Great strategies require thorough research, thoughtful discussion, complex choices, and solid commitment across an organization. Even after all that work, however, ideas alone won’t create loyal customers. An effective strategy needs a solid tactical plan, and one way to do that is by using customer journey maps.
Customer journey maps visualize customers’ experiences of your brand at each stage of the sales funnel and create a touchpoint structure that can be used to develop the marketing resources required to turn leads into loyal customers.
Journey maps start with customer personas, a key part of any strategic project. Who are your customers? How does your value proposition meet their needs? What are their situations, contexts, and behaviors? What are their end goals? Understanding the general answers to these questions will help guide key decisions throughout the following process. Use the template linked below to create a journey map for each persona that directly addresses their needs and behaviors.
At each stage, be sure to:
- Capture the emotions driving behavior and identify specific goals. Do they want a human connection to feel comfortable, or will a digital touchpoint satisfy their needs? Does this persona spend 4 weeks researching, or do they want a quick path to completion? What will frustrate, and what will delight? Empathize fully to create satisfaction across the full experience, and backup answers by observing real behavior and by interviewing both customers and non-customers alike.
- Include owned and non-owned touchpoints. You can control your website, but you can’t control third-party reviews. A consumer’s experience, however, includes both and will affect their decisions. Understanding each persona’s perspective will help you identify new touchpoints that either fill a gap or address another non-owned touchpoint.
- Build reengagement touchpoints. Customer journeys are not linear, and good marketing tactics includes jagged or circular paths that meet leads where they are and reinforce your company’s value proposition at each touchpoint. Retargeting ads, ICYMI emails, and follow-up calls keep your brand top-of-mind and show consumers that you care about their business.
Once you’ve created journey maps for 3-5 personas, write a list of marketing resources based on the owned touchpoints. These resources may include text copy, visual assets, forms, UX designs, telephone scripts, processes, or more. You may find that these resources overlap across personas. If you can address the goals and emotions of multiple personas, then consolidate those touchpoints. Otherwise, keep them separate to address the specific needs of each persona.
The customer journey template below is a great place to start, but modify it to fit your sales cycle, lead generation style, and industry. If you’d like to know how design strategy and marketing services could benefit your company, contact Corbae Creative today to discuss your goals.