Mapping the Customer Journey: The Key to a Successful Omnichannel Strategy
A study by Harvard Business Review found that 73% of consumers use multiple channels during their shopping journey.
Indeed, it is no longer enough to have a physical store or be only reachable online. From your logo design to your customer service, a seamless mix of both digital and physical presence is needed if you truly want to succeed.
This is why businesses are now prioritizing their omnichannel marketing efforts. This strategy focuses on providing a cohesive experience for their customers whether they encounter them online or offline.
However, omnichannel marketing is easier said than done. You now have all these potential touchpoints-–email marketing, SMS, Facebook, TikTok, physical stores, events…the list goes on.
How do you stay active in these touchpoints, provide a great experience at each of them, and ensure that all of them are cohesive—from your logo design down to your customer service?
The answer is