For those not deep in marketing lingo, the term “customer journey” sounds like a pretty soft concept. While most business owners are familiar with the idea of a sales funnel, the customer map takes it a few steps further on either end, creating a map of how customers find and stay with your brand, not just the sales pipeline. It’s something touched on in the latest episode of the enVisioning Success podcast with Vision’s Laura and Julia, Turning Avatars into Gold: Magnetic Marketing and Monetization Strategies. We’ll explore it further today, looking at the marketing analytics you can pull to understand better where your customers are coming from and how you can keep them.
Why Customer Journeys Are Important
Before we dive into the marketing analytics behind your customer journey, let’s first look at the various stages or phases, explaining the importance of each stage along the way. These steps can vary in number, but the general five are:
- Awareness: Do potential customers know your brand exists? This is a vital part of marketing, getting your brand out on various platforms and building up your online presence.
- Consideration: Once someone sees your business, do they consider it for your needs? A failure for them might mean your branding isn’t in line with their expectations.
- Acquisition: This is the big one, with them buying your product or service. If you’re having trouble getting to this stage, are there hurdles between interest and purchase?
- Retention: How do you keep customers after you’ve got them? Within almost all industries, it being easier to retain than sell to a new client, it’s essential to have retention tools in place.
- Advocacy: The only thing better than keeping a customer is to have them do your marketing for you. Testimonials, reviews, and showing off your brand can have massive impacts.
The Critical Data Behind a Customer Journey
So, now that we’ve talked about the customer journey, how can you track your success at each step? With marketing analytics, of course! This data isn’t important just to understand but to manipulate with better content, targeting, and budgeting to increase them:
Impressions, Reach, and Views
Whether it’s social media or search engine advertising, it’s useful to know where people see your brand (and what marketing you need to do to improve it). Find these values and take actions (like posting more, expanding targeting and budget) to increase them.
Clicks, Comments, and Likes
How are people interacting with you online? Knowing who is not only aware of your brand but also taking “consideration” actions like clicking on links, liking and commenting on social media, and other “top of the funnel” actions helps you know what’s working and what’s not.
Tracking Website Actions
Tracking the analytics on your website is one of your most potent tools because you have the most control there. Knowing where customers are coming from, what they do on your website, and where they leave can help you better tailor your journey and funnel.
Forms & Conversions
How do customers buy from you? From forms to e-commerce, it’s vital to not only track those lead generation and purchase decisions but also make them easier. Understanding the journey from clicking an ad to filling out a quote form makes it easier to repeat this process for the next customer.
We talk more about conversions in our blog, Drive Purchasing Decisions by Mapping Your Customer Journey.
Reputation Management & Retention
After people have bought from you, the next stage is to get their feedback. It’s important to know where to focus that, so keep an eye on your reviews and review scores on the reputation platforms you care about. Also, after gathering emails, consider using those for retention marketing, such as company newsletters for future reselling.
About the enVisioning Success Podcast
This article is based on topics discussed in enVisioning Success, our weekly podcast hosted by Vision CEO Laura DiBenedetto and COO Julia Becker Collins. In it, they discuss all things business and marketing, from lead generation to leadership. Find us on PodBean to download from your platform of choice, or subscribe to our mailing list to get new episodes and other news delivered directly to your inbox.
Mapping out your customer journey and backing up decisions with marketing analytics are some of the best ways to get your marketing back on track and increase your sales. But it’s also a lot of work for a company with a small or nonexistent marketing department. If you’re struggling to make sense of your customers’ purchase decisions and target them with comprehensive marketing, Vision can help. Contact us today to get started with a consultation to learn more about making your customers’ journey the smoothest path possible.
