Customer Journey Mapping… Part 2
This post is a follow-up to our previous post on What Customer Journey Mapping Is. So let's get started!
Customer Journey Mapping involves critically defining five key elements - buyer personas, stages of the decision journey, the buyer's mindset and concerns, touchpoints, and moments of truth.
As I mentioned in the previous post, you will want to define clear objectives for the map. From there you can get started. Here are the six steps you will want to take during your customer journey map project.
Step 1: Create or identify Buyer Personas - If you don't know who your customers are, then it is impossible to track their experiences. To figure out who your customers are, you can survey your customers. Ask them questions like how did you hear about us? Have you made a purchase from us? What influenced you to purchase or not to purchase from us? If you are interested in learning about the demographic data of your customers, Google Analytics provides a wealth of insights on demographics like - gender, age, income status, location, device use, and more. Social media channels like Facebook also offer demographic insights. Pairing your survey data with demographics from Google will show you several customer groups that interact with your brand. You will want to pick one to three groups to focus on.
Step 2: Identify the Stages of the Buyer's Journey - There are several different buyer journey models your organization can use if you don't already have a defined model you use. For this example, we are going to use the classic awareness, consideration, and decision stages. There are several examples that add post-sales support and customer advocacy and are more cyclical versus a funnel or linear.
Step 3: List all of the touchpoints where a customer can interact with your brand - Including your website, social media, online advertisements, digital marketing content, company events, peer referrals or reviews, conversations with representatives, point-of-sale materials, e-commerce... basically anywhere where you have information where they can learn more. Then you will want to pull any data you have - whether it be from Google Analytics, your CRM, or your Facebook pixel to learn about where your customers are converting and what the path is to conversion.
Step 4: Plot the Customer Journey - So let's rewind to the previous podcast where we define the objectives for your customer journey map. What type of map are you making? I would suggest making a current-state customer journey map and if you are able, create a future-state or ideal-state customer journey. At this point, just focus on which actions are your customers taking and at what time.
Step 5: Take the Customer Journey - This is a vital step. Take your current-state customer journey. Take note of pain points, places where it is difficult to get the information you are looking for, or the experience you would expect. Identify moments of delight for your customers. Consider the actions, goals, emotions, moments of truth, and satisfaction of your customers. Then compare your current-state customer journey to your ideal-state customer journey.
Once you complete the Customer Journey Mapping project you will identify several areas of improvement within your organization to remove the friction for your customers and create moments of delight that will keep them loyal to your brand.
