How customer journey analysis changes your marketing

Have you ever clicked on a nice advertisement and been redirected to a website that didn’t look trustworthy? Tried to quickly buy something online only to find it required a 15-minute registration? Stopped visiting a café because of unfriendly staff? The list could go on.

The point is that, for your marketing to be effective, you need to understand how your customers interact with your brand and guide their experience at every step. By analyzing the customer journey, businesses can adapt their strategies to meet customer needs at every stage. This approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also boosts conversion rates and loyalty over time.

The importance of analyzing the customer journey

Analyzing the customer journey means mapping out every touchpoint a customer has with your brand, from initial awareness to post-purchase engagement. This process helps identify pain points, opportunities, and moments where customers might drop off.

For example, a retail company might find out that many customers abandon their shopping carts during checkout. By analyzing this stage, the company can simplify the checkout process or offer incentives to complete the purchase.

How to analyze it?

To get started, you can use tools like customer surveys, website analytics, reviews, semantic search, observation, heatmaps to gather data on customer behavior.

Typical stages of the customer journey

Key steps in analyzing and improving the customer journey

1. Define customer personas: Understand who your customers are, their preferences, lifestyle chices, pain points and typical behavior regarding products/services like yours.

2. Map the journey stages: Identify what exactly your customer does at the phases such as awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy (see the picture above). What are the real touchpoints?

3. Collect data: Use all possible data from each journey phase to track and evaluate customer interactions.

4. Analyze behavior: Look for patterns, drop-off points, areas of friction. These also represent marketing funnel leaks that need to be fixed.

5. Implement improvements: Adjust marketing strategies, website design, improve customer service or train your sales teams based on findings.

6. Monitor results: Continuously track changes to measure the impact of your improvements.

   
   

Example of fixing leaks:

For instance, a software company might discover that customers often visit the FAQ page before making a purchase, or that many drop off after the trial period or during the first month of using the service while frequently contacting the support team. This insight could lead to improving the FAQ content and offering live human support to assist potential buyers at any stage of their journey. Essentially, any question raised by one customer that could be relevant to others should be included in the FAQ.

Your internal customer journey mapping session can look like this, you can use interactive online boards or download my special file with extra educational materials (for e-mail subscribers)

What are the 5 A's of the customer journey?

The 5 A's framework is a useful way to understand the customer journey in a structured manner. This framework represent the typical intentions a customer has on each stage of the customer journey.

1. Aware: The customer becomes aware of a product or service through advertising, word of mouth, or online content. They don’t necessarily have the intention to buy yet; they might just be browsing the web or have heard about your brand from a friend.

2. Appeal: The product appeals to the customer’s needs or desires, sparking further interest.

3. Ask: The customer seeks more information — for example, by asking questions, reading reviews, or comparing alternatives.

4. Act: The customer makes a purchase or takes the desired action.

5. Advocate: A satisfied customer recommends your product to others, becoming a brand advocate.

   
   

By aligning marketing efforts with these stages, businesses can create targeted campaigns that guide customers smoothly through the journey. For example, during the "Ask" phase, providing detailed product information and responsive customer support can increase the likelihood of purchase.

How else you can use customer journey in your marketing:

• Personalize communication: Use data from your findings to send relevant messages based on the customer’s current stage. For example, you can send personalized product recommendations after a purchase to encourage repeat sales

• Optimize website navigation:Make sure your website is up to date and contains high-quality content and descriptions, so that customers are attracted to your offers during the appeal phase and can easily find information and take action during the consideration stage.

• Leverage automation: Implement email workflows that nurture specific lead categories through the journey.

• Use social proof: Display testimonials and reviews across all owned channels to build trust during the consideration phase.

• Train customer service teams to handle inquiries effectively and enhance the "Ask" stage to reduce bounce rate and increase customer satisfaction. Remember: Your service team can both recover a dissatisfied customer or create such a negative experience that they will discourage others from working with you.

Moving forward with customer journey insights

Understanding and improving the customer journey is an ongoing process. Remember that every touchpoint is an opportunity to delight your customers and stand out in a saturated market. Marketing becomes more effective when it is customer-centric.

For those interested in a deeper dive or needing additional support, professional services such as a marketing audit can provide expert insights into jour customer journey and beyond.

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