For companies in the customer acquisition mode, demand generation remains one of the most important ways to move prospects into the opportunity pipeline, to get a product or service into the customer consideration set, and to deliver critical information that must be answered before the sale can take place. Each of these reflect customer action that can be translated into behavioral metrics.

One of the most important steps in understanding your customer’s buying journey. Rarely is this journey linear in nature. Customers weave in and out of your line of sight as they learn, investigate, evaluate, explore and select their options.

Each of these steps in their process can be associated with what we call the 6 C’s of the the customer buying process:

Contact
Connection
Conversation
Consideration
Consumption
Community (occurs after purchase)

Whether you use this process or another, the goal is to take a customer-centric approach to the journey around which you will build your Marketing and Sales processes. Each of these stages is comprised of incremental behavioral commitments that indicate an opportunity is moving within and through a stage. Learn more about these stages in our white paper, Don’t Waste Your Bullets: Customer Engagement To Accelerate Revenue And Improve Alignment.

Behavioral Commitments Define Behavioral Metrics

Establish behavioral measures to identify where opportunities are in the buying process. — Focus on customer behavioral commitments.

The key to success for any method is to base it on customer behavioral commitment. However you choose to map the journey, be sure it includes identifying your customer behavioral commitments and which commitment is linked to which step in their journey. Through this approach you can establish behavioral metrics.

There are often numerous types of “conversations” with members of your company once connection is made. For example there is the initial inquiry conversation, initial introductory conversation, the initial presentation conversation, and later on their will be additional conversations right up through the “proposal” conversation. Therefore it is essential to label these types of conversations appropriately, match to the right step, monitor and measure these.

The further into the conversations the more predisposed they are to buy, maybe not from you, but from someone. Therefore creating opportunities for these conversations, the experience created by the conversation, and the value they receive should be among the focus of your demand generation efforts and part of how you measure customer acquisition success.

Conversations are just one of the measures your Marketing organization can use to understand how well you are facilitating the buying process. Other measures include (this is not an exhaustive list):

Average marketing cost per activity or result.
What is our average marketing cost per inquiry? Per qualified lead? Per sale? Per up-sell, cross-sell, or renewal? Per reactivated customer?
What are the costs associated with the same metrics when marketing is not involved?

Clearly you cannot track and measure every activity, result, or dollar in revenue. Focus on those activities and results that are directly tied to business outcomes that you can track and measure. To be successful in improving your Marketing results and justifying your Marketing investments, you will need answers to the types of questions below. This information will help you determine your contribution to the sales process and assist with securing your resources.

How much sales revenue has been generated as a result of Marketing?
What percentage and amount of the company’s sales has been assisted by Marketing?
What percentage of forecasted sales in the pipeline can be linked to Marketing?
What is the value of the average marketing-generated sales opportunity compared to opportunities found by sales without Marketing’s help?
How long has it typically taken to close marketing-assisted sales compared to those in which Marketing hasn’t appeared to be involved?
How many of the opportunities in the forecast came from marketing-generated opportunities?
How much of the forecasted revenue will be the result of Marketing-generated opportunities?
What number and percentage of the target accounts in the forecast have been found via Marketing-generated opportunities?
Where do our best opportunities come from?
Which demand generation campaigns have been the most successful?
Which market segments have shown better results than others?
Which channels and touch points generate the best results and for which buyers and segments?
Which offers have resulted in the highest number of inquiries?
Which follow-up activities have generated the best results?

Contact us if you need help with engineering your customer buying journey, aligning this journey to your internal process and systems, and/or using it to develop both your payback analysis and key metrics.

FAQ:

Q1: Why is demand generation critical for customer acquisition?
A: Demand generation moves prospects into the opportunity pipeline, introduces products or services into consideration sets, and delivers essential information that drives buying decisions—all reflected through customer behavioral metrics.

Q2: What are the 6 C’s of the customer buying process?
A: The 6 C’s represent key stages in the buying journey:

Contact: Initial awareness or engagement.
Connection: Establishing a relationship or interest.
Conversation: Dialogues that deepen understanding and qualification.
Consideration: Evaluation of options and solutions.
Consumption: Purchase and use of the product or service.
Community: Post-purchase engagement and advocacy.

Q3: How do behavioral commitments inform demand generation metrics?
A: Each stage involves incremental customer commitments that indicate progression. Mapping these commitments to journey steps enables development of behavioral metrics that track movement and engagement through the funnel.

Q4: Why is it important to differentiate types of conversations in the sales process?
A: Conversations vary from initial inquiry to proposal discussions. Labeling and measuring these appropriately helps assess customer predisposition to buy and evaluates the effectiveness of demand generation efforts in facilitating the sales process.

Q5: What are some key metrics to measure Marketing’s contribution to customer acquisition?
A: Examples include:

Average marketing cost per inquiry, qualified lead, sale, up-sell, renewal, or reactivated customer.
Percentage and amount of sales assisted or generated by Marketing.
Comparison of sales cycle length for marketing-assisted vs. non-assisted sales.
Effectiveness of demand generation campaigns by segment, channel, and offer.

Q6: How can organizations prioritize which metrics to track?
A: Focus on activities and results directly tied to measurable business outcomes and those that provide actionable insights to optimize Marketing investments and justify resource allocation.

Q7: Where can I get expert help to engineer the customer buying journey and develop key metrics?
A: VisionEdge Marketing offers guidance in mapping customer journeys, aligning internal processes, and designing payback analyses and metrics to maximize demand generation effectiveness.