and assess whether your efforts are meeting your expectations in real time. Leverage techniques like multi-touch attribution to ensure all of your customer touchpoints are accounted for. 

Successfully Scaling Your Customer Journey Orchestration Strategy

Naturally, customer journey orchestration is fairly easy to implement when a company is smaller with a customer base that’s still developing. But what happens when that same company grows and expands, acquiring countless new potential clients in the process? How can they maintain that same level of personalisation and intimacy at scale without sacrificing quality? 

Invest in professional journey orchestration services

Seeking out the help of professional journey orchestration services can be a massive game-changer. Among other benefits, you’ll be able to:

• Streamline processes like insightful data collection, management, organisation, and management.

• Close any remaining customer experience gaps and enhance overall experience.

• Boost the efficiency of your marketing team and efforts.

• Improve communications and consistency across all of your existing channels.

• Better facilitate the process of using customer data to inform more effective future campaigns.

In other words, professional services can take a lot of the hassle and guesswork out of managing a large-scale journey orchestration campaign so you can refocus your team’s efforts where they’re needed most.

Embrace marketing automation for improved efficiency

Successful marketing in the digital age is about more than simply producing great content that addresses customer needs and answers important questions. It’s also about delivering it at exactly the right times.

Marketing automation can help make this happen by keeping an eye on target audiences in real time and delivering solutions right when they’re needed most. 

Automation can also help you with tasks like:

• Accurate personalisation of assets like landing pages, social media messages, email marketing content, and more.

• Adaptive customer-brand communications that fit a prospect’s behaviour and previous interactions.

• Successfully converting various social interactions into satisfying experiences and sales.

• Efficiently tracking countless interactions across multiple customer touchpoints. 

Explore possibilities offered by AI

Artificial intelligence has been part of core marketing tools for a while now, but today’s options bring a lot to the table that can help with journey orchestration. 

For example, AI embedded in automation can:

• Easily identify and analyse customer behaviour patterns.

• Collect, organise, and analyse important data across numerous channels.

• Generate accurate triggers for important actions like content delivery, data collection, and more.

• Implement predictive modelling that helps you better understand customer intent and plan for future possibilities.

In other words, customer journey orchestration efforts don’t necessarily have to be all-human across the board to be effective. AI can help take the confusion and guesswork out of much of the process, saving you time and effort along the way. And, as generative AI capabilities develop, expect to see those time-savings extend into creative personalisation at scale.

Mastering B2B Marketing with Strategic Journey Orchestration

Customer journey orchestration is a fundamental shift towards a more dynamic, responsive, and customer-centric approach. This approach doesn't just meet the evolving demands of digital commerce. It sets a new standard, ensuring that your marketing efforts are as efficient and impactful as possible. 

By integrating real-time data, embracing omnichannel strategies, and overcoming common implementation challenges, businesses can create deeply personalised experiences that resonate with today’s discerning B2B customers.

The journey from initial awareness to loyal advocacy is complex, but with the right orchestration, it becomes a seamless path leading to stronger customer relationships and sustained business growth.

We understand that adapting to these sophisticated strategies can seem daunting. That's why we're here to help streamline your journey into effective customer journey orchestration. Our expertise and resources are tailored to simplify and enhance your marketing efforts, enabling you to not just keep up with the market, but to set the pace.

Transform the way you connect with your B2B customers. Book a demo with us today and take the first step towards a more engaged, data-driven marketing future. Let's collaborate to create marketing strategies that not only meet but exceed customer expectations.