The customer journey map is one of marketing’s most important tools for a properly targeted strategy or campaign.
A customer’s journey doesn’t just start and end with purchasing that product or receiving that service. It is much more complex, with Salesforce estimating that 80% of customers consider their experience with a company to be as important as its products. The moment a customer becomes aware of your brand, you take them on a journey that will hopefully lead to a sale. That’s why taking the time to plan a customer journey map, define your target audience, and focus on customer experience will pay off.
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer journey used to understand and ultimately improve the customer experience. It is an essential tool that identifies the most effective and efficient process a customer can take to reach their goal.
Why is a customer journey map so crucial to customer experiences?
An invaluable tool, the customer journey map allows insight into common customer pain points, which business leaders can improve to better optimise and personalise the customer experience. Without a customer journey map, a brand may have no idea who its target audience is, leading to poorly targeted marketing campaigns.
Where do I start when creating my customer journey map?
1. Set clear objectives and define your map’s goal. Identify who will use your map and what customer experience it will address.
2. Profile your personas and represent your customer’s perspective. Conducting research through questionnaires and surveys is a great way to get valuable feedback.
3. Highlight your target personas. Choose the most common persona for your journey map and consider the route they take when engaging with your business.
4. List out all the touchpoints, including those not in your control. These are all the communication points through which a customer can interact with your brand, including website, email, social media, text, and advertisements.
5. Think about emotion. Critical to any human experience, emotions play a huge role in a customer’s decision to buy a product or service. Determine their needs and wants throughout the customer experience, focusing on barriers of avoidance and annoyance that could stand in the way of reaching the end goal.
6. Create your map. Mapping your current state will help you identify gaps or red flags in the customer experience. You can start working toward improving on these by mapping the future state of the customer journey and mapping out potential solutions.
7. Update your customer journey map. As time goes on, regularly reviewing your map will help you identify gaps and opportunities for streamlining your customer journey further.
By shifting the focus to customers and their experiences, brands can better understand their wants and needs. This equals better customer engagement, brand loyalty and lead conversions for your business.
Need help effectively using your customer journey map? At Marketing Connection, we understand the market and how to effectively communicate with customers. We are a trusted partner in delivering high converting marketing solutions. We specialise in customer analysis and profiling, market research and strategies, and database management.