Digital Game Plan: Guiding Your Customers Down the Success Path
This episode of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret breaks down how the Digital Game Plan (DGP) helps B2B manufacturers and industrial companies lead their soulmate customers step-by-step through a journey of trust, clarity, and results. We discuss guiding your customers down the success path through the Digital Game Plan.
– Learn how to map the Soulmate Success Path
– Answer the Ridiculously Important Questions (RIQs) your customers are already asking
– Build digital momentum that attracts and converts
Tune in to Stop Being the Best Kept Secret and start guiding your buyers to success!
Guiding Your Customers Down the Success Path: Key Highlights
• Digital Game Plan Introduction 0:00
• Understanding the Buyer Journey 1:45
• Examples of Digital Game Plan Implementation 4:37
• Strategic Marketing vs. Tactic Sprint 7:24
• Customer-Centric Approach 10:10
• Final Thoughts and Takeaways 11:41
Resources
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Transcription
Curt Anderson 00:00
Hey, Damon, what’s up, dude?
Damon Pistulka 00:03
Well, Curt, I’m reeling from a challenging baseball weekend,
Curt Anderson 00:08
you know what? But I don’t you’ve got a glow to you today, like You look more handsome than normal. I don’t know what it is, maybe new haircut, maybe the background lighting. I don’t know what it is, the goatee,
Damon Pistulka 00:20
just, you know, I think what it is, Curt is you and I talked about this days ago, many days ago, that and I, and it came to fruition that I kind of wanted to see a seven game series for this playoff and going into extra innings, and I and US winning. You gotta wish for if that happens, I guess I’m gonna have to quit thinking that stuff.
Curt Anderson 00:46
Yeah, you know, hey, you just need one. You
Damon Pistulka 00:49
just need to be one run better than them tonight. Yep, that’s all we have. Great great day, great week. Curt, we’re gonna start off strong and talk about guiding your customers down the success class. That’s going to be fun. Yeah.
Curt Anderson 01:03
So let’s, let’s dive in. So guys, welcome Happy Monday. We’re here to stop being the best kept secret. And so, you know one we’re going to dive into. We have this little new tool that we’d love to share with you, and we’re going to be fast and furious today. So it’s called the digital game plan. And so the digital game plan is for, say, like, folks, maybe entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, that are marketing is a little bit new. As a matter of fact, amen, that we did a webinar last week, I got a really nice note on LinkedIn from a woman. She’s like, Hey, I’m launching my new business. This is, like, you know, super excited about it, but I’ve had zero marketing. She really enjoyed the concept, and like going through that foundation of the digital game plan and so, more importantly, for this, the sales process. That’s new for people. You hear the buyer journey. You know, you always hear the buyer journey. Well, you know, so many people we’ve learned from is, how do you make your customer successful? You know, how do you make your customer successful? So, as opposed to, and I don’t discount the buyer journey, but like, how do we take them down to soulmate? You know what we call the soulmate success pad. Hey, and by the friend. By the way, our dear friend is here today. Hey, DiAnn. Awesome. Happy Monday. Diane. So speaking of customer success, I don’t know anybody who exudes the dedication to customer success the way that Diane buyer does. DiAnn does amazing, incredible work. Connect with DiAnn on LinkedIn. You will thank us later for that one. So Damon, let’s take a little road trip I’m going to show you now, which is, I’m pulling this up your thoughts of though it’s a buyer’s journey when we really kind of flip the script, and we call it that success path. What goes through your mind?
Damon Pistulka 02:43
It it really until, till we started looking at it this way A while back, right, we started looking at this way. I hadn’t thought about the buyer journey in these different stages. Right, when you’re, you’re getting, you’re you’re starting to look for a solution to a problem you have. And then you go into, how do I find it? How do I evaluate? How do I make that decision? And you know, what do I really need? Post purchase? I really hadn’t thought about it like that, but when you start looking at it this way, boy, it sure clarifies how you need to help people, your soulmate, customers, best, ICP, whatever you want to call it, find, you decide if you’re a good solution and and then move beyond that to the sale.
