The success of your company and its growth hinges on how it deals with your customers. If your customer service and relationship sit at the heart of your business, then it is more likely to experience success and this can be achieved by using customer journey mapping.It is a story of understanding your users, how they behave while on your website, and what you can do to improve this experience.Â
If you are working on a digital marketing strategy it is important to keep the customer journey at the forefront of your strategy. While it is important to look at search engine optimisation (SEO) for your campaign, this should not take precedence over the user experience of your consumers.
In this article, we take a more in-depth look at what the customer journey is and why it is so important.Â
So…What Is The Customer Journey?
When you document or map our the customer journey, you are essentially mapping out different behavioural actions and situations based on existing data. This map helps to visualise the experience your customer has when interacting with your brand, helping you to think about how your customers actually experience your brand…rather than how you think they experience your brand.Â
By making use of the various analytical tools at your disposal, such as Google Analytics, you can see how people interact with your website and build a customer journey from this. Now, you might be wondering how you can predict what a customer will do once they arrive on your website, but by combining both analytical and anecdotal information, you can create an effective customer journey map.Â
- Analytical Research: Anyone who has ever created a digital marketing strategy knows that using analytical tools on a website is vital to the success of their campaigns. Tools such as Google Analytics will tell you the important demographics of your customers, such as where they are, the devices they use to access your website, how long they spend on your website, and when they leave.Â
- Anecdotal Research: Anecdotal research is much harder to perform, as you are not likely to be able to contact every one of your consumers for information on how they interacted with your brand and their experience. You can turn to social media and perform social listening as these platforms usually hold the most information about customer experiences with brands. You can also send out surveys via newsletters or on social media to gather this information.Â
Not having a customer journey map for your content or digital marketing strategy could mean that you focus on the wrong aspects of your business, leading for fewer leads and less brand interaction. By understanding the journey your audience takes with your brand, you are able to empathise with them and create meaningful interactions and successful outcomes.Â
Why Is It Important?
The customer journey is a simple concept to understand, but you might be wondering why it is important, especially to your brand. Below are just some of the benefits of using a customer journey map in your digital marketing strategy.Â
Find Important Touchpoints
One of the major benefits of having a customer journey mapped out for your digital marketing strategy is that you can find important touchpoints to focus on. Each time a customer comes into contact with your brand, whether it is after clicking on an ad, visiting your website, or providing feedback, you have a chance to achieve your brand goals. You can also identify obstacles that customers experience when interacting with your brand, and make improvements.
Meet Customer Expectations
By looking at every touchpoint in the customer’s journey with your brand, you will be able to identify areas where you are not meeting customer expectations, or where you might be isolation entire groups of consumers. You can address these issues and create better experiences for your audience, helping to drive more leads and improving the overall customer experience.Â
Improve Your Offerings
If you do not understand your brand’s customer journey, you likely do not understand your customers. Without any understanding, you cannot provide the best possible offers to your customers, which can be highly detrimental to any brand or business. Once you have a customer journey map, you can work on your digital marketing material and customise it to fit with this journey, and you may even work on improving your products and services.Â
Focus On The Journey…
…not the destination. If you focus too much of your energy on the end goal of your business, and not on the journey that your customer took to get there, you will soon find yourself losing customers and income. Mapping out the customer journey of your audience will help you to discover important touchpoints and customer expectations, allowing you to improve your strategy for more personalisation for your audience.Â
If you would like to improve your customer journey, contact NetMechanic today to find more about what we can offer you.
