Strategies To Optimize the Customer Journey

“The customer journey” is a phrase that refers to every encounter a customer has with your business. As you market your products or services, your goal should be to move customers smoothly through each pillar of their journey.

What pillars do you need to keep in mind? Here’s what you should know.

The Pillars of the Customer Journey

The standard five stages of the customer journey include:

Awareness: This is where customers first realize they have a problem. They might not yet know if they need a specific product or service, but they’re starting to explore their options. 

Consideration: At this point, customers understand they need a product or service. They begin evaluating different brands and options that could meet their needs.

Decision: This is the stage where customers pick their preferred solution and are ready to make a purchase.  

Retention: After purchasing, customers decide to stick with the company rather than switch to a competitor. 

Loyalty: In this final stage, customers not only remain loyal but also enthusiastically recommend the brand to others, including family, friends, and colleagues. This phase can also be referred to as the advocacy stage.

Not all businesses have a five-stage customer journey they track — some have three-stage journey maps (HubSpot is a good example of this) and others have seven or more. 

The five main pillars of the customer journey are core pillars. Your brand’s goal is to get customers from the first one through the last, earning loyal customers to provide you with referrals and repeat business in the future. 

Getting customers to that point is hard work, though. You’ll need to focus on moving customers through their journeys smoothly, building a great relationship along the way.

Tips To Optimize Your Digital Marketing Efforts

There are a few parts of the customer journey to put more emphasis on. Awareness is a good place to start since making people aware of your brand is the first step toward converting them into loyal customers. 

You can also place a heavier emphasis on the consideration phase — give your customers as much information about your products or services as possible to encourage them to decide to buy. For example, you could use TikTok or YouTube to put out a video explaining how to use a product. You could have a landing page with a downloadable how-to file. 

When you create valuable content for the consideration phase, think carefully about your audience. You should choose to create content that feels personalized. For instance, if you’re selling vegan food, pitching directly to the vegan market and explaining why your food is best (whether that’s due to its origins, unique design elements, taste, or other features) makes sense. You may also want to create recipes or other kinds of content that your audience can use. 

Another stage to focus on is the retention stage. Some good ways to improve customer retention rates include:

-Building a customer loyalty program
-Allowing for personalized customer accounts
-Starting a newsletter with engaging content
-Having good communication with your customers
-Responding quickly to customers who make inquiries

Even steps such as inspiring your customers with a personal brand mission or apologizing for mistakes can make a big difference in retention rates over time. 

Don’t Get Deterred by These Productivity Time Wasters 

Creating an ideal customer journey is all about putting the focus on your customers. However, be mindful of elements that could waste time and hinder your progress toward achieving customer journey objectives.

For example, miscommunications and confusion in customer service is a significant time-wasting issue. Not only will it make it harder for your team to handle customer service complaints or concerns, but it will also negatively impact the customer journey. Eliminate the risk of these issues by communicating clearly with staff and your customers every time. Use appropriate tools, such as email or chat, to speak with customers and handle their concerns within a reasonable timeframe. 

Another issue that can impact productivity and the digital experience is procrastination. Newsletters should go out regularly, and you should respond to major concerns quickly. Whether your brand’s shop has sold out of an in-demand product or there is a defect a customer has complaints about, you need to address those problems right away. Waiting will only cause those issues to build, and you may find them much harder to address at a later date. 

The customer journey is an important experience to focus on as you market to your ideal audience. It should always be your goal to provide the smoothest experience from the first time the customer interacts with your business. By eliminating miscommunications and avoiding procrastination, creating valuable content and keeping your customers in mind during every pillar, you’ll be in a better position to impress your target audience and keep them coming back for more.   

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