Customer journey mapping is one of the greatest marketing strategies in recent times and something that will certainly continue in the year ahead. But what is customer journey mapping?
Customer journey mapping is a process that creates a visual representation of what customers experience through their interactions with your business. What’s more, this process is a story of what happens for your customer, from that first point of contact to a sale or outcome.
And that’s just part of the story…
What You Should Know About Customer Journey Mapping
A customer journey map can help your business see things from the perspective of your customers. In terms of sales numbers, you can see what might be working well but also what features or parts of your process that customers might not enjoy so much. In this sense, a customer journey map can help identify the most important touch points and also where the business can improve in the future.
In case you might be asking yourself, many marketers describe this issue by explaining how customers expect every business to know exactly what they want and appreciate. In short, they expect information and solutions quick and easy, and an affordable price is also a bonus.
photo credit: Paldesk
Let’s take a closer look at the importance of customer journey mapping.
7 Ways a Customer Journey Mapping Exercise Can Redefine Your B2B Marketing Plan
1. Identifying Where Your Customers are Interacting the Most
A customer journey map can quickly indicate what features or reasons are most attractive to your customers. More specifically, this map will give you a bigger picture in terms of where the user came from, and what they want to achieve while interacting with your business. Just so you know, studies show that businesses are much likely to sell more to customers when they can see the “big picture”.
2. Helping You Define Specific Needs at Specific Stages of the Sales Process
As you know, a clear sales funnel is needed to increase the rate of conversion with any target market. However, it’s just as important to focus on each specific stage of this process in order to gain a better overall perspective of the customer experience. In simple terms, this means that business owners can see how customers navigate from one stage to the next and how they respond or react to certain parts of the sales funnel.
3. Knowing the Logical Order of a Customer Journey
Many business owners fail to realize the importance of logical order when it comes to a customer journey. That is to say, you need to ensure that this journey is mapped in such a way that it explains Why, How and What – in this particular order.
Why – Explain the problem that your customer is experiencing.
How – Explain how you can fix their problem.
What – Explain the details of your solution.
In fact, Simon Sinek is an established speaker on the above theory “why, how, and what” and insists that without this logical order, a sales process is doomed from the beginning.
4. Customer Journey Mapping Allows for Outside Perspective
A customer journey may can give you an outside view of what is happening in the sales process. Aside from illustrating the clear results involved, this map can quickly highly gaps in the process or changes that will help customers have a better experience the next time around. When you think about it, stepping into the shoes of your customers is a fantastic opportunity to build on what you do right and stop doing whatever you might not be doing so well!
5. Mapping Will Help Business Owners Decide How to Spend Better
When you know what works and what doesn’t work so well, it’s much easier to decide on where to spend the capital available. For this reason, mapping can help business owners focus their expenditure and save not only money but the time that goes with trying to decide this matter in the first place. Needless to say, better spending will inevitably bring better returns and processes.
6. Improving the Customer Service Experience
It should go without saying that customer journey mapping will help you improve how the business is interacting with your customers. It’s no small task but the online interaction between your business and end user should be a quality representation of your conduct in person. Without this congruence, customers can experience a discounted experience and lose trust in what you do.
7. Taking Advantage of Inbound Marketing
Instead of trying to find customers with outbound marketing, you should understand that many such tactics are often abrupt and badly arranged in terms of targeting. As if that’s not enough, outbound marketing is expensive and annoyance for customers who dislike cold contact in particular.
With a customer mapping journey, you can better understand what the customer wants from your business. For this reason, you are well positioned to create valuable content that will actually attract your customer. Needless to say, you are encouraging these customers to interact with your business, while avoiding the risk of sounding salesly in the process!
Final Thoughts
Taking time to know more about customer journey mapping enables a business to define each step of every interaction with the customer. What’s more, this process can help identify pain points and also highlight especially good features that you can build upon in the future. It’s true, this process is quite complex when you look beneath the hood but so too is the process that brings your customers from that first contact to the final outcome.
Either way, customer journey mapping is now an essential strategy for marketers and business alike, and the best way to shore up all the cracks and define the most important aspects of your B2B marketing plan next year.
