Cultivating a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy | Part Two: Customer Journey

In part one of our Comprehensive Marketing Strategy series, we talked about the importance of the ideation phases and how they impact the success of your marketing strategy. Collecting data, visualizing your buyers and creating profiles for your marketing prompts all lay the foundation for phase two of your strategy development.

In this edition, we take a deeper look at giving your clients an unforgettable customer experience and how this life cycle will sustain new business and customer retention.

Map Out Your Customer Journey

Every business has a customer lifecycle. In the same ways that businesses take charge of their company culture to ensure healthy, happy employees – you should be applying the same measures to ensure your clients receive the same attention and affection. Some lifecycles are more expansive and in-depth, whereas others can be summed up into two or three stages (we recommend no fewer than three, since this jam-session is all about establishing an authentic connection with clients).

In today’s marketing realm, we can use piles of data to quantify, control and enhance our interactions during each stage of the lifecycle. Think of this as how you personalize each touch-point, during each sales stage, with every customer you ever interact with. It is a calculated and tailored to genuinely bolster how your client relates to your brand.

The first step is finding out what the journey looks like from your customer’s perspective.

For an ecommerce store who only sells product online, their lifecycle may look relatively basic, but it is usually anything but simple. They have a dire need to create a connection with their buyers, which they can’t do if their only touching point is when the customer physically opens their delivery. To make sure they are impressing, they should think about things like fun promotions, creative print and engaging them on social media. Missy Sheehan and I explain more about the importance of connection in our blog post The Ultimate Unboxing Experience.

For a brick and mortar manufacturer that sells customized goods in bulk, their sales process is likely much lengthier than a simple PayPal transaction. Their business model may include a full sales team that invests months or years into cultivating and converting leads into clients. These types of businesses have the opportunity to refine a layered customer experience at every stage, producing an elaborate brand experience that supports loyalty and trust.

Important Questions to Answer:

• How long or complex is your sales pipeline?
• What channels did your current clients use to find you?
• How do you impress them during and after the sell?
• What stage of the sales pipeline do you struggle with?
• How do you currently communicate with your buyers?
• How do your buyers communicate with you?
• What can you do to nurture more effectively?

So, which model best fits you? Do your customers function within a three step “ATTRACT – SELL – WOW” model, or do they need more commitment out of you and require a longer customer lifecycle?

Jessica Knipe

Jessica Knipe

Focusing on how branding, web design and marketing intersect to make meaningful impact on small businesses, Jessi contributes on all things aesthetics.