By now, you should have heard of a customer journey. You’ve also probably created a map to implement into your business’s marketing strategy. But here’s a mistake I keep seeing. Something that even experienced marketers seem to get wrong when it comes to digital marketing. And that mistake is speed.
Not necessarily the speed that a person chooses to go through the customer journey. But how fast a marketer presents the option to buy a product or service or when the customer is asked to input essential information, like personal contact details. When a customer is asked to commit to the process by inputting their information, this is known as the “ascension” stage. And there’s a problem with presenting this option too soon.
In this article, we’re going to cover some simple mistakes that hold back many marketers from effectively guiding their audience through the customer journey.
Why Many Customer Journey Maps Fail
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to creating a customer journey map. But there are some basic guidelines that marketers need to follow. Simple things like keeping initial messages short but effective — ensuring that you don’t overload potential customers with information. And it would help if you made it obvious as to where a customer should go to buy a product.
But the one thing I keep seeing — that’s weakening, if not ruining many customer journey experiences — is placing the ascension stage too early on in the process.
Tortoise vs. the Hare — Slowing Down Your Customer Journey
One of the first things to look at doing with a customer journey is slowing it down. As a marketer, it is easy to get caught thinking that we need to make sales as quickly as possible. But this isn’t always the best strategy. Take a look at your custom journey map. Are customers going straight from “awareness” to “purchase”? If there’s a small gap between these initial and final stages of your customer journey, you need to consider widening it to give your customers more time to research and “warm” to your business.
Think of it like the tortoise and the hare. You need to be slow and steady in your approach to ensure that customers want to stay and learn about your business. If you go too fast, many people will be put off, as they do not want to commit to something before ever really getting to know everything about it.
But what should you do to slow down your approach to the “ascension”?
Things You Can Do to Slow Your Customer Journey
There are a few things you can do to effectively slow down your customer journey, including:
- Letting customers browse your online shop or website.
- Include informational videos about your business on your landing page.
- Give a thorough walk-through of what your business does and what it can do to help your customer.
- Offer links to your blog content.
- Give the option for customers to read reviews and testimonials.
Placing any of these options just after the initial stages of your customer journey will help your audience become even more familiar with your business — allowing you to build a foundation for the “ascension” leading up to the sale.
Optimizing Your User Experience
There are so many aspects of your user experience — sometimes referred to as the UX — that you need to optimize to ensure you’re maximizing your sales potential. But this can take time. And while it might seem like you need to fast sales, that can sometimes have the opposite effect — causing you to lose more potential customers than gaining them.
Slowing down your customer journey is an overlooked tactic, as it seems counter-intuitive. However, giving your audience more time to familiarize themselves with your business can have a significant impact on how they interact with your customer journey and help to build them into a loyal customer.
For more advice on how you can improve your marketing strategies, read through the latest posts on the Intentionally Intentional blog.
By Lewis James