With the ever-growing number of marketing tools and tactics available, it’s increasingly challenging to identify the right ways to connect with your customers. Thinking from the perspective of the ones that need you can help you create a plan that works. Get inside the minds and behaviors of your target audiences with Journey Mapping.
What is a Journey Map?
A Journey Map helps you understand the marketing and communications pathway that a customer or stakeholder will take to engage with your brand. In other words, it examines every step a customer takes when making a purchase decision, and after the purchase as they become satisfied and loyal to you. The goal is to help you define the best ways to reach a prospect, engage them in conversations, convert them to a customer, and create long-term loyalty.
Why is it a useful tool?
Marketing and sales often focus on obtaining a new relationship, but we don’t always think from the perspective of the ones we are trying to reach across the entire spectrum of their interaction with our brand. This means we can miss opportunities for sales and engagement, or worse, lose a relationship entirely. The method of communication and ways that you connect with those that need you should be considered to meet them where they are today. What worked in the past likely will not work in the future. A Journey Map can help you plan out opportunities and ensure that you are staying relevant and top of mind.
Download and share our sample Journey Map.
Download Sample Journey MapCreating a map for your organization in four steps:
Step 1
Identify the audiences that you want to reach. Who do you want to move through the experience of working with you? You can be broad or specific, but the more specific you can be, the more effective your map will be. Who is it that makes or influences the purchase decision, and that is motivated by what makes you stand out from your competition? Are you targeting doctors, parents, CEOs? Has your audience changed? You know who needs you, so you should map to that type of persona.
Step 2
Understand the journey that a person takes during the whole time they interact with your brand. You want to make sure you are connecting with them at every stage; not just until the point of making the sale.
- Awareness: all the ways a prospect can hear about you or become aware of your brand (e.g. sees or hears an ad)
- Interest/evaluation: a prospect knows about you and wants to learn more (e.g. browses reviews)
- Adoption: prospect becomes a customer (e.g. works though your client onboarding process)
- Engagement: customer begins interacting with your brand and remains engaged and connected (e.g. reads your blog posts)
- Loyalty: customer shows interest and support of your marketing and outreach efforts (e.g. engages positively on social media)
- Advocacy: client shares your brand story with others and becomes a champion for you (e.g. leaves a positive Google review)
Step 3
Work with your team to address all the ways you can connect with those you are trying to reach at each stage of the journey. For example: if you are thinking about the awareness stage, a prospect may become aware of you through a referral, coming across your website, seeing an ad, or receiving a direct mail. Thinking of every possible touchpoint can help you see your full marketing plan in a visual way.
This is a great exercise to do with a group and will help you see the journey and your audiences from their perspective. Have each person in your group identify what they feel are the right touchpoints in each stage of the journey.
Step 4
For each stage of the journey, work with your team to prioritize and/or eliminate channels and tactics.
- Eliminate/stack duplicates into a single category
- Organize the tactics in order of priority under each stage of the journey
- What will give you the most reach and opportunity for success?
- What is likely to give you the best return on investment?
- What will be easiest to execute given the resources you have?
Harness the power of professional outside perspective.
Regardless of how much marketing expertise you have inside your organization, it’s critical to get outside of your bubble when working to get inside the heads of your target audiences. At Track 2 Consulting, we can bring our professional marketing strategy facilitation skills to the table to help guide your team not only through Journey Mapping, but also through the entire process of creating, implementing and measuring the success of your marketing initiatives. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you get more out of your marketing teams and initiatives.
Download and share our sample Journey Map.
Download Sample Journey Map