Today, companies and brands face many fluctuations in market conditions and in the desires and behaviors of customers towards shopping and buying.
These changes call for finding marketing solutions that help these companies reach their ideal customers to achieve the desired goals of the project and double sales.
The key to the success of any project and any marketing process is to focus on the customer. Usually, the customer does not make the decision to buy a product or service he needs quickly, but there are many feelings that stop him, which in the end form a strong motive for him to make a purchase decision.
The buyer goes through a long journey full of interactions and ideas until he decides to get the product, which is called the customer journey. The customer journey consists of several stages during which the customer interacts with the company. Below we will discuss what the customer journey is, its stages, and the journey management framework.
What is the customer journey?
The customer journey is the journey that the buyer goes through, starting from realizing that he has a need for a specific thing that meets his desire and satisfies his need, through to realizing the existence of your product and thinking about it until deciding to get it.
The end of becoming your regular customer, and even telling all his friends of his satisfactory experience with your product and service.
During the customer journey there is a direct interaction between your brand and the customer, transforming the potential customer from a stranger who does not realize you exist to someone who is loyal and loyal to your company, encouraging others to get your product.
This comes as a result of your efforts in the marketing process that focus on understanding the customer's behavior and the stages it has gone through, and creating an appropriate marketing strategy that ends with winning customers in your favor.
The importance of the customer journey
Understanding the customer's journey is no longer optional for the growth of any activity, project or start-up company. There is an urgent need to understand the stages that the customer goes through, starting from the appearance of the advertisement that raises his need and curiosity to obtain the product or service until he makes the purchase.
Through it, the customer interacts with your company, and begins to learn about it and your products, as you communicate with him through marketing channels such as social media, e-mail or search engines.
The importance of companies understanding the customer journey:
a) Knowing the issues that affect the customer's thinking and actions at each stage, and dealing with him in the appropriate marketing manner that ensures the achievement of sales and marketing objectives.
b) Better identify the pain points, focus on the problems facing the consumer, and work on providing appropriate solutions to them.
c) Understand the information that the customer can receive at each stage of the purchase journey, and begin to formulate it in a manner that suits this stage.
D) Managing the customer experience for your business by providing a distinctive experience that contributes to maintaining customer loyalty, increasing sales and promoting your company's growth in the market.
Explain the stages of the customer journey
A potential customer goes through 5 stages to become an actual customer for you, which are:
1. Awareness stage
What is meant by this stage is the awareness of the customer that there is a problem that he suffers from, but he does not have the slightest awareness of the existence of your product or brand.
One of the best marketing practices for companies at this stage is to provide useful advice that helps the customer understand his problem, the pain points he encounters, and how to treat it or overcome what he feels.
Using different forms of content, such as:
- Publications on social media.
- Articles compatible with search engines targeting the keywords in which the customer is searching for his problem.
- Short educational videos about the symptoms and causes of what the target customer suffers from.
- Case studies and statistics.
- Audio or podcast content.
Providing this information and advice gives the client the impression that you are aware of what he is going through, and that you are able to solve his problem and in this way gain his trust.
2. Interest . stage
At this stage, the customer begins to be interested in searching for a solution to the problem he is facing to get rid of its symptoms, and continues to search for information or available products and services that meet his needs.
It is an appropriate stage to talk to your customer about you and your brand. Present to your customer at this stage your solutions of services and products.
Talk about them through the platforms they research, highlight their features and benefits, how you would solve their problem, and highlight your unique selling point.
Here, you may need a marketing content writer who lists the features of the product in the form of content that attracts the customer and makes him want to get the product.
Forms of marketing channels at this stage:
- Email Marketing
- social media platforms
According to the previous example, you can find that a large group of targeted youth begins to search for how to enter the world of self-employment.
Therefore, this stage is the best stage in which you talk about how to enter this world and provide courses and exercises that help him in this.
3. Decision stage
At this stage, the customer becomes aware of a product that solves his problem and meets his needs, and he needs your help in making the decision to buy it.
It starts looking for how to get this product and compares the available options in terms of features, features and prices.
