I keep hearing that mapping the buyer journey is a useless exercise. I don't buy it. But I see why people say it.
Here's where the critics are right: buying journeys aren't linear. The funnel most of us picture was built to make measurement and optimization easier. But somewhere along the way, it’s been mistaken for a model of how buyers actually move.
But "the funnel is a bad model" and "journey mapping is useless" are different claims. Yet they both seem to wear the "journey mapping" label:
Traditional funnel-based mapping (useless). This is where you map your marketing assets in a step-by-step sequence. You end up with a Google Drive or Whimsical board of screenshots, labeled in the order you think a buyer will touch them. This is a make-work exercise and leads you to pretend you control a path you actually don't.
Buyer mindset-based mapping (useful). This is where you map the buyer's mindset and context. Where their head's at, what they're trying to accomplish, what's standing in the way, who else needs to be involved (or be sold to), and how they’ll measure success.
Very different inputs and outputs. One centers the asset, and the other centers the buyer.
Now, some of the confusion between the two probably comes from the use of “awareness” in both versions:
When most people use something like ToFu/MoFu/BoFu to map, the stages are defined by asset type and channel: top is ads and blogs (“awareness”), middle is the website (“consideration”), bottom is sales enablement (“decision”). This type of mapping also tends to be highly prescriptive in nature (e.g. “ToFu needs to educate”).
When we map, the stages are defined by what's happening in the buyer's head in relation to the problem they’re trying to solve (and, when applicable, your product). Unaware, problem-aware, solution-aware, product-aware, etc. (These stages are obviously not of my own creation. Thank Eugene Schwartz and his book Breakthrough Advertising for this handy psychological framework.)
The funnel-as-steps concept isn't wrong from every angle. It's okay for measurement and tracking (attribution and measurement are imperfect anyway). But the funnel-as-steps concept breaks the moment you try to brief and build from it, because it starts from the asset ("what message goes in this step?") instead of the buyer ("who's reading this, and where's their head at?").
The other way the funnel-as-steps version breaks down is when you start splitting different parts of your narrative across the ecosystem. This typically results in a marketing ecosystem that relies on the buyer to see specific assets in a specific order to understand the narrative. But buying journeys don’t work like that. We don’t control the order in which a buyer consumes different marketing assets. As a result, every asset must be able to stand alone, carrying its own weight for whoever lands on it, wherever they came from, offering a complete, on-brand narrative.
What works instead, and what we do for our clients, is buyer mindset-to-message mapping. This is what lets you actually brief for assets that easily stand alone. This type of map helps you locate where the asset sits within the buyer’s headspace. As a result, you’ll write a brief built on thinking like "this email likely sits here in the buyer's thinking and awareness, so it covers topics in this way and typically leads with this type of framing" instead of "this is the third email, so it presents X part of our messaging narrative."
For a given asset, your message map should include:
The buyer's stages of awareness and job-to-be-done phase
The key message(s) to lead with
The objections you need to overcome
The framing (for example, do you lead with the problem, or lead with the outcome?)
(Fwiw, the framing is the piece that few folks seem to think about in a structured way, but it changes a lot about how the asset reads. And can dictate if the asset gets read at all.)
Yes, the map looks linear on paper. But you don't use it linearly. Instead, you use the map to identify the buyer’s mindset in line with the planned targeting. In turn, the map reduces the degree of wrong in your messaging, helps you build a more cohesive marketing ecosystem, and really centers the work you do around the buyer.
So, mapping isn't useless. It's only useless if you map with an asset-first approach instead of a buyer’s mindset-first approach.
Start mapping with the buyer's mindset, and the map becomes the fastest path to a brief that actually improves your marketing ecosystem.
‘Til next week,
Carolyn
Off the clock…
🎥 Apollonia Poilâne’s MasterClass on bread baking. After a multi-year bread-baking hiatus, I’ve decided to revisit sourdough. Who better to learn from than the owner of a renowned Parisian bakery?
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My firm (Boxcar) helps sales-led B2B software companies turn their proven sales motion into a clear messaging framework that generates more qualified leads.
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