Digital Customer Journeys: A Map to Marketing Success
When it comes to achieving success in business and customer service, few factors matter quite as much as gaining a meaningful understanding of your audience. In today’s culture of wavering customer loyalty and an increasing selection of service providers, knowing your customers on a deep level can also offer a competitive advantage. But with endless customer experiences and relationships to think about — where should you focus your efforts?
Digital customer journeys provide a comprehensive map of your business’ relationship with its audience, from initial brand awareness right through to the point of purchase and beyond. In this detailed guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about digital customer journey mapping, from what it is to why it’s so important, and how it can elevate your digital customer experience offering.
Ready to learn more? Take your customer acquisition, engagement and loyalty to the next level by getting in touch with the Red Letter Days Corporate team today.
Why is the Customer Journey Important in Digital Marketing?
As businesses become more digital and competition grows fiercer, customer expectations have increased in proportion. Today’s consumers have countless organisations vying for their attention with each purchase they make, and a simple click of a mouse or tap of a phone screen is all it takes for their business to disappear. Research from the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and Tapestry Research has shown that 63% of consumers will abandon their usual brand in favour of an enticing offer elsewhere, highlighting the incredible ease with which today’s businesses can lose out.
The digital customer journey provides a framework for clarity among this chaos, establishing a step-by-step outline of how your audience interacts with your brand. From creating the perfect first impression to ensuring your customers stay brand-loyal long into the future, optimising your business’ online customer journey can lead to significant improvements at every organisational level. Unlike more traditional conceptions, digital customer journey mapping is concerned solely with online touchpoints, such as social media, websites and mobile apps.
Digital Customer Journeys: The 5 Key Stages
Understanding the behaviour and needs of customers as they develop a relationship with your brand can be incredibly challenging. No two customers are identical, and the steps that they take can vary significantly as a result. This is where the digital customer journey comes into play. Consisting of five broad stages that encompass the entire path taken by the average consumer, it gives a simple structure to an otherwise complicated process. From initial awareness right through to long-term brand loyalty — here are the key steps in the digital customer journey, along with examples of relevant touch points you’ll need to optimise along the way.
1. Awareness
The awareness stage represents the point at which a customer notices your product or service for the very first time. At this point, they’ll typically be searching for a solution to a problem, or experiencing a need that hasn’t been met. In a digital context, customer awareness can come through a variety of channels, from brand websites and social media to emails, blogs and more.
There are many marketing strategies which can be used to optimise the awareness stage of the digital customer journey. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and social media marketing can all be employed to capture the attention of your target audience and familiarise them with your product or service.
2. Consideration
Guiding your customers from awareness to consideration is a vital step in the customer acquisition process. In simple terms, this stage represents the process of getting inside your customer’s head — making a meaningful impression that causes them to remember your product and engage in active research. It’s common for consumers to visit your company’s website during the consideration stage, while still evaluating their options elsewhere.
This stage represents a significant opportunity to outshine your corporate competitors, leveraging online marketing strategies while showcasing the unique value of your product or service. You’ll need to create high-quality online content that addresses your target audience’s key questions, building trust while spotlighting your company’s expertise. Targeted messaging can also be used to ensure that the right customer is being exposed to the right information — boosting the likelihood of conversion.
3. Purchase
While not the final stage, purchase or conversion is often seen as an important culmination of the digital customer journey. It represents the moment a customer makes the final decision to purchase your product or service online, having weighed up their options and found the brand that best fits their needs.
The main priority for businesses during the purchase stage is ensuring their online checkout process is as smooth and seamless as possible. Over 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned before a purchase is made — underscoring the need for a simple checkout experience. Fast loading times, mobile optimisation, consistent trust signals and the availability of multiple payment options are all worthwhile additions to make.
4. Retention
The achievement of a purchase is certainly something to be celebrated, but it’s far from the final stage in the digital customer journey. Repeat customers offer far more value than those purchasing from your business for the first time, with a simple 5% increase in retention rates boosting revenue by 25-95%.
Providing personalised online interactions and real-time communication are some of the most effective customer engagement strategies that businesses can use today. Whether it’s targeted emails which mention consumers by name, or a live chat feature which provides 24/7 customer support — going the extra mile can pay huge dividends when it comes to retaining a loyal audience.
5. Advocacy
By consistently investing time and money into optimising the previous four stages, the digital customer journey can naturally culminate with consumers becoming enthusiastic advocates for your business. Nurturing customer satisfaction will encourage your audience to speak positively about your brand across digital platforms, providing valuable social proof that will encourage others to take a chance on your brand.
The power of advocacy marketing can’t be overstated, with 92% of consumers stating that they read online reviews before making a purchase. Whether through word of mouth or online reviews that you can reuse as marketing material — customer advocacy can help to build trust in your brand while contributing significantly to the acquisition of new customers.
Creating a Digital Customer Journey Map
Familiarising yourself with the stages outlined above is vital to your understanding of the online customer journey, but applying them to your business requires a bit more work. Digital customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of a consumer’s experience with your business across all digital touchpoints. An effective way of identifying pain points and gaining valuable customer insights, creating this visual map can benefit your business right down to the bottom line.
When putting your digital customer journey map together, it’s important to start by immersing yourself in the perspective of your audience. Using tools like customer personas can be useful in organising your consumer base into categories based on their demographics and behaviours. Once you know exactly who your customers are, follow your existing online sales funnel from their point of view, adding each touchpoint you encounter to your digital customer journey map as you go. Customer feedback and interaction data can also be gathered for each touchpoint, giving you insight into which areas are most in need of work.
Elevate Your Digital Customer Journey with Red Letter Days Corporate
Whether you’re thinking about mapping customer experiences for the first time or fine-tuning your existing process, a well-structured digital customer journey map is a necessity in today's competitive marketplace. Customer expectations have grown exponentially in recent years, leaving businesses with no choice but to take their customer service offering to new heights. From the first moment they become aware of your organisation, right through to the point of purchase and beyond — understanding each step in your customer’s digital journey is essential.
Get in touch with the Red Letter Days Corporate team today, and find out how we can help to elevate your customer experience with personalised experience gifts and vouchers.