Your role here is to attract the customer and draw his attention to your product or brand by placing an appropriate CTA for him, such as: buy courses and start making income in dollars or buy the course and start freelancing or others.
As if possible, compare the courses you offer with competitors' courses and indicate how they are better and that the customer should buy your courses specifically, whether on social media, on your site or any other marketing means.
Also, do not forget to write motivational phrases such as increase your income in hard currency, and you can also publish success stories of your trainees who succeeded in self-employment and made good returns from it.
Among the best marketing practices at this stage, which contribute to doubling sales:
- Writing sales content that presents the product's features, components and benefits that accrue to the customer when using it, which prompts the customer to make the decision to purchase the product.
- Using funded advertising campaigns on social media platforms or search engines.
- Make the sales department fully prepared to deal with hesitant customers to motivate them to buy, and convince them that the benefits and benefits of the product lead to the satisfaction of their desires.
- Offer discounts to prompt the customer to make an immediate purchase decision.
- Show the reviews of previous customers who got and liked the products, which will help convert potential customers into actual customers.
- Telling the buyer that the value paid for the service or product cannot be compared to the benefits he receives.
4. Purchase phase
It is also called the conversion stage, ie the transition from a lead to an actual customer. Where in this stage the customer takes an actual step to obtain the product and uses your product and deals with your company directly, and is familiar with your brand or brand.
It is worth noting that the company's marketing activity does not stop at the point of completing the purchase process only, but extends to after-sales services and follow-up to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the experience he has gone through.
Where the customer's satisfaction is achieved when he finds the benefits and advantages that he expected from the purchase process.
Among the best marketing practices at this stage are:
- Providing after-sales service through the customer service department, knowing their opinions about the product and whether they will repeat the purchase again or not, and finding out the reasons for not repeating the purchase.
- Communicate with customers through e-mail by sending thank you emails about purchasing products and offering special offers and discounts on products that suit them, which makes the customer feel that he is a special person.
- Suggest that customers register in the company's loyalty program to ensure that they stay in touch with you and repeat purchase to get discounts and prizes in return for increasing their purchase times.
Going back to our example, at this stage the client has already taken the course, and your role begins to search for the trainees' opinions on the scientific material and the training content.
Did it meet their expectations and did it help them get additional income or what? All of these questions make customers feel that you care about them and you can help them again.
5. Advocacy stage
At this point the customer shifts from being a consumer to becoming a marketer of your brand and product.
This came as a result of your success in the marketing process and following the customer journey appropriately, which made the customer completely satisfied, and he became emotionally attached to your brand and this product.
The endorsement stage is the most important stage and requires a lot of effort to maintain customers, because competitors are dedicated to attracting your customers to them.
Among the best marketing practices at this stage are:
- Suggest other products that will improve satisfaction and increase overall sales.
- Run contests that will get customers to interact with your brand.
- Request to share customer opinions about the product and the advantages they have obtained with others on social media, which makes the customer feel that he is a special person.
According to the previous example in the endorsement stage, customers tell their acquaintances and friends about your service and how you helped them work as a freelancer, they can be asked to share the experience with others on your social media pages to attract new customers.
It is also preferable to be in constant contact with the previous trainees and provide free workshops or free consultations or suggest other training materials that help them increase their experience in their field of work.
All the previous stages are formulated in the form of a frame or a map in order to be practically applied.
Read also:
Running a successful advertising campaign
Customer Journey Map
The Customer Journey Map is a framework that is drawn for this journey, through which you plan and collect data for each stage of the journey, and monitor the customer's actions from knowing your product to becoming your permanent customer.
Through it, the client's condition, feelings, behaviors, targeting, and channels of communication with the client are determined.
The map design of this trip before it begins is a visual representation of the entire trip before, after and during the purchase.
In addition, collecting this data to map shows that there are gaps that can be improved, in order to improve the customer experience and provide the best solution to their problems, which in turn transforms the customer from a potential person to a customer who is loyal to your brand.
