Understanding the Implications of Consumer/Customer Journey on Digital Marketing

To better understand what a customer journey is and how it starts, let us start by taking into consideration your last service or product which you bought with the help of this wonderful creation called the internet. If for instance, you bought a wristwatch from an online platform, chances are that you typically google searched the watch you were looking for or something like ‘best formal watches’ or ‘wrist watches on sale’. This is exactly how your journey as a consumer or customer began, and this is how you became a target for digital marketers, who now know that you have an interest in wristwatches.

The term ‘customer journey’ is very commonly popping up these days in digital marketing circles. One needs to understand that the concept of digital marketing is evolving day by day, and the experience you give to your customers and the journey which they go through with you matters a lot more today. For the most, every business seems to concentrate more on what we can call the ‘digital Presence’ aspect of a business. It means that your Search Engine Optimization is up to the mark and you hope to drive your business towards leads just with them.

What seems to be missing from these business strategies is the focus on content development, and improving the experiences of the customers with you. Just because one is active and visible because of a certain campaign doesn’t mean that something of value is being created. The focus should be on the development of something substantial for the customer, not just on being present and visible on the internet. The customer must get the befitting message from your campaign at the right time, which is how your content needs to be designed, and also how your customer journey needs to be mapped.

Let us have a walk-through as to how you should map your consumer journey so that your digital marketing campaigns can generate the most leads out of them, and your business picks up, both in terms of creating value and profits.

Consumer/Customer Journey Mapping – How?

There are several aspects of the customer journey which a consumer goes through. Let us take a look at each one of them in the perfect order-

Consumer Awareness

The people who are your potential customers must know that you exist in the market. For that, you need to inculcate several techniques that make them see you. This can be done by various techniques on platforms of social media and the internet. Most people choose to show their ads on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. These ads can be video ads or normal banners. They should be targeted to your potential customers, who seem to have an interest in procuring your services. You can also choose to pay certain bloggers who have a good reach. They can mention your name in their blogs which will have a positive impact on your leads. Having your presence on leading search engines such as Google and Bing is also equally important, and for that SEO services are what you need. Offline ad campaigns, such as TV and radio ads, newspaper banners and billboards are still effective in helping you find a way to your potential customers and generate leads. Always remember that your customers won’t just come out of the blue. Find a way to reach them.

Engaging with Them

Even if you have developed your online ecosystem with which you can be easily found, just being there isn’t enough to generate leads. What you need is a relationship with your potential customers which in turn might result in you generating leads through them. This is the circles of digital marketing is called ‘engagement’. For engaging with your customers, your digital campaign must have quality content. Your Facebook posts and ads must be such that people comment, react and share them. On your search engine results, you must generate enough clicks on your website. All in all, it means that all your ad campaigns must generate the required results, which is lead building. Always try and make your ad campaigns in a way that results in engagements. For that, try and do contests, keep prizes and make interesting stuff through your ads.

Subscriptions

Even if you manage to get people to your website, there is a very high chance that people won’t be becoming your customers in just one visit. For them to convert into your customers, what you need is a way so that you can have multiple engagements over a time period. For that, you need to inculcate several things on your website. Most business websites create their landing pages. These are special pages that display all important things and provide a box where you can record the entire user’s information and contact them later. A subscription pop up at each website visit of yours also makes a big difference. Getting people to subscribe to your newsletter is a good way to keep them engaged. Also, if you’re running an offer, always inculcate an offer pop up when the user is closing your website. That might make them stay.

Conversion

Okay, so, for now, you have managed to do all the above things properly and you are in fact, making progress in terms of generating leads. But just the generation of leads is not what you are here for. To sustain in the market, you need to convert those leads into actual customers. For that, you need to provide them with a service or a product, which is secondary to your main service or a product. You can call this the lower range of your product. Give the customers a chance to test you out, to get used to your services so that for the future, they know that yours is the service that they want, and they easily take your services or product of the highest standard. The idea is to give them a beginner’s offer which they are unable to refuse.

Quality

Will you go to a restaurant again if it provides you with stale food? The answer is no, you won’t. The same goes for your product or service which you provide. If the customer doesn’t get a good quality service, you have lost him/her. It is your headache to ensure that even if a customer conducts s small transaction with you, they must get a never before experience for that particular service. Only then you can keep hold of your customers and ensure that they come to you again and again for your high-quality service. The main thing is to keep experimenting with new ideas so that you can have your own USP.

Upgrade

Now that you have succeeded in building your personal relationships with your customers after providing them with a never before experience on their initial services/product, there should be a time when you present them with a choice to upgrade to your standard service, the services which are of the so-called ‘Gold’ class. This is to be done strategically, where instead of a discount coupon, you provide them with a service up-gradation at a minimal fee. That is the only way you can make progress in your business, by keeping customers and upgrading their services.

Customer Advocacy

When everything that you are doing is going good, and your relationship with the customers is booming, you need to use that for your advantage to attract newer customers. This can be done with the help of your current customer base by using some basic business strategies. Your current customers can be asked to leave reviews about their experience with you. They can also be asked to be a part of a study where you survey them about the services related to your business. However, no customer will be willing to do it spontaneously. Inculcate these things strategically at certain points so that they can be prompted to participate in these activities.

 Promoting your Business

While reviews and customer studies are some good ways to help attract other customers, your main focus should be to prompt your customers to directly bring in new customers, not indirectly, as in our view. For that, you need to include referral programs in your business strategy, where you offer some incentive, such as a service upgrade or a referral bonus to your current crop of customers for bringing in new people who also decide to use your services/buy products from you. These programs, if done correctly are known to be very successful.

Now that we have discussed all the things related to the customer/consumer journey and its implications on digital marketing, the main thing that most people might ask is- “Is it important to go by the book?” The simple answer is no. All the aspects of digital marketing point to the fact that it is a dynamic thing. It keeps on changing with time, and that too in short spans. A thing that is so relevant today may completely be lost its usefulness after a month. In fact, it is businesses that discover new techniques of digital marketing, which in turn make the customer experience better.