Success in eCommerce typically takes time and a lot of hard work. One of the foundations that need to be created for that success is a cohesive customer buying experience. Therefore, a keen focus on customer journey management is required, as the right messaging is key to creating a buzz around your business and the products or services you offer.
When you have a well-researched customer journey map, you're better able to visualize what your target audience is doing, thinking, and feeling. This increased understanding of the deepest needs of your customers helps you to resonate with the public and build brand trust.
Customer Journey Management - The Three Stages
Also referred to as the buying journey - the customer journey relates to the experiences people get before they choose to purchase a product or service. This process can be broken down into three distinct phases; 1) awareness, 2) consideration, and 3) conversion.
1 - Awareness
Customer awareness means more than people are simply aware that your products exist. Instead, it describes the degree to which your customers are aware of their own pain points and issues - allowing them to see how you can help. If customers are not even aware of their own issues, they're not likely to search for or buy what you're offering.
Awareness can be boosted via:
- Having a great-looking SEO-optimised website
- Online/in-person networking events
- Paid advertising online/TV/radio
- Social media posts
- Blogs & ebooks
- Podcasts & videos
Customer Awareness refers to the degree your potential customer is aware of their problems, pain points, possible solutions, your product, and how you can solve their problems. Put simply, If the customer doesn't know they have a problem, they won't buy your product.
2 - Consideration
Another important component of customer journey management is the consideration stage. At this point, potential customers are fully aware of your brand but are still assessing you. They're essentially searching for proof that what you offer solves the issues that prompted their online search in the first place. This vital stage of the journey requires you to provide key information with regard to how and why they should buy from you.
Ways to move people from consideration to conversion include:
- Crafting valuable content about your brand
- Collaboration with industry influencers on social media
- Run Google Ads with navigational search keywords
Here, a customer journey marketing agency may create a buyer's guide as well as highlight positive reviews you've had. By educating your customers in this way, interested parties will have the knowledge they need to see the increased value you're providing.
3 - Conversion
Now we reach perhaps the most pivotal part of the customer journey - conversion. Once you've raised awareness of what you offer and have demonstrated your value, it's time to create compelling content that confirms your products and why they're worth investing in right now!
Ways you can further boost conversion include:
- Segmenting your audience for highly-personalized content
- Making purchasing as easy as possible
- Adding live chat to your website
- Include social proof in your content
Live Demos, trial downloads, introductory discounts, and more can be used to deliver the incentive you need to get people off the fence and reach for their payment cards. These ‘freebies' help buyers see exactly what they're going to get now and in the future.
Clearly Defining Your Target Audience
One of the first tasks a customer journey analysis agency will work on as part of your marketing strategy is to identify your ideal buying persona. That's because in order for your content to hit the mark, it should be tailored to the reader, and depending on the product, you may have several different segments that you've identified through A/B testing.
For example, if you were an online shoe retailer, this is how your target audiences may be comprised;
Clearly, the content you create will need to be different for each of the above audiences. By spending time analyzing which groups are most likely to buy your products and why, you'll better understand what it is those people are interested in and how they behave.
With Audience 1, for example, you might find that this group spends a lot of time on Facebook, socializing with other Moms, meaning a PPC campaign will likely yield the interaction and sales you're looking for. On the other hand, faced with Audience 3, a customer journey marketing agency could elect to market to Instagram, as this group could frequent the platform in order to follow the latest footwear fashion trends.
In order for customers to first become aware of your business and then subsequently be moved to the consideration and conversion phase of your sales funnel, your content needs to be interesting, relevant, and full of value. Segmenting your customer base like this makes that task so much easier.
Fine-Tuning Your Customer Journey For Success
Naturally, getting your customer journey honed will result in an improvement in your bottom line. You'll avoid the scattergun marketing approach rather than focusing on content that speaks directly to the customer and their pain points.
Effective customer journey management is a key component in creating memorable journeys that drive people from awareness to conversion while building brand loyalty and repeat business. As such, it's important to spend time planning out your strategy to ensure opportunities for customer relationship building are noticed.
