1 Successful Tweak To Speed Up The Customer Journey + FREE Download
Ready To Learn How You Lead Clients Through Your Customer Journey?
I bet this sounds familiar: you’ve spent endless hours creating your customer journey, but latent sales are what you experience more so than hasty conversions. Or maybe you are on the other side of the coin, and you’re embarrassed to admit that your customer journey is haphazard.
I’m sharing with you one proven tweak that can be made to speed up your customer journey (and conversions). Let’s dive in.
Blog Overview
Creating a compelling customer journey is essential for success in sales, yet many businesses struggle to do so. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t worry – you are not alone. Today we are going to learn about:
- What is the Customer Journey
- Awareness phase
- Consideration phase
- Purchase/decision phase
- Retention phase
- Advocacy phase
- Benefits of Speeding up the Journey
- What is Storybrand
- How we work with our clients to use StoryBrand
- My Weekly Challenge For You
- So What Did We Learn?
What is the Customer Journey
A customer journey is an intriguing tale about understanding your users, how they conduct themselves while perusing your website, and what you can do to elevate their experience so they return frequently. Believe it or not, this is an easy-to-use marketing tool that anyone can create and can be an important asset to your organization’s future strategy. With all the changes in technology and the new ways people buy things online, it’s crucial to plan and anticipate what customers experience at every step.
The journey is built up of five stages. It is important always to keep it in mind because if we know it well, we will be able to get closer to our target audience by responding to their needs at the right time, thus saving journey time, which translates into a longer life cycle. Some customer journey phases are merely fleeting moments; others can continue for days or weeks. But they’re all equally important, and it can be tough to move past one and on to the next. So, I’d recommend you tackle them all.
The five phases are divided into two categories, pre-sale phases and, naturally, post-sale phases. Here’s the rundown:
Awareness phase:
During the awareness stage, consumers search for solutions and encounter multiple brands and products. This is the time to make a good first impression if you want to stand out from the competition. What consumers are doing: During this step, consumers are likely conducting research. This includes searching online for solutions to keyword problems, reading blog posts, and browsing online forums.
Consideration phase:
Brands focus on promotion during the consideration stage of the journey. This is where customers begin to look for alternatives to past purchases. During this phase, your business strives to convince potential buyers to include you on the list of available options. Your brand will most likely be considered alongside others, so make sure every impression you make counts. At this point, consumers are directly interacting with your brand, and you want them to stick around for the next step in the customer journey.
Purchase/decision phase:
So, this is the part where you need to seal the deal! You must ensure your potential customer understands why your product or service is the best fit to solve their problem. You’ve got to convince them that you are the solution to their problem. When trying to decide which brand to buy from, they consider a lot of things. Price, customer service, company values, and policies all play a role in the decision-making process. And at the end of the day, people want to buy from a brand they trust.
Retention phase:
At this point, you already have a new customer – Congratulations! All that hard work pays off when they get to this stage. The consumer has decided to make their purchase with you, but don’t assume it’s a done deal.
A loyal customer brings a consistent business and costs less than the effort to bring in new customers. In fact, a study by Bain & Company discovered that loyal customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more than new customers.
Advocacy phase:
Now it’s time to turn your customers into raving fans! If everything else is done right, your customers will become fans, and fans are the best marketing you can get. Their influence on the purchasing decisions of others should help with further sales. Recommendations and rewards are a significant boost to support sales at this point. When you’re happy and enthusiastic about a brand, you’re more likely to tell your friends about it. And that could be a deal-breaker for many people. So keep your customers happy and give them excellent customer service to shorten the journey and transaction costs.
Benefits of Speeding up the Journey
It pays to give your customers a great experience! According to studies, customers are willing to spend up to 18% more on businesses that provide them with the knowledge they expect. And for almost 80% of American consumers, the most essential elements of positive customer experiences are convenience, speed, knowledgeable help, and friendly service.
Your business is more than just a product or service. Customers see it as an entity that creates an experience – and how you manage that experience is demonstrated in customer spending and customer satisfaction. Or, to put it more simply: customers buy experiences, not products. So make sure your business gives customers royal treatment to keep them loyal!
The simple fact is that 84% of companies experience an increase in revenue when they focus on their customer journey. So the question isn’t why you should speed up the trip but how quickly you can.
What is Storybrand
As a consumer, wouldn’t it be nice to feel appreciated? And, to feel like your experience matters? You understand how frustrating it can be to put your work out there and feel like no one is paying attention. I know that feeling, and I’m not too fond of it.
The Storybrand framework by Donald Miller is an excellent way to market your brand. It is based on Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, which is a structure that is easy for people to understand. In this framework, the hero starts off in their everyday life, experiences something that throws them into extreme discomfort, goes on an adventure to learn what they need to, and comes back to help others with that knowledge. This is an effective way to communicate the essence of your brand in a way that people will understand.
Storytelling in marketing is essential to building a functional business, and it helps connect people and make your company more relevant and relatable to your target market. By stirring up emotions, you can encourage people to take action. The SB-7 Framework has helped businesses increase their conversions and sales by 30-50% on average. Wouldn’t that be delightful?
The hero’s journey is a marketing strategy that can help engage and inspire audiences around your brand! It makes communicating complicated ideas simple so you can reach a wider audience and drive action. StoryBrand hero stories can be used to tell any brand story, whether for a product or service.
The hero’s journey is an essential framework for marketers because it is the DNA of human motivation. Consumers connect with a story emotionally; the hero’s journey is the perfect way to do that if you want to connect with your audience and inspire them to take action.
How we work with our clients to use StoryBrand
Storybrand is the key to connection, authentic marketing, speedier conversion, and retention. Our team partners with you and your brand by:
- Laying the foundation and creating the Customer Journey Roadmap
- Leaning on the copywriting team to outline the SB-7 Framework before any other marketing work takes place
- Expert-level consultation with yours truly, ensuring you are clear on the customer journey
- Implement cohesive copy and messaging on all platforms and marketing pieces
There we have it. The time to seize the day Is now. Grab this week’s challenge by the horns to get the ball rolling and grow conversions.
My Weekly Challenge For You
- Put on your customer hat. “Buy” one of your services or products and look at the customer’s journey through the lenses of Claire, the customer.
- Do some market research on your competitors. How are they talking to their audience? What’s their journey look like?
- Next, create a customer journey map by applying the phases and Storybrand model to the experience.
- If you get stuck, schedule a free 15-minute call with me; my team and I specialize in this area and can lessen the learning curve and speed up the process!
So What Did We Learn?
- The five phases of the customer journey are Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Retention, and Advocacy.
- Benefits of speeding up the journey: Conversion Increases, and retention Increases which all turn into a growing bank balance.
- What Is Storybrand: Storytelling in marketing is essential to building a functional business.
- How we work with you Introducing Storybrand to your business: Customer journey map creation, SB-7 Framework Outline, Consultation, Execution
Storybrand is the most effective tool for turning visitors into clients. The days of dry, boring marketing copy are gone. While it still has its place in our virtual space and ecosystem, a connection is vital. We help our clients uplevel their copy, connect with their ICAs, and bring conversions. I’m happy to give you a jumpstart and start that messaging improvement and shift without the frustration and headaches. Set up a free 15-minute call with me sooner than later.
Links for this episode:
Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
If you like what you hear on the podcast, please consider rating and reviewing my show! Woo Hoo! Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” I would love to hear what episodes you enjoy the most!
Next, if you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the podcast. I’ll be adding new content weekly, if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Subscribe now!
