Tracking Beyond the Sale: From Buyer’s Journey to Revenue Journey

Sometimes, it can be hard to understand marketing efforts as part of larger processes. Marketers get so focused on improving tactics, targeting specific audience groups, and launching new initiatives that they often forget to consider the bigger picture.

And the big picture is this: tracking sales success extends far beyond the limited scope of the traditional buyer’s journey – and requires a much longer-term vision. For the business to truly thrive, they must also be mindful of their skills which can be enhanced through training such as power bi courses.

Actual customer interactions don’t occur in a vacuum, and they don’t unfold in a straight line either – they overlap between marketing, sales, and customer success divisions. Understanding the buyer’s journey, which typically encompasses marketing and sales efforts, and its intersection with the customer journey once a lead converts to a customer lends further clarity to the entire customer experience. Akoonu defines this full process as the revenue journey in their recent article, helping marketers clearly visualize the integrated efforts of marketing, sales, and customer success as part of a more complex, long-term purchasing process.

Original graphic by Akoonu

This approach requires having a macro-level vision of the entire range of steps in the sales process, from initial contact with a potential client, to qualifying them as a lead, to an eventual purchase, to upselling and customer support – and everything in between. Think the buyer’s journey and customer journey, combined.

Development of a collaborative revenue journey across teams should be in lock step with the insights gleaned from customer research, win/loss analysis work, and meaningful data gathered throughout the sales process to guide ongoing improvement.

Again, it all comes down to your customers (yes, we’re saying it again!): if you understand your customers better, you can better facilitate the actions you seek—and ensure a smooth journey, every step of the way.