If you have EVER had a customer, there is always some kind of customer journey in place and, moving cold potential buyers from one stage must be done subtly. You’re not likely to convert a complete stranger a brand advocate overnight, but you can gradually move the prospect from one stage of the relationship to the next!

In this blog, we will look at the eight steps of the customer journey and how to move them through each one:

Step 1: Generating awareness

At this stage, potential customers have no idea what problem you would solve for them, what products you sell, or what your brand stands for, so you need to:

 » Advertise: Advertising, both online and offline, is a reliable and effective method of raising awareness.

 » Market on Social media: Billions of people access social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln every day. Social media marketing is an inexpensive method of raising awareness and getting your brand in front of a big audience quickly.

 » Search marketing: Billions of web searches on sites such as Google and Bing are processed daily. Basic search marketing techniques direct some of that traffic to your website.

Step 2: Driving engagement

You need your marketing to capture the attention of your potential customer and engage them. Content deemed valuable can be made freely available in the form of: 

»Blog posts

»Podcasts 

»Online videos 

A potential customer may spend anywhere from a few minutes to a few years at any one of the stages in the customer journey. E.g. someone reading and interacting with your blog for a year before moving on compared to someone “sprinting” through the stages. A good business will have groups of people at all stages of the journey of all times.

Step 3: Building Subscribers

The next stage in the customer journey is to get the potential customer from the “aware” stage to subscribing. There are various social media connections you could count as a subscriber, such as Instagram/ Twitter; attracting podcast subscribes on ITunes or Spotify.  

But don’t forget email marketing! Email is the cheapest and highest converting method of moving a prospect through the rest of the stages.

Step 4: Increasing conversions

At this step, the goal is to grow their commitment level to your business by asking them to give you a small amount of time or money. Low-cost products/ services, webinars, and product demos are all good offers to make at this stage.

The goal of step 4 is not about profitability for your business, but rather an increased level of connection between your potential buyer and your business. 

Step 5: Building excitement

Your marketing should intentionally encourage your customer to use the offer that they accepted in step 4 (onboarding). The relationship with this customer or potential buyer has a much greater chance of success is they received value from the transaction. The value of the offers you make should far outweigh the price paid by your customer. Delivering great products/services and creating marketing campaigns that encourage the use of those products and services. 

Step 6: Making the core offer and sale

At this stage, prospects have developed a relationship with your brand. They may have invested a bit of time or money with you. As for this, people are more likely to buy more complex, expensive, or risky product or service from you. 

You should find that some of the leads and customers are ready to buy more, and buy repeatedly. This is because you’ve built a relationship with them and effectively communicated the value you can bring to their lives.

Step 7: Developing brand advocates

Brand advocates are fans of your company and defend your brand on social media channels and, if asked, leave great reviews/ testimonials for your products or services.

Reaching this step means the customer and your company are like close friends in the sense that developing the relationship to this level took time and effort.

You build this relationship by adding value, delivering on the promise of your product (meaning that it actually does what you claim it will do), and with responsive customer service. 

Step 8: Growing Brand promoters

For brand promoters, your company has become part of their life. They go above and beyond advocacy, dedicating hours of their free time blogging and using social media to spread their love your brand online. They know that your brand is one they can trust and depend on. Brand promoters believe in you because your brand and your products have delivered exceptional value again and again. They have committed not only their money but also their time to you.

So there you have it! Eight steps throughout the customer journey. Maybe you’re stuck on a step and need a little help? We can support you in creating a fluid customer journey and growing your business, get in touch!