Designing before having a map is betting backwards
Drawing a touchpoint map is the surest way to know what to create and what to discard.
If you start designing without knowing each sales moment, the results are often not good. There will be a complete set of documents on paper, but the sales team won't engage with it. The touchpoint map helps anchor each tool to a real task in the buying journey, allowing you to determine which to prioritize and which to eliminate. This step doesn't necessarily require hiring; the business can do it themselves if the sales and marketing teams can sit down together. For small businesses with only one salesperson, the map can be reduced to a short list of key touchpoints.
- Transactions involving multiple decision-makers and a long cycle.
- Before requesting or preparing a quote for anything.
- Holding many separate quotes and not knowing how to compare them.
- You need to prioritize addressing what is blocking cash flow.
- Small businesses, one seller, few touchpoints: just need a simplified version, no need for a complete diagram.
- Start designing according to the file categories instead of the sales moments.
The most common question when starting a sales kit project is: "We need a brochure, a presentation, and a service introduction sheet. When will they be ready?" This question is reasonable. However, if you jump straight into design from there, the result is often a set of documents with all the items but printed and left in a drawer. The sales team still drafts emails each time they meet a customer. The issue is not with the quality of the design. The issue is that no one asks: when is this used, who has it, and where is the customer in the buying journey?
The buying journey does not go straight.
According to Gartner's research on the B2B buying journey, customers do not go from "awareness of the brand" directly to "signing a contract." They loop through many buying jobs, which are the tasks that the decision-making committee must complete before closing. These include recognizing the problem, researching solutions, drafting internal requirements, comparing suppliers, and building consensus within the team. Each buying job requires different information, in different formats, delivered to the right people.
If the design tools are organized by material categories instead of by buying tasks, it is easy to end up with a beautiful brochure that no one reads because it appears at the wrong time. Or there may be nothing to send to the technician who is drafting internal requirements, even though that is a decisive moment.
How to draw a map and what it shows
The first step is to list every point where customers encounter the business over a year, following the journey: hearing about it, searching online, visiting the sales point, the booth on the e-commerce platform, the business page on Zalo (Zalo OA), receiving a quote, purchasing, using, calling for inquiries or warranty, and recommending to others. The second step is to note three things for each touchpoint: who creates it daily, what tools are used, and how many times customers see it in a year. The third step is to connect two touchpoints when one borrows rules from the other, such as a quote template borrowing text from the capability statement, or a sign borrowing key text (fixed text cluster of the logo).
- Anchor each tool to a specific touchpoint. Each item in the sales kit must answer: which buying task it addresses, which channel it meets the customer, and whether the customer reads it alone or has someone presenting it.
- Indicate where decisions must be made first. The box with the most connections is where decisions need to be made first. If the item is meant for retail and is located there, then retail is the wrong unit to buy.
- Revealing an unassigned box and an item without a place. A touchpoint that customers encounter daily but is not addressed by any category is a gap. If an item in the quote does not point to any box on the map, it needs to be reconsidered whether it should be purchased.
Common mistakes when skipping this step
- Design according to traditional categories: brochures, flyers, presentations, capability profiles. The list looks complete but lacks grounding from the actual buying journey.
- Ignore the moment customers read alone. Materials left after meetings, follow-up emails, and introductory pages on the website are times when customers persuade themselves internally without anyone from the business there to support. This is often the biggest weakness.
- Creating a complete set for a beautiful capability profile mostly remains static. The more fragmented content there is, the harder it is for customers to make decisions. Gartner indicates that providing the right support for purchasing helps customers buy much more easily compared to offering many documents without anchor points.
When a complete diagram is not needed
You can definitely do this step yourself without hiring. The simplest format is a table listing each touchpoint, noting who interacts with customers there and what information customers need to move to the next step. For small businesses with only one salesperson, a full diagram may be a bit heavy: a list of five to seven key touchpoints is sufficient to avoid redundancy.
The goal is not to have a complete set of materials, but to ensure the sales team always has the right tools at the right time.
Practical experience.
Decision checklist
Topic: Why you should map touchpoints before designing a sales kit. Sinh Vũ guide, sinhvu.com
Tick each item that applies or that you can already answer, then print or save as PDF to take with you.
If you have marked most of the signs above, this is the time to discuss in more detail. Sinh Vũ can help you review and propose a direction.
References
Gartner, The B2B Buying Journey; Gartner, From Buying Journeys to Buying Jobs. Practical experience from Sinh Vũ.
Frequently asked questions
Is the touchpoint map complicated, can you create it yourself?
You can completely do it yourself. The simplest format is a table: for each touchpoint, note three things: who creates it daily, what tools are used, and how many times customers see it in a year (estimating by level is sufficient). Then connect two touchpoints when one borrows rules from the other, for example, the website color borrowing from the packaging. No software is needed, no hiring required.
If a small business or a sole seller needs to create a map?
Necessary, but simplify. When there is only one salesperson and few touchpoints, the map can just be a list of five to seven key touchpoints. The value remains: knowing what tools you truly need, avoiding redundancy that goes unused.
Now that I know I need to print brochures and presentations, is a map necessary?
This is the most common situation and also the easiest to get wrong. Knowing the name of an item does not mean knowing what moment it serves, what content is needed, and whether it is truly necessary. If the item intended for purchase is located in a box with the most connections on the map, buying it separately means buying the wrong unit, as that box needs to be decided first. Spending half a session drawing the map often leads to significant changes in the initial list.
This article is for reference. The scope, pricing, and specific commitments of Sinh Vũ are detailed in the proposal and signed contract.