A customer journey is a story about understanding your users, how they find your website, how they behave while they visit your website, and what you can do to improve their experience, so they keep coming back.
The Customer Journey | Think Like A Customer
The customer journey is the segmented timeline that your customer follows in order to shop and purchase products or services that resolve their needs.
The customer journey is segmented into 5 stages: Awareness, Engagement, Evaluation, Purchase, and Post Purchase.
A Customer Journey Map helps to guide a brand’s overall marketing, sales, and service experience by asking the following questions during each stage:
- What actions have led my customer to this stage in the process?
- What questions & thoughts does my customer have?
- What are the best channels to reach my customer through, in order to effectively communicate?
- What opportunities are available to customers if they were to use our product or service?
- What content is needed to properly connect and convey our message to our customer?
Access Now:Free Customer Journey Map Template [Click Here]
The Customer Journey Varies from Business to Business
Depending on your product or service, your customer’s journey can be very quick, or it can be drawn out.
For example, Sarah is driving down the freeway and notices she has a flat tire. She pulls off on the side of the road and immediately reaches for her phone, goes to Google and searches for, ‘tow trucks near me’.
She immediately sees a paid search ad for Tom’s Towing that mentions that they accept a variety of insurance carriers. This is awesome because Sarah was hoping that her insurance would cover something like this. She clicks the Click to Call button extension on the paid search ad and within a matter of seconds, is engaging and evaluating her situation with a professional.
Sarah’s customer journey was quick as she became aware of her problem and is well on the way to purchasing a service from Tom’s Towing within minutes.
In this example, Tom’s Towing has made a high priority on the AWARENESS stage. They understand that their customer journey is short, and this is the best time for them to position their brand as a solution to their target customer.
It is important to note that your customer’s journey may not be as quick and that individual stages may require more marketing efforts than others.
The Customer Journey for Car Buyers | Automotive Dealership Marketing
For example, Matt is looking for a new truck. It’s been a little over 2 months since Matt started looking at his options. Earlier in his process he figured out that it was a truck (not an SUV) that he was looking for and after comparing a variety of makes and models over the last few weeks, he has landed on the 2020 Chevy Silverado 1500 LT.
Now Matt is wondering what his local options are for buying. While at work, he opens Google Search and types ‘Chevy dealerships Lansing MI’. Matt immediately sees 4 paid search ads, a list of local businesses with the Google map, and some SEO results.
Quality Chevrolet of Lansing pops out because they have a paid ad, are on the local results, and have an SEO result for a page on their website titled ‘Chevrolet Dealership Serving Lansing MI | Quality Chevrolet’. Their paid search ad mentions that they have a wide Silverado selection, that they make it easy for their customers to purchase online, and that they have been in business for over 50 years.
Due to their presence on the search engine and the messaging they used in their search engine marketing, Matt was convinced in a matter of seconds that Quality Chevrolet of Lansing was a reputable, trustworthy option and he clicked on the organic result for the dealership.
After looking through their inventory, he found a truck he liked and told himself he would call the dealership after work. As Matt approaches the end of his workday, he takes goes to set the roster for his fantasy team. While on the Yahoo! Sports website, a display ad for Quality Chevrolet of Lansing that features a lifestyle image of a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT towing a boat. This reminds Matt to call the dealership.
Successful automotive dealership digital marketing is a combined effort of OEM marketing and localized dealership marketing, that surrounds the buyer through their journey. In this example, the marketing team at Quality Chevrolet of Lansing focused their dealership marketing budget toward the EVALUATION stage, as this is when customers are deciding which dealership to work with.
Marketing Strategies for Each Stage of the Customer Journey
While some stages of the customer journey may be more important to get a sale than others, ALL the stages are important to the long-term success of your business. We recommend that you have a plan in place for each stage of the journey.
Having efforts in place throughout the entire customer journey ensures that you are addressing the needs of everyone in your sales funnel, no matter what stage they are in. Providing valuable information at the right time to the right person, establishes expertise, authority, and trustworthiness for your brand within your target market.
Customer Journey Focused Digital Marketing | The ArcMinute Approach
At ArcMinute Marketing, we believe in integrity, design, and analytics. We help businesses earn clients and customers with empathetic, value-driven digital marketing. Our team specializes in providing cutting edge SEO, paid search, local search, and programmatic display, all backed by a marketing strategy that is tailored to your business.
If your business could use the guidance of a digital marketing strategist, we encourage you to schedule a discovery call today.
