Mapping customer journey: What is it and how to get started?

Rapid changes in the way your brand experiences a consumer have made it more complex and more important than ever to understand your consumer’s behaviour.

This is where the customer journey helps you to understand fully how people interact with your brand from the moment they first hear about you to finally buy from you and recommend you to others.

For a while now, the concept of the customer journey has been around, although many companies have yet to recognize the value of their business. We will begin with how customer travel mapping can help you maximize your marketing money in this blog post and then provide insight into how you can get started.

Before we do that, here’s a handy definition of what customer travel mapping is: “A customer travel map is an illustration or diagram of all the touchpoints your customers have online or offline with your company.” (Source: CXL).

Why is the mapping of customer travel important?

A visual representation of any experience your consumer has with your brand can really highlight areas where you are performing well, as areas where you may need to focus more.

It tells the complete story of a consumer experience with you, from initial product / brand awareness to post-purchase activities.

Customer travel can be quite complicated depending on the product or service you offer and the target audience, but the rewards are worth the time it takes to create one. Stepping into your consumer’s shoes can provide a company with great insight and perspective.

A solid, well-researched consumer journey can help business growth and income by:

• Ensuring the conversion journey of the customer is efficient, seamless and in a logical order or identifying which gaps to fill.

• Better focus and direction in building marketing strategies, allowing you to concentrate on what matters most to maximize efficiency

• Deeper awareness of your target consumers, understanding what challenges they are trying to solve and what to introduce to get them to the next step in the purchasing process and finally to the purchase process.

• Highlighting any silos that affect the consumer experience within the business.

• Can assist in identifying new target audiences

• Greater perspectives that can allow the entire business to make better decisions.

Here’s an example of how we used mapping of customer travel to uncover a client’s opportunity:

Recently, we helped a new client develop a customer journey, as they didn’t have one before. They already had target consumers, but not all of their marketing activity had been mapped.

Through our discussions, we identified that the client was investing in PPC campaigns that provided their clients with comparative information, but did not have enough material to build brand awareness and confidence.

We advocated prioritizing the creation of SEO content that would relate more efficiently with their target audience’s pain points and how they were equipped to address them in a unique way.

They were worried about a limited budget, but once all of their existing activity was fully mapped out, it came to light that they were already creating content for an existing EDM list, which could easily and cost-effectively be repurposed to drive more top-of-funnel awareness.

How do I create an online travel for customers?

If you’re an existing business and don’t have a customer travel map yet, it’s a great starting point to logically map existing touchpoints from the first to the last.

If you have contact points that are offline, such as:

• Physical stores

• Customer service department

• Direct mail

• Outdoor advertising

• Trade shows

At Reef, we recommend dividing touchpoints into three key areas awareness, consideration and decision-making, based on what action your consumers want to take.

This will not only keep the flow logical and focused, but will also help develop the objectives for each phase that will lead a consumer to the next step.

Compare this map with what you know about your target consumer and look for any gaps are your touchpoints from a consumer perspective in a logical order, do they reach consumers where they need it, do your communication speak to their motivations and pain points in a way that will persuade them to take the next step.

There will inevitably be areas of inconsistency, obstacles or even gaps, which is great, as these will set the course for future strategies for improvement.

Things not to be overlooked when you map your journey online

Customer travel online can be complex, leading to missing touchpoints or steps. Here are a few things that tend to fall through the cracks but are important in order to align customer objectives:

• If you are offering these services, don’t forget to include call centers, chatbots or physical stores. They are a very important part of the journey and are often one of the customer insight’s best sources. We manage consumer feedback and questions directly and by speaking to one of these places you can find a solution to an online problem.

• Do not neglect the value of touchpoints after purchase. Feedback, feedback and reviews are all precious windows for the motives and pain points of a customer and how productive the journey was. Here learning can be used to strengthen pre-purchase approaches.

• Additionally, benchmarking the consumer experience with the product values and expectations will take some time. Have you promised some knowledge, but do you notice that you don’t deliver. Depending on your business type, product, service or service. You need to understand where these discrepancies occur and start fixing the issues and the map helps you do that.

How do I know if I got the right mapping ?

Like many marketing experiences, if you’re doing the right thing, the only way to know is to try it! The first time it is not going to be flawless and must be a constant work-in-progress.

A first run will result in changes that, in turn, will lead to new opportunities, so regular review will always identify new opportunities to further improve your customer journey.

The best thing about it is, regardless of the size of the improvements you make, they will be successful in driving business growth as they will come directly from a perceived gap in the process of consumer conversion.

Fix a pain point, move a customer toward the ultimate goal along the journey.