The Customer Journey:

Introduction:

Customers go through various stages when growing their relationship with a brand or product. It is essential to know these stages because each stage is vital to the customer. Customers need to get to know your brand and product as well as possible. To do this, you need to market to them at their different stages of the journey.

Now that you know why it is important to understand the customer journey, let's discuss what it involves. The customer journey has five different stages, ranging from no connection to your company to loyalty and brand support. The stages are awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. As you read through the rest of this post, you will begin to understand what each stage is and why it is important to market at each stage.

Stage 1: Awareness

At this stage of the cycle, the customer has no clue about your product or service and might not have heard of your company. If that is the case, this stage is even more important.  

Awareness involves advertising and marketing to customers who are not already customers and may not have heard of your product. This stage can include social media ads, search engine ads, and other ads. The main objective of these ads will be to promote your brand and pique the customer's curiosity. This stage is not about convincing them. It's about getting as many people as possible interested in what you could sell to them.

Stage 2: Consideration

As it says in the name, this stage concerns the customer considering your product. At this point, they have become aware of your product or service and are curious about it and the benefits that it could provide them. In this stage, you must convince the customer that you are the right choice for them. The best way to do this is to prove that your USP (Unique Selling Point) is important to them. You need to be able to stand out amongst competitors at this stage. This is the point in the journey where the customer will evaluate their options and go with your competition if they provide a more significant benefit to that customer.

Customers each have their evaluative criteria when making decisions. They measure the value of a product on a scale that factors in price, perceived benefit, brand reputation, features, and usability. Consider these when marketing to customers at this stage because it is critical to influence their buying behaviour.

Stage 3: Purchase

This is the point where the customer will finally decide to purchase the product. They have finished the consideration stage and decided you are their best option. But they still need to make the purchase. This could be because it is too expensive, there are unseen fees, or the website or payment method needs to be simplified. Advertising and marketing are more internal and involve email and website adjustments. Your website must be efficient and easy to make this stage happen as best as possible. Customers should be able to find and pay for their item in 3 or fewer clicks. They will complete the transaction faster if they can find their product and purchase it without worrying about how to pay or where it is.

For customers who may think it's too expensive or need to remember to add it to their cart, an email notification can be automatically sent to them within 24 hours to remind them. You could even send them a little discount after a couple of days to help incentivize them to purchase.

Step 4: Retention

This stage is the most important one. The 80/20 rule basically means that 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers. This is why this stage is so important. The 20% are the people who keep coming back and are loyal.

Once a customer purchases your product or service, the business relationship does not end. At this point, companies should send follow-up emails asking how their services were, how they can continue to help, and potential discounts or offers to incentivize them to purchase again.

Depending on the product, warranties and post-purchase services are a great way to increase retention because the business is in continual contact with the customer (provided it is quality service).

Stage 5: Advocacy

The final stage of the customer journey is advocacy. This stage will help grow your business even more. People love to show off and talk about the things they love. Advocacy is the same: Customers love your brand so much they are willing to share about it. This will help your company gain more in each cycle step for the next customer.

Giveaways and referral programs are great ways to encourage current customers to share and advocate for the business. These programs will provide your current and loyal customers with the opportunity to receive something from a brand they already love by sharing it with people they know.

Conclusion:

The customer journey cycle is an important component of all businesses. It is part of the foundation for understanding customers' buying habits. Marketing and communication with the customer must occur at each step of the cycle. This must happen in the awareness, consideration, and purchase stages. However, marketing techniques must also be used in the retention and advocacy stages.

Stay tuned because the next post will discuss how certain services we provide help each stage of the cycle you just learned about! You can also read our last blog about The Importance of Google Ads!