There are a lot of benefits to you by mapping the customer journey:
- Identifying pain points and problems encountered by the customer on the journey.
- Visualize before, after and during the buying process.
- Determine the customer's needs at each stage and how to meet them and communicate with him.
- Adjust marketing messages and objectives for each stage.
- Improve the customer experience in dealing with your brand.
- Monitoring the requirements of each stage to reach the goals of the brand.
- Enhancing the credibility of your company, which contributes to the rapid response to the decision-making of purchase by customers.
- Identify opportunities for improvements available at each stage that are taken into consideration while initiating the marketing process.
You can map the customer journey by:
1. Determine the target customers
Define your target customers and their personalities, and segment them into similar behaviors, desires, problems, priorities, and pain points to target.
Where a map will be drawn for each segment separately, but at the beginning you can focus on one segment of the audience and experience it.
2. Identify ideas, challenges and problems
The customer’s purchase decision for a particular product is the result of internal thoughts, needs, motives and emotions that meet the customer at every stage, so identifying them helps you to suggest possible solutions, which are the product or service you provide.
3. Determine communication channels
They are the channels through which you communicate with customers, whether social media, sponsored ads on search engines, e-mail, or your brand's website.
These channels are determined based on the study of the target customer's personality, knowledge of the most available marketing channels, and making him interact with you through them.
Also, identifying these channels enables you to know what type of content you will provide to your customer, whether visual or text content.
4. Determine the goal to be reached
The goal to be reached at each stage must be identified and recorded on the map, and the tools used.
Bearing in mind that the goals are time-bound, achievable and relevant to what they offer. It is preferable to set performance measures that show the extent to which the set goals have been achieved.
There are some practices that can make a big difference to you when designing a customer journey map, such as:
- Conducting opinion surveys for customers to ask them about the steps they take to buy a specific product they want, and their expectations about the product, and asking them about the feelings that they have and push them to make the purchase. You have an idea of what will happen, and an image of what you will do to appear to customers at each stage, and what you need for your business.
- Use Google Analytics to understand customer behavior on your website, and study customer inquiries and questions about your service to help you develop your service.
- To have a specific objective of mapping the client.
- Having a map for each customer segment separately to get the best results and improve customer retention.
- Training the sales team in the art of selling and persuasion and negotiation skills to assist the customer in the exploration stage in which he becomes acquainted with the product and assists him in making the decision to buy.
Customer Journey Management Framework
1. Define your marketing objective
Setting goals is an important part of any marketing strategy, and contributes to a straight path towards what you want to achieve.
Within the framework of the customer journey; The goals are not only related to your brand but also to the customer and how to reach them, and to communicate the idea that they get benefits and advantages when they use the product, so that you can acquire and retain customers.
Examples of goals that can be set in each stage are the following:
awareness stage:
- Increase your followers on social media platforms.
- Increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter.
- Increase the number of visitors through organic traffic to your site.
Attention stage:
- Promote interaction and participation on social media.
- Constant visit to your store or page and see your products.
decision stage:
- Increase interaction on social media pages.
Purchase stage:
-Increase sales of your store products.
- Increase conversions from leads to actual customers.
- Increase the overall market share.
endorsement stage:
- Improve conversion rate.
- Promote engagement for your products.
- Positive reviews on your products.
2. Understand the target customer's personality
One of the most important parts of the customer journey framework is a deep understanding and identification of the target customer's personality traits and the purchase decision maker.
There is no doubt that what matters to companies is the decision the buyer makes to buy or not to buy.
It must be understood that there are several influences on that decision, namely:
a) gender or gender
The motives and purchasing behaviors of target customers differ according to their gender, whether men or women. Women often have greater purchasing power than men, and it is easy to persuade them to buy, but women also like to shop from more than one store and compare products and prices, unlike men.
In addition, the stages of the customer journey for women are characterized by quick decision-making with attention to the smallest details, and women prefer to get many advantages from purchasing a single product.
This deep understanding will help you formulate attractive ideas for each stage that will make it easier for the target type to move from one stage to another in a state of satisfaction.
b) the age group
Determining the age group of the target group helps to identify the motives and factors influencing the purchasing behavior of the customer.
