Organizing Customer Behavior: The Key to Market Expansion and Business Success

Most firms that hire a fractional CMO are focused on one goal: market expansion. They want to grow, to reach new customers, and to increase their share in the market.

However, achieving this isn’t just about creating demand; it’s about organizing customer behavior in a way that aligns with the journeys they want to take.

This approach isn’t just about attracting attention; it’s about guiding customers down paths that naturally lead to stronger relationships and optimized performance.

The Future of Marketing: A Behavioral Approach

The future of marketing isn’t just about leveraging new technologies or mastering the latest digital or AI trends. It’s about understanding and organizing behavior — specifically, the behavior of your ideal customers.

Whether it’s through customer experience, big data, content marketing, digital media, inbound marketing, or inbound selling, the core of successful marketing lies in guiding customers through experiences they want to have.

To truly engage customers and build long-term loyalty, marketers must first understand how their current customers behave. This understanding forms the foundation of every effective marketing initiative.

When you evaluate new technologies or platforms, consider how they can enhance what you’re already doing well. This approach helps avoid the common pitfall of chasing the latest “shiny object” without clear purpose.

Creating a Better Customer Experience

A better customer experience is not just about providing excellent service; it’s about aligning with the behavior customers want to exhibit at every touchpoint.

Whether they’re interacting with your website, speaking to a sales representative, receiving an invoice, being onboarded or reading your content, each interaction should be designed to support and enhance the customer’s desired experience.

Using Big Data to Address Behavior: Big data is powerful, but its true value lies in how you use it to understand and address customer behavior. By analyzing how visitors interact with your brand, you can tailor your marketing efforts to better meet their needs, leading to more effective campaigns and stronger customer relationships.

Content Marketing Aligned with Customer Behavior: Successful content marketing isn’t just about producing content; it’s about matching the right content to the right stage of the customer lifecycle. Understanding where your customers are in their journey allows you to provide the information they need when they need it, increasing engagement and driving conversions.

The Behaviors That Drive Success

To succeed in today’s market, organizations must recognize and embrace five key behaviors that have become universal across industries and demographics.

These behaviors represent the way prospects and buyers want to interact with brands:

Awareness

This stage is about capturing attention. Here, customers first encounter your brand or service. The behavior is driven by curiosity or a need, where they might search for solutions, engage with ads, or read content that makes them aware of your offering.

Education

Once customers are aware of your brand, they actively seek information to understand how your product or service can solve their problem. At this stage, trust begins to develop, especially when customers see that others, who are similar to them, have had positive experiences. Social proof — such as testimonials and reviews — plays a key role in building this trust. As Seth Godin famously said, “What would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials.”

Shopping is, at its core, an educational activity. Customers “kick the tires” by gathering information, comparing options, and ensuring they’re making informed decisions. They educate themselves about the companies they’re considering, and brands that provide valuable, relevant content stand a better chance of earning both trust and business. Organizations that are intentional about aligning their marketing with their service delivery are more likely to establish credibility.

In this phase, customers engage in behavior such as researching, reading articles, watching videos, and attending webinars. They’re actively building knowledge and evaluating their choices to make confident, informed decisions.

Sample

This is the crucial moment when customers want to experience a small part of your offering to reduce their perceived risk. Customers want to sample a brand’s expertise, product, or service to avoid making a bad decision. Offering free trials, demos, or sample content allows customers to experience your value proposition firsthand, building confidence and trust in your brand. Behavioral cues include requesting a demo, signing up for a trial, or using free tools. Sampling gives them confidence to move forward.

Purchase

After positive experiences with your samples, customers move toward purchasing. Their behavior is decision-driven, often involving comparing prices, reviewing testimonials, and confirming details like availability and support before committing.

Refer

Finally, satisfied customers may refer others. Customers want to share their positive experiences. When a brand exceeds their expectations in surprising and delightful ways, customers are motivated to share their stories on social channels. This word-of-mouth marketing is invaluable and often the result of a well-organized customer journey. This behavior reflects loyalty, where customers advocate on your behalf. They might leave reviews, recommend you to peers, or share your content, driven by the positive experience they had.

The Path Forward: Organize, Don’t Just Create

Organizations that understand and organize opportunities for customers to experience these behaviors throughout their journey will win in the marketplace.

Every marketing, sales, and service initiative should be designed with these behaviors in mind, ensuring that the customer’s journey is not only smooth but also deeply satisfying.

By focusing on organizing behavior rather than just creating demand, marketers can build stronger, more loyal customer relationships. This approach not only drives market expansion but also ensures long-term business success.