Creating a successful customer journey means helping your audience find a solution to a problem. Think of it as guiding them along a path, proving that your product or service is the one that will make their lives a little bit easier along the way.
Yes, it might be about making enough money to support yourself, your employees, and your company growth — if you’re simply looking at the numbers. It’s a safe bet that providing value to others was also a factor in starting your business. Whether it’s creating beautiful art to hang on their walls or tools to help them maximize their productivity, you want to help your patrons reach their goals as well.
Asking them to make a purchase outright might take less effort, but getting creative with the way that you attract your audience members and earn their trust can yield loyal supporters and lifelong brand ambassadors. So, become a storyteller and take your customers on a journey.
Personify your audience
If you don’t know what your audience wants, you can’t expect to provide a service that is tailored to meet their needs.
By creating an audience persona (a detailed description of your ideal customer), you can gain a clear understanding of what drives people to your site and what convinces them to make a purchase. Not sure where to start? Think about their values, lifestyles, hobbies, who they hang out with, where they’re from, and be sure to check out this persona resource from CXL.
Already created customer personas? It doesn’t hurt to look at them again to make sure you’ve still got the most relevant information.
Set touchpoints and goals
Before talking about touchpoints and goals, it’s important to review the stages of a sales funnel. Think of a sales funnel as a tool for gathering leads and moving someone through the sales process from start-to-finish. First, you must get discovered by your audience members. This serves as the wide end of the funnel. Next, you must build trust in your brand, forming the middle of the funnel. Finally, you encourage site visitors to make a decision one way or another about your products and services. This is the narrow end of the funnel.
As customers make their way through your sales funnel, you’ll want to set goals to guide them along their journeys. For example, what action should someone take after reading one of your blog posts? In other words, what are your goals for people who are just discovering your brand?
Once you set goals, consider the specific action you want audience members to take. These actions are also known as touchpoints, and they’re used as mile markers on the road map that you created to help someone solve a problem. These touchpoints might take the shape of actions such as signing up for your email list, scheduling a call with you, or even creating an affiliate link to your online store.
Understanding what you and your visitors want will help you to create content and touchpoints to keep them focused on their customer journey. You might even consider solving problems proactively, as certain things (like site downtime or online payment glitches) might prevent someone from moving on to the next step. Make sure to address these scenarios to keep your sales funnel flowing smoothly.
Your brand doesn’t have to be viewed as just a transaction with another business; it can continue to tell a story for a long time — you just need to keep writing the pages. Put these tips into motion to successfully guide your ideal audience members through their customer journeys.
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