The Importance of Identifying Your Business’ Customer Journey
As a business owner, chances are you’ve thought about the connections customers make with your brand. However, maybe you haven’t precisely drawn it out. That’s where customer mapping comes into play. This visual representation shows the ideal journey your audience will take from the first touch-point to the point of sale to a loyal customer.
Let’s dive deeper into a customer journey map, why it’s important, and how your business can utilize it to increase sales.
What Is A Customer Journey Map?
While a customer journey map can be designed in many different ways, they all include the same essential elements. Each of the following categories will fall under a bucket of these stages and must be answered for each stage: awareness, consideration, purchase, service, and loyalty.
- Customer goals—What is the customer trying to achieve?
- Customer actions—How is the customer trying to accomplish their goal?
- Customer emotions—What is the customer feeling as they take action?
- Customer pain points—Are there any issues that arise for the customer when trying to reach their goal?
- Touch-points and channels—What touch-points and channels are available for the customer to reach their goal?
- Company point of contact—What department(s) in the company is available to assist the customer?
- Company efforts—What is the company offering to assist the customer?
- Strengths—What are the advantages the company has to offer?
- Weaknesses—What are the weaknesses the company faces?
- Opportunities—Where can the company improve the customer experience?
It’s always best to conduct industry research and survey your customers for accurate data.
Why Is Mapping A Customer Journey Important?
By mapping a customer journey, you’ll be able to spot customer pain points and your company strengths and weaknesses. You’ll be able to determine what is working and what needs improvement. For example, if during the awareness stage you offer communication via television but find that your customer’s actions are led through digital channels, you may want to either cut back or eliminate TV efforts. Additionally, by including customer emotions at each stage, you’ll be able to keep all business decisions customer focused.
If your company’s target audience includes more than one persona, it’s best to create a customer journey map for each persona. A change in demographics will affect how a person interacts with your business. You must optimize the customer journey at each stage, for every persona, to foster and build long-term relationships.
How Can Customer Journey Mapping Increase Sales?
The goal of a customer journey is to move a person from the awareness stage to loyalty. By mapping this experience, you can see where you fall short—and where your potential customers leave before making a purchase. When you identify these shortcomings, you can improve them and better lead a customer to a sale.
Designing a customer journey map takes a ton of brand insights and time. To truly explore your business, work with the professionals at Kraus Marketing. We’re equipped to get into the details of your brand, understand your target audience, and create a well-rounded digital marketing campaign that is sure to reach them. Contact us today to learn how we can help you!