February 14, 2023
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The customer journey starts long before the customer ever has a chance to hear your brand's name. It starts with you understanding your audience and then working on creating a pathway that takes them from that first introduction to a sale and then onwards further so they become a repeat customer. You need to invest in every point of the journey and work on delighting your customers every step of the way. Without that delight, you run the risk of becoming just yet another company that fades from their memory, regardless of whether they purchased it from you or not.
It can be hard to create a winning customer journey, so if you're feeling stuck, use these five steps to help you revamp your efforts today:
The first step is to clearly understand who's buying your products and services. Really investigate this in-depth, as the answer may be a complete shock to you. Start first with just looking at your competition, and if that doesn't turn up any good leads, look into market research. Even a good, old questionnaire can help you understand who your customers are and why they would shop from you.
Once you know who your customers are, you need to fully understand them. You need to speak their language; you need to know what they want and what they need. If you know these three things, you can then create better marketing tools and value-adding content that can attract more customers while positioning you as the symbol of authority on the matter.
When it comes to creating the customer's journey itself, remember that you should craft multiple entry points. There will be customers still looking for answers, customers who want to narrow down which product is best, and customers who are ready to just buy outright. You need to cater to all these customers while acknowledging that they likely may jump from one to the other in both directions.
When it comes to customers, know your relationship is worth more than a single sale. That's why you should put more emphasis on the soft sale. Soft sale means getting their contact details and permission to market them after the fact, like through email marketing or social media marketing. Both can help you advertise your products and prove time and again and again to unsure customers why your brand is so great.
A good way to engage after delivery is first to delight and second to offer value. You can delight by sending hand-written, personalized cards to their door shortly after they receive their order. Hand-written cards have a very high open rate of 99%, so there's a good chance that they'll actually open and read your message.