Curt Anderson 03:26
I totally agree. You know, in two weeks ago today, we had our dear friend David Mantey on the program from manufacturing.net and industrial equipment news, and they had put out a huge research on hundreds of manufacturers. We’ve had Wendy Covey on the show multiple times. She interviews over 1000 engineers, kind of going through that buyer, buyer journey, that buying process, you know, again, we’re calling that Soulmate Success Path, if you will. And so what’s so important is getting that information out there and thinking of the different stages, you know, in just hit me the other day, my wife and I are looking to make this, you know, this purchase thing. And, like, I’m not, like, really kind of diagnosing, like, our buying process, you know, like, how are we finding somebody? And I’m online, right? I’m online. I’m sucking into these folks websites. I’m looking at their social media, I’m looking at reviews, and so, like, I’m trying to designate and where I’m at. I’m in the awareness stage. I’m in that top portion. Hey, I have a challenge. I have a problem. I need a solution. Let’s get the party started. So anyway, your thoughts, as far as I diving into this, we’re going to go through this example. Now, what I did, we speak to sing to we don’t sing. Damon, nobody wants to hear us singing, right? No, no. No, not whatsoever. So I pulled up, I we’re this is an example of Inc Magazine. So this was a digital game plan on Inc Magazine. I just thought, hey, you know many, if not, most entrepreneurs are familiar with Inc Magazine. I’ve been an Inc Magazine junkie for over 30 years. Great periodical for entrepreneurs. And so diving into. To, you know, I’m pulling up their doubles. So let’s just take a look at a couple examples here of the trigger, right? So for manufacturers, it’s like, okay, I need a new supplier. My previous supplier went out of business. There’s supply chains taking too long, different challenges that pull that trigger. Your thoughts here is, we’re getting into, we’re starting off with the awareness
Damon Pistulka 05:21
stage. Well, I really like the way this lays it out, though. You know the triggers. Where do they go first, down the page to really help us, I guess, get familiar with this process. So we really are putting ourselves in that buyer’s place and walking a mile in their shoes, right?
Curt Anderson 05:43
Right, exactly. And so again, you know, we start here like, hey, what’s the first trigger? What is that ideal customer? What is their search behavior, right? Are they, you know, we have, we have young adult kids, if you will. You know, are they on Tiktok? Are they going to Google? You know, here we’ve got, are they going to chat GPT? Are they going to LinkedIn in peer groups? Where are they starting that search? You know, am I going to reach out to my buddy, Damon? Hey, Damon, where do you Lanae get such and such, right? Or am I going to reviews? Am I going to Yelp? So we again, we need to dive in and get a clear, concise understanding. Now, you and I had a little bit of an epiphany. We work with primarily, you know, a lot of Gen Xers, right? A lot of different, you know, we’ll say a more seasoned generation, right? So it’s really understand, it’s really imperative for us to understand where that I Joe buyer is hanging out, where they’re shopping, yeah, anything that you want to add to that,
Damon Pistulka 06:37
no, I think understanding that that ideal customer, and their journey is so, so critical, because you can tailor the information they need at each stage right to what they really need. Then when someone finds you at that awareness stage, at that decision stage, whatever it is, you really understand how to give them the right information they need
Curt Anderson 07:01
exactly right? And so in what was ironic, you know, you and I, we were talking, you know, webinars are a great way for us to connect with our ideal customers. Yep, that’s where they’re hanging out. They want to be educated. They’re going to different organizations that we work closely with. And so that’s a great place. So again, so for our friends, our entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs out there that are maybe, or, you know, just starting your marketing journey, you know, you get kind of caught in that little tactic sprint. You know, our dear friend Michelle Jones calls it that tactic sprint. Hey, Damon, let’s do email, let’s do cold outreach, let’s do pay per click. Let’s do Facebook ads. You know, we just start kind of throwing things on the wall, as opposed to getting strategic your thoughts.
Damon Pistulka 07:42
That is an awesome point, because I was thinking about this more over the weekend and last week. And as we, as we really, you know, we’re building out this tool. We’re moving from the Google sheets into this SaaS application, and really building it out. The focus that you get is what is really powerful in this from a marketing standpoint. Because if we’re sitting back today and we don’t know what to do, our marketing can really be affected by whatever the latest thing that honestly hit us in the face, right? And if you go, yeah, yeah, and I’m talking about you might got hit by an awesome website person, you might got hit by an awesome Google PPC person, awesome social media person, you just name it right, because they in everybody right. We could always have better social we could always have better website. We could always have better but really, when you understand what your customer really needs, where they are and what they’re, what you really need to get them at that point, it just clarifies. The sun comes out and the clouds, clouds disperse.
