These phases, or something very close to them, tend to exist in every customer journey. Every company and every customer is different, but for the sake of having a starting point – this is where we generally start to identify and prioritize which problems we solve for our clients.
Our goal here is to understand how the brand is behaving, what the experience looks and feels like, and how the consumer’s state of mind is changing and how their behavior exhibits those changes through each stage of the journey. From there, our goal is to develop, test, optimize, scale and automate experiences that reduce friction and increase conversion from one of these stages to the next.
Audience: This is a person who is what we would consider to be just existing in the universe – this is any person out in the world who might be a potential customer. How might we find right-fit customers in this universe?
Awareness: This is a person who demonstrates that they have some level of awareness that the brand exists. How can the brand introduce themselves to people?
Perception: This person’s has demonstrated that they’ve established some form of positive or negative perception of the brand. How do we establish a position in the hearts and minds of our target audience?
Research: This person is actively researching the brand or a related topic. What do we need to do to ensure we are a part of this person’s consideration set?
Evaluation: This person has exhibited behaviors that indicate they are evaluating different solutions to solve their problem. How can we gain the confidence and trust of this person that our brand is the best possible option for them?
Preference: This person has begun to actively engage with the brand or specific products in a measurable way. How might the brand listen and respond to and engage with this person?
Customer: This person has made an actual purchase from the brand. How can we make this task as easy and customer-centric as possible?
Introduction: This person has gone through an initial onboarding experience with the brand. How do we make this a positive, memorable experience that increases cross sell, up sell, renewal, or referral?
Experience: This person has been using the brand for a period of time, and can pull from multiple experiences with it. How do we ensure this is a positive and delightful experience that is remarkable enough to share?
Referral: This person has referred another customer to the brand. How might we empower and enable our customers to easily refer their friends, family and colleagues – their audience – to our business?
Advocacy: This person actively advocates for and promotes the brand. How can we assist our customers and give them reasons to advocate for our brand?
Recognition: This person recognizes the brand as the leader in its category. How do we get them to influence other influencers to help gain even more recognition from key players in our industry?
Not every customer journey is the same, but in our experience, almost all of companies we have worked with look similar to this. Understanding which data sets we can use to get answers to these questions, and to understand how customer behavior is telegraphing their mindset as they travel through this journey is easier said than done… but that is what we’re here for, to help you and your team understand the data behind each of these stages, and how to interpret it and leverage it to constantly optimize every phase of the customer journey.
We’d love to share more with you on this topic – please feel free to call or email!