Today, prospects and customers expect continuity and consistency throughout the buying process. One way CEOs and C‑suite executives can ensure this happens is to implement a disciplined process for developing and delivering a consistent corporate story throughout the customer experience.
Here are three questions every business leader should answer to determine if their corporate story is driving optimal engagement throughout the buyer journey …
1. Is your corporate message clear, compelling and consistent?
73% of CMOs indicate that their teams are not on message. (CMO Council)
Most executives think if they have a snappy corporate tagline and value proposition, the corporate story is complete. But the reality is, that will only go so far with respect to converting prospects into customers. There has to be more to the story. That’s why executive teams need to ensure there is a comprehensive Corporate Messaging Platform in place and embraced across the organization. This complete version of your story serves as the foundation for clear, compelling and consistent communication throughout the customer experience. A Corporate Messaging Platform goes beyond a simple, one-page messaging document for the marketing department. It includes a broad range of actionable messaging content and tools for every customer-facing area of your business and drives messaging continuity throughout the buyer journey.
2. Are your customer-facing employees able to bring your story to life?
70% of brand perception is driven by employees. (Enterprise IG)
To bring your corporate story to life and cultivate lasting change in the buyer journey, every employee must buy into and be armed with the key messages that can be delivered consistently across critical touchpoints in the customer experience. From casual conversations over the phone to social media posts and customer-facing presentations, your employees must be able to deliver clear, compelling dimensions of your story with every connection they make. For this to happen, executives must ensure formal processes are in place that enable employees to internalize, personalize and activate the corporate story in their daily work activities.
3. Are you capitalizing on every touch point in the buying process?
53% of executives say that consistent messaging in the sales process is a significant challenge. (SAVO)
In this self-service age of the customer, buyers consume a large percentage of your corporate story before ever speaking with a salesperson. That’s why messaging continuity and connectivity is essential between the self-service and sales phases of the customer journey. Executive teams must ensure clear, compelling and consistent corporate messaging is infused into standard sales tools and daily selling activities if they want to ignite trusted conversations with buyers and improve close rates.