Curt Anderson 08:54
Man, right? I gosh, I couldn’t agree more, and I’m such a guilty culprit of like, hey, let’s Damon, let’s do that. Hey, I read this article. Hey, I heard this. I watched this in pod. You know, listen to this podcast. We need to do this, as opposed to setting back and say, like, you know, our dear friend Diane, like, hey, what challenge does DiAnn have today? Yeah, how can we help Diane, you know, crush it with the challenge that she’s facing. What are her motivations? What are her goals? And, you know, when we, you know, I don’t mean to sound so selfless, but when we step out of our own selves, get out of our own way, and we focus on our customer, it’s just so much more powerful. Let’s, hey, let’s see what DiAnn has to say. Damon, what do you got here? What’s she saying?
Damon Pistulka 09:35
We are in, we are in 2025 conducting business in a digital marketplace. Now. It’s not enough to have a digital presence. You need a digital game plan, and the digital game plan provides a deep level knowledge and understanding of how to help your soulmate. Customers. Excellent. That’s what she said. So thank you.
Curt Anderson 09:54
Well. And the thing is, she is modest and humble as DiAnn is. She is the master of this. I can’t. Tell you how much I’ve learned and whether she realizes it or not, I can’t tell you how much of like her fingerprints are all over this digital game plan right here from her expertise. So DiAnn, send you lots of love. Thank you for all that you do, for your support. Love it. Damon, we’re going to start winding down here. We’re coming into time. The last thing that we have so again, we have the trigger, we have the search behavior, right? How does somebody find that challenge, the emotional state? Right?
Damon Pistulka 10:27
That’s really important. Oh, really important. Because you, if you can talk to people on the same level about their frustrations or their, you know, their motivations at that point is
Curt Anderson 10:39
huge, right, right? And even Wendy Covey, you know, like when you think about, you know, engineers and just, you know, you’re an engineer at heart, by training, correct, you know. And in engineers, it might be like, Hey, we’re not emotional. We make logical, rational decisions a little bit more stoic or more serious. We mean business. Man, you could take the most stoic engineer, it’s still an emotional decision. You know what I mean? When it comes down to a buying decision, it’s still an emotional decision. And then the last step here we have, like, in this case, like, Hey, what should you be providing your ideal customer, that soulmate, to get them on that path to success? Yeah. So for example, here, you know, we always love that line. How do you out teach the competition? But you know, right here, Damon, ROI calculators, you know, man, we just, we love those
Speaker 1 11:25
configurators, right? Yep, yeah, interviews,
Curt Anderson 11:29
you know, interviews with peers, with experts. You know, exactly. You know what we’re doing here with our live stream show, bringing on amazing, incredible people, having guides, comparing, hey, this is how we used to do it. This is how we now do it. Or, hey, Product A compared to product B. How do you stand against your competition? So again, like this, I tell you, Damon, if there was any takeaways today, this right, here is just, it’s huge gold, right? Absolutely gold.
Damon Pistulka 11:54
Yeah, that is huge.
Curt Anderson 11:57
Okay, alright, Damon, we are going to wind down. Hey, Abdul’s gotta know,
Damon Pistulka 12:01
yeah, Abdul, he said customer needs should be taken care of, nothing under or over in terms of requirements, quality, budget and timeline. That is a great comment. Abdul, thank
Curt Anderson 12:12
you. Yep, thank you, Abdul, appreciate it. Hey, DiAnn says you are so kind. Right back at you, my friend, we Gosh, tons of gratitude to our friend DiAnn, yeah, so Okay, let’s wind down. Damon, closing thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share when we’re focusing on the digital game plan. Most importantly, that that ideal customer, that soulmate Success Path. What are your thoughts?
Damon Pistulka 12:35
Know your buyer journey really well on your ideal customers and what you need to provide, because it gives you that. It gives you the whole template for what you need to be doing, what you need to be talking about in your blogs, in your social in your what on your website, whatever it is, it just simplifies that whole thing for you. So understand it well, and you know that you’re gonna it’s gonna pay off,
Curt Anderson 13:01
yep. And so two, two takeaways. Number one, KYS, know your soulmate, customer, yeah, know your soulmate. Know your soulmate. Number two, HYS, help your soulmate. You do those two things, my friend, you will be amazing. So guys, thank you for your time today. We appreciate you more than you can possibly imagine. And Damon, how about this? And just go out and be someone’s inspiration, right? Yes, just keep crushing it, and you two are going to make the world a better place. Damon, are back here on Friday. Damon, we have an email guru on the show this Friday. Nice. I cannot wait, because I know like you and I have been going all in on our email newsletter, and so I’m super excited to learn more from our expert coming up on Friday. So guys join us back on Friday. Have an amazing, incredible week, and we will catch you soon.
Damon Pistulka 13:45
Have a great week. Everyone. You.