When it comes to marketing, we’re big believers that one thing in particular matters more than absolutely anything else: the customer journey. See, the journey that your customers take is a massive deal, as it points to so many of the decisions they’ll make in everything from their lives all the way to their purchases. When we can deeply understand the customer journey as marketers (and learn how to fit into that customer journey), it’s a lot easier to make sales and make lifelong audience members and customers.
Let’s dive on in. First, check out this short video from DigitalMarketer on the 8 Steps to Creating a Customer Journey Map.
What is a customer journey?
The customer journey involves the steps that your customer takes in order to get to you. The most important thing to understand about the customer journey as a whole is that it starts long, long before the customer ever thinks about or needs you — because each step in the journey is what will inspire a future engagement or purpose.
See, there’s a lot of psychology that goes into marketing as a whole, and the customer journey is a great example of this. The smallest moments and events in a customer journey can point to a future need for a product or a service like yours… and when you can understand that, you’ve already made a huge difference!
3 steps to capitalize on your customer journey
As a marketer, capitalizing on the customer journey is *the* best thing you can do to boost your success. Here’s how to do it effectively.
1. Map out your customer journey.
It’s simple: first, you need to map it all out. We’re big fans of pen and paper around here — so go ahead and start writing down your customer journey! To do this, we recommend going from the end result (buying from your brand or working with you) and making your way backward. You’ll need to ask yourself:
- What happened that made this customer choose to buy with us? Was it an email campaign? A targeted ad campaign? A phone call?
- Why did the customer become interested in our product or service in the first place? Was it through intentional inbound or outbound marketing methods on our part? Was it a referral?
- When did the customer start to think that they needed a solution similar to ours? What exactly could have happened? What pain points were they experiencing?
2. Meet your customers where they’re at.
Once you can truly understand the decisions and the events that pushed your audience to your product or service in the first place, you can meet them where they’re at! For example, maybe your customer is experiencing pain points from a similar competitor product. Your solution? Search engine advertising. For another example, maybe your clients are searching for DIY-help before they reach towards paid support. Your solution? Create valuable blog content that educates those clients and shows your value to them.
3. Reflect your journey in each step of your marketing.
Now, once you’ve started to truly understand your customer’s journey, it’s officially time to reflect that journey in each step of your marketing collateral. Curate your content and strategy intentionally to reflect the different stages of your customer journey, and watch as you’re able to capture a greater number of leads. Your clients and customers will be able to tell that you understand what they’re going through, and that’s huge.
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At Marketing Career Hub, we’re huge fans of helping you implement customer-first marketing techniques — and we’re always here. Find more marketing resources here.
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