Wag’n Tails / Customer experience + marketing systems

Building a Customer Journey from the Ground Up

How I redesigned the marketing experience to capture customers earlier, nurture them over time and create a measurable path from curiosity to purchase.

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Role
Director of Marketing
Focus
Customer journey, marketing automation, lead generation, analytics
Platforms
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud, WordPress

The journey was basically two buttons.

When I joined Wag’n Tails, website visitors had two primary conversion paths: complete a generalized contact form or submit a prequalification application.

Website visitor

Contact us

Prequalification

Sales

  • No early-funnel lead capture
  • Very little pricing or financing education
  • No consistent nurture strategy
  • Limited visibility into buyer behavior

This wasn’t an impulse purchase.

Wag’n Tails sells a high-consideration product. Customers may spend months evaluating business ownership, financing, operating costs, vehicle options and revenue potential before they are ready to speak with sales.

“We were waiting for customers to become ready to buy instead of helping them become ready.”

Designing the journey

  1. Discovery

    • Organic search
    • Social
    • Tradeshows
    • Paid media
  2. Education

    • Business resources
    • Vehicle content
    • Customer stories
  3. Lead capture

    • Economic survey
    • ROI guide
    • Van quiz
    • Profit calculator
  4. Nurture

    • Educational email
    • Business guidance
    • Vehicle education
  5. Intent

    • High-value engagement
    • Prequalification
    • Return visits
  6. Sales

    • Qualified conversation
  7. Opportunity

  8. Customer

Creating more ways into the brand

Instead of immediately asking every visitor to speak with sales, I built useful resources that allowed prospects to begin a relationship with the company much earlier.

  • Economic Survey

    Industry data and insight for grooming business owners.

  • ROI Guide

    Resources helping prospects understand the economics of mobile grooming.

  • Which Van Is Right for You?

    An interactive quiz connecting customer needs to product options.

  • Profit Calculator

    A gated tool helping prospects model potential business revenue.

  • Tradeshow Lead Capture

    Digital experiences connecting offline events to the CRM.

The goal wasn’t another sales email.

“Build trust first.”

I created an always-on nurture strategy designed to stay useful while customers worked through a long buying decision. Instead of relying primarily on rebates and promotional messaging, email became a way to educate, answer questions and maintain a relationship.

Not every lead needed the same message.

Salesforce Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud made it possible to segment audiences by who the customer was, what they cared about, and how they behaved.

All prospects

Groom

Veterinary

  • Researching
  • Business planning
  • Financing interest
  • Vehicle interest
  • High intent

Building the data we didn’t have

Because Wag’n Tails operates in a highly specialized industry, there was very little comparable customer journey data available. We needed to create our own.

  1. Visitor
  2. Lead
  3. MQL
  4. SQL
  5. Opportunity
  6. Customer
  • Where do our best customers enter the funnel?
  • Which resources generate serious prospects?
  • What content appears before opportunity creation?
  • Where do customers stop progressing?
  • Which marketing activities influence revenue?
Executive view of the funnel.
How touchpoints share credit for a conversion.

Marketing became a system.

The most important outcome wasn’t one campaign, landing page or dashboard. It was creating infrastructure that allowed marketing to participate throughout the customer decision process.

  1. Website
  2. Lead magnets
  3. Email
  4. Marketing Cloud
  5. Salesforce
  6. Data Cloud
  7. Sales
  8. Reporting

We could finally see the journey.

  • Capture intent earlier.
  • Educate before selling.
  • Learn from customer behavior.
  • Create more relevant communication.
  • Give sales better context.
  • Measure what actually leads to revenue.
Next project The Website Was Never Just a Website