In order to find a flaw in your go-to-market strategy, you will first need to have a good understanding of both your customer and your competition.

Your customer’s journey is the story of their relationship with your brand or business. This stretches from the time they first encounter the product or services all the way through their time of purchase. If everything goes as it should, this will even include repeat business.

Just like every date doesn’t end in marriage, every potential customer you encounter will not buy. However, if your brand is successful, a certain percentage of them should. What happens when you aren’t converting enough potential customers to sales? Why is your customer’s journey not becoming a buyer’s journey?

What Is Really Stopping the Customer in Your Buyer’s Journey?

When you aren’t seeing the results that you want in sales you might wonder where the problem is. The truth is that in order to find a flaw in your go-to-market strategy, you will first need to have a good understanding of both your customer and your competition.

The Importance of Long-Term Planning

It is so easy to get bogged down in managing and completing daily tasks, profit and loss, and trying to achieve goals and objectives. Where do you find the time for long-term planning?

Making the time for long-term planning is absolutely essential because it is what will give your company an edge in the future. Not planning today can easily lead to tomorrow’s failures.

While data can give you some of the information that you are looking for, real deep insight comes from long-term planning. You will want to invest time in creating accurate customer personas and using customer journey mapping.

Customer journey mapping will help you to analyze every touch point. This makes it easier to identify and overcome pain points in the process that could be derailing sales.

The Key is in Long-Term Thinking for your Customer Journey

Playing the long game always wins in business. You never want to be caught scrambling to catch up. If you want to make sure that you are always at least a step or two ahead of your competition, keep these questions front of mind while you are planning:

• How has your plan changed since you launched? Are you flexible enough?
• What are your buyers' needs today and what will they be tomorrow?
• How has the landscape changed since you launched?
• What trends have died or emerged since you launched?
• Are there new areas where you can or should innovate?

How Do You Get Ahead of the Competition?

The best way to get ahead of the competition is by thinking long term and by using a strategy called Wargaming. Designing your marketing strategy using the war gaming method gives you a great competitive edge.

Wargaming is when you take the opportunity to think like your competition. This lets you see why they do what they do. Wargaming sessions give you a chance to walk in your competitor’s shoes and therefore, beat them to the punch. This will be a huge competitive edge going forward.

It is important to remember that this is not a one-time exercise. As the market changes and consumer habits change, you will need to continue to reevaluate. This is the key to staying current as well as one step ahead of your competition.

Ready to Design Your Next Marketing Strategy?

If you are ready to take the next steps to making your business more successful and seeing how you can play the long game, fill out the form below to schedule a discovery call with our team. We can help you identify pain points, gaps, and opportunities to improve interactions with your brand, business, or team.