Creating an optimized customer journey map would give sales growth to your business in a long-term view, and some hints on how to improve your marketing funnel.
Is your marketing funnel working or it needs to be implemented? A journey map is comprised of several steps useful to bring your potential clients into your brand experience, knowing your product and buying it, helping your business in branding as well.
The customer journey doesn’t end with the product purchase: that’s only 50% of its journey! Client experience with your brand and product continues after the purchase step.
It’s Not Only Loyalty
How? A client, starting using your product, can make some actions that can affect your business in a long-term perspective, and your marketing funnel as well.
Mostly, in businesses where loyalty is an important characteristic, considering the customer journey continuing after the first product purchase will be mandatory.
Even if your product is a “one time purchase”, like for example a wedding event service, It’s important to follow up with your clients: customers can indirectly advertise your product to other potential clients.
Customer Journey: Clients First
If you run your business online, running a blog, for example, making an optimized funnel to make your visitors returning to your webpages would be ideal.
What do you have to do? Implement your marketing plan including the concept “clients/users first”, considering your website visitors or your physical store clients important forever: don’t abandon them during their customer journey implementing it! We are going to tell you how!
Customer journey: clients first #MarketingTips Share on XIn the following chapters, we are going to review the customer journey map, sorting it in 2 stages, comprised of different chronological steps: pre-purchase stages and post-purchase stages.
We are going to review the path between your client and your business/product, starting from the first engagement. Analyzing also the end of the first stage funnel that includes the purchase step.
After that, we are going to dive into the second stage funnel, starting from the adoption of the product purchased, during the last step of the first stage, and closing the topic with the advocacy step. Are you ready for this? Let’s do it!
Customer Journey Map: From Engagement to Purchase
First of all, consider your business and start analyzing step by step the customer behavior. It will give you some important tips about your digital marketing funnel. Online shops or physical shops? You can use the following concepts for both cases.
From the first engagement to the purchase of the item/service you sell, you can optimize the customer journey in order to build a reliable brand in your niche market. You should ask yourself: how do I engage my audience? It’s starting a new customer journey that will give you result in a long term view!
Engagement is the first approach to your potential client. It can be on social media, on your website, in your shop, organically or using paid adverts. Make sure to follow a brand awareness concept: communicate your brand voice, spread your marketing campaigns, be active on several marketing channels in order to transfer confidence of knowledge in your business/product field to your potential clients.
Use a unique brand voice, a type of communication that in a few months will be identified with your product/brand.
Audience Education
Your audience is getting into your brand and in the meantime would be ideal to educate it. Education is important during the customer journey: your potential clients will understand that you can identify their issues, their problems, and you have the solution with your product/service because you are an expert in your business.
For example, having a blog would be great to share your knowledge. Visitors will review your articles, getting confident in your experience: everyone wants to buy a product/service from companies that have knowledge about what they market.
Any Solutions? Investigate
Customers need products to solve their problem. How can you help them with your business? Provide them a solution through your products! In the previous step, you showed your knowledge about your business and products writing articles on your blog, for example.
Potential clients got engaged by your niche content and now they can see you are researching and proposing the best solutions/products to them! You are in the phase where you are still not focusing on selling your product. That’s the next step.
Evaluation Is Mandatory
Now, potential customers understand that you are an expert and your products fit their aim. To implement your marketing funnel be sure to explain the value of your products, and be sure that your audience can get it.
It’s time to activate your marketing knowledge to propose your best product to your target: your product is not just a product, but 100% the best solution for clients. There is no competition, no better product, yours is unique and your audience wants it because has benefits: evaluation!
Justify Your Product
Potential clients did not buy your product yet, they are still deciding what to do: help them with buying decisions process! Justification is the step coming before the purchase decision: convince your target that buying your product is important, a priority, and there is a reason to have what you are selling.
To do that, you can use different marketing channels. You can go for a personalized email blast to follow up with your leads, either proposing a coupon discount by a direct message on social media if you can use an online bot.
Customer Journey Map First Part
We are at the end of the first marketing funnel stage: the purchase! Now, your potential client is a real client because it purchased what you are selling, closing the deal with the sales department. You converted it, from lead to customer, and now be sure that your client feels glad and satisfied with your product/service.
Is your client completely happy? It should be if you optimized every step we mentioned, transferring the value and the quality of your product/service to the person that bought it. Customer first! Make sure to create a funnel implemented by a client perspective: it will be an asset in 2019 businesses.
Customer Journey Map: From Adoption to Advocacy
Is your client completely happy? It should be if you optimized every step we mentioned, transferring the value and the quality of your product/service to the person that bought it. Customer first! Make sure to create a funnel implemented by a client perspective: it will be an asset in 2019 businesses.
From now on, it is starting the second stage of the customer journey: the adoption. Your customer will start using your product/service having high expectation according to the first stage of its journey. You don’t have to abandon your new clients!
Do you work in a business where does not require customers already acquired to return buying your product/service? In any case be sure to follow their behaviors, taking care about their satisfaction.
You have to assist your clients during the second part of its journey, guaranteeing confidence and being sure your customers understand what they have in their “hands”: the best product/service coming from an informed decision.
Retention and Expansion
In 2019, one thing is sure in marketing: customers completely satisfied using your product/service they might become repeat customers. Satisfaction will be your success: retain your clients!
Be sure to provide them all the assistance they need, in order to have the best experience ever. Reply to their messages, having a human and friendly approach, giving them all the answers they need.
When a client comes back to you, make sure it feels at home! #Retention #Marketing Share on XHave you ever considered up-sell and cross-sell? It will be the expansion of your business in terms of sales and customers loyalty. Let’s make it extreme and aggressive: your clients understood that they cannot live without your products and your brand.
You create a great marketing funnel with a stunning customer journey map. It is time to provide complementary services to your clients and new products to solve other customer problems. Are your clients looking for another product? You are the answer! They will come back to your business because they trust your brand. Your brand identity and reliability are a market signature in your niche.
Customer Journey Is Over: Advocacy
As we mentioned at the beginning, a client buying your product, and experiencing it, can arrive at the end of its customer journey really satisfied. According to that, your client can spread the quality of your product, following a “word of mouth” concept for example: all its friends will now that.
Be sure to get customer feedback, in order to have reviews online. That’s a good way to optimize loyalty, using another word: advocacy! A client that talks well about your product, can influence an audience online, not only friends.
Nowadays, living in a digital world, every client comment on social media, either a post or a picture, and can affect positively or negatively your business. You can use some tools, like Survey Monkey, to hear the voice of your target: gold pieces of information for your business.
Conclusion and Recap
We analyzed a marketing funnel reviewing a customer journey map that you can include in your plan. Be sure to consider every step and adapt it to your type of business and product/service. Work for your customers, be closer to them, improving their experience: a concept that you don’t have to forget!
Pre-purchase stage
- Engagement
- Education
- Research
- Evaluation
- Justification
- Purchase
Post-purchase stage
- Adoption
- Retention
- Expansion
- Advocacy
Did you optimize your plan with those steps? Do it now! It would be one of the first of your strategies to implement, before anything else. A customer satisfied would make your job easier.