The age groups are divided into 3 stages:
1. Youth stage: between 20 to 35 years old. This stage is usually characterized by independence and the desire for self-reliance and self-realization. Its owners tend to follow everything new in terms of fashion and technology, and tend to the easy and concise language of dialogue and follow the fast pace of life in all aspects.
2. Maturity stage: the age is between 35 and 55 years. Most of the decisions of this person are focused on the benefit of his family members. His consumer behavior differs from the youth stage, in addition to the language of dialogue that is characterized by sobriety, and his buying motives are related to his social position and he focuses more on the quality of product and its price.
3. The childhood stage:Those at this age are considered marginalized by their inability to make a decision, but in the event that the products you offer are intended for children, the target decision makers are the mature parents.
Determining the age group of the target audience helps you in developing a marketing strategy for each stage that suits the tendencies of each group separately.
c) education level
The level of education appears in the rational consumer behavior, as it increases the awareness and awareness of individuals. Determining the educational level of customers shows different behaviors towards the purchase process, which contributes to drawing an effective map that addresses the educational level of the consumer.
d) culture
The customer’s behavior is generally determined based on his culture, which is meant by values, customs, traditions and ethics. They affect the customer’s lifestyle, consumption rate and way of thinking. Even the purchasing behavior and the places he shop from depend on his culture.
Companies must understand and define the culture of their target customers in order to be able to address them.
E) social level
The social level is the lifestyle of the target customer in terms of profession, income, educational level and housing.
It is the main determinant of understanding the target customer's personality, and an indicator of the analysis of different customer behaviors, as it usually affects the purchasing habits, the way of shopping, the quality of the products and services used, the sources of information and the media they follow.
The social level of customers also affects their response to advertising media, the way they adopt new products, and the way they respond to external influences.
Determining the social level of the target group helps in drawing an integrated and effective map of the stages of the customer journey that ultimately leads to doubling the company's sales and providing a distinctive customer experience.
f) marital status
What we mean here is to determine whether the target customer is single, married only, or married and has children, because in fact the customer is affected by those around him,
Not only do they have an impact on defining the product, but also on choosing the brand, and here the importance of determining the social status of the target customer appears.
3. Do customer behavior research
To understand the behavior of customers, it is necessary to identify and study the activities and thoughts of consumers and the psychological, social and economic aspects in which they live, in order to be able to design the appropriate customer map.
And customer behavior consists of a group of activities, which are:
1- Feeling of need or having a problem.
2- Think of a solution, product, or service that helps solve this problem.
3- Start searching and watching ads.
4- Comparison of different products and their prices.
5- Discuss it with family and acquaintances.
6- Complete the purchase.
It must be known that the process of making a purchase decision for each customer is different and in some cases it is not individual. Rather, the buyer should involve his family members, talk with experienced people, or search in any way.
Studying and researching these customer behaviors helps marketers and companies create a marketing strategy that impacts the customer journey.
This is by providing the customer with all the information that helps him to make a decision, and accordingly you can target him with an effective marketing message.
Efforts to research customer behavior answer the following questions:
Who is buying? Through which the customer is identified and the actions he takes in the purchasing process.
Why does the customer buy? And help in extracting the motives and the real reasons behind the decision to buy.
How is the purchase done? Actions are meant and what the client does at each stage.
When does the customer buy? That is, when the customer feels that he needs to get the product.
Where does the customer buy? Where the customer buys, which helps guide your advertising and marketing efforts.
Answering these questions contributes to developing an integrated marketing strategy for any activity or commercial project that the customer responds to, thus achieving a competitive advantage for this project in the market.
Conclusion
Entrepreneurs and marketers are now turning to a successful customer journey rather than just focusing on making sales.
According to the modern concept of marketing, the customer is the starting and end point for the success of any project, and then companies must direct their activities to study the needs and problems of customers and meet their desires in a manner consistent with the stages of the customer journey so that they can maintain customers and achieve their goals at each stage.