Customer journey

The journey that a customer makes. Via different channels, on different devices and at multiple locations. Sometimes this takes a few minutes, sometimes a few months. From the first introduction to a company up to customer retention. What does a customer’s journey look like and how can a company respond to it?

Many different models are known that describe this journey. Yet they all come down to the same thing;

Reach the right people

First of all, we as a company must reach our customers. To let them know who we are, what we offer and why we are better / nicer / faster / cheaper / etc than anyone else.

Motivate them to do something

The next step is to motivate these people to do something with our product, service or brand. This can be, for example, an insurance calculation, filling in a contact form or following a company via social media or the newsletter.

Activate them to buy something

If we have the attention we will proceed with the action. That can be a purchase in a webshop or taking out an insurance policy, for example. We are talking about converting.

“Pamper” them to keep them

Many models that describe a customer journey stop here. We have received the attention of the customer, he has done something with our product, our service or our brand and has proceeded to the “purchase”. But it really only starts here. We are now talking about customer retention or loyalty. “It costs us 5x more to find a new customer than to keep an existing customer!”.
It would be a shame not to take that final step. We have made a new customer happy, how can we best keep it?

Reach → Motivate → Activate → Keep

Study the customer journey
One of the success factors of the use of online marketing is to take into account the journey that your customer makes. The big challenge is to always be relevant in communication, rather than irritating. What this customer journey looks like will vary per product or service but also per person.
So there is no standard solution that is applicable to every company. However, we can work out what we want or can communicate in each phase. We then look at the results and investigate what works well and what doesn’t. Thanks to all the insights we receive, we can better align our online marketing approach with the (information) needs of our target group.

An integral approach, in other words; a complete approach. This is perhaps the biggest challenge for a company. Using multiple resources to achieve an objective. Taking your customer’s customer journey into account and always being relevant without becoming annoying.

Many companies miss the mark
You probably recognize it; You have viewed a pair of shoes or a telephone in a webshop and then you are chased infinitely long with advertisements a

bout that pair of shoes or that telephone. Maybe you have already bought it and you get to see the same ads all the time. This is a good example where the webshop does not allow the advertising campaigns to be part of the entire picture. In this case the webshop does not work according to an integral approach.
 
Fortunately, we also see many companies that succeed (for the most part) in having all the different means work together well.

If you opt for a collaboration with EduardO you are also able to set up and roll out an (online) marketing plan according to the integrated approach. Whether it’s for your own company or that of an employer …

Showing relevant information and advertisements during the entire customer journey means that all means that we use must support each other. In the assignment you yourself started to think of different means that connect with the customer journey. You have thought about the integrated approach for a painting company.
Everything must be right to work from a first meeting to a loyal customer. This applies to advertising campaigns, findability in the search engine and the use of all other channels.

From reach to visit and from visit to customer.

We first try to reach the right people with an appealing message. If we then get our target group on the website, the website must match perfectly. It is therefore important that we use an integrated approach. We can develop the best ads, but they must be shown to the right people. The website fits in perfectly with this, so that the visitor is invited to make a purchase.
If you start thinking in advance about which channels are used during the customer journey, you will soon discover how important it is that every step is correct.
This integrated approach goes further than just online. Radio, television and print can also be part of this. The platforms such as the website and any apps are part of this but also the physical store.