The Customer Journey Map is essential for your thoughtful web marketing work based on an effective strategy. Because not necessarily all your steps are appropriate to what potential customers are doing when they come into contact with your online and offline business.
The idea we have of the sales process is sometimes distorted. For this reason, it is a good idea to observe what users are doing and how they interface with your product or service. The Customer Journey Map plays a decisive role in this balance. But how is it designed?
The Topic Of This Post
- 1 What is the Customer Journey: definition
- 2 How to create a Customer Journey Map
- 3 Tool to create a Customer Journey Map
- 4 Have you created your Customer Journey Map?
What is the Customer Journey: definition
With this term (Customer Journey, translated from the English customer journey) linked to the universe of marketing we mean the user’s itinerary when interfacing for the first time with a company – or any entrepreneurial entity – and continues over time.
The work done by this document: helping those who welcome potential customers to reduce friction, streamline the journey, improve the relationship with users and increase conversions. Therefore, the central importance of mapping concerning the Customer Journey can be confirmed.
How to create a Customer Journey Map
It seems logical to need a map capable of drawing the path that the user must follow from the first approach with the company to the step that leads him to become an ambassador of your brand. Because if we stay within the inbound marketing strategy this is the final point.
We do not limit ourselves to the sale of the object or service, but of the phase that allows us to delight the customer to the point of transforming him into an evangelist. That is to say, a person who suggests to his friends and acquaintances the goodness of your work. What do you need to get a point mapping?
Analyze the data and create the personas
It is impossible to start a serious Customer Journey Map work if you do not have a clear reference with respect to who visits your site, what is the composition of your Facebook Fan Page and Instagram account. In short, you have to collect as much information as possible to work on a data-driven marketing model. All this allows you to create buyer personas.
That is to say, ideal-typical models that contain information that can be shared by a certain type of potential customers. The moment you find the profiles of your future customers you have the basic information to create the Customer Journey Map. But that’s not enough.
Identify the stages of the route
The heart of your project is to define a Customer Journey Map. After identifying the ideal personas for your business, you need to determine the milestones and intermediate steps. In principle, there are five points to develop, here they are in a single list:
- Awareness of being able to satisfy a need.
- Ability to be considered by potential customers.
- Ability to be preferred over others.
- Purchase phase by the customer.
- The loyalty of existing customers.
Define touchpoints with the company
To design a Customer Journey Map you need, first of all, these elements: the interaction touchpoints between company and customer. What are the basic elements?
- Physical: these are analog points of contact such as print advertising, word of mouth.
- Digital: the passages that refer (for example) to SMM, SEO, and newsletters.
Within this division, touchpoints influenced by the company and those that develop automatically are created. For example, a PPC campaign on Google is linked to the desire to be found on Google but the work of UGC on Tripadvisor is not controllable by those who manage the business. But there remains an important point of contact that you can and should optimize.
Identify the relationship between company and user
Each point of contact can and must be improved. Eliminate possible friction between website and actions to be performed, improve usability and analyze everything with the magnifying glass of the CRO approach. Namely conversion rate optimization. This way each step has to be optimized.
Tool to create a Customer Journey Map
Once you have identified the basis of this hypothetical map, and have collected all the data necessary for planning, you need a tool to physically design the structure. Some idea?
There are professional tools, able to clearly report all the steps to be used for the path. One of the most important names in this sector is www.sugarcrm.com which allows you to manage a mapping of the customer’s journey in relation to your company with great precision. Without forgetting, however, that there are also a number of free tools:
- canvanizer.com
- uxpressia.com
- draw.io
I prefer the latter because it gives you the ability to work on other graphics as well such as mind and concept maps. Also, remember that this application integrates with Google Drive and related documents.
Have you created your Customer Journey Map?
I hope this is an activity already defined for your web marketing strategy organization work. Without a mapping of the actions carried out by the user and the points of contact with the saving bond company, there is an obvious risk: improvising. Better to avoid this option, don’t you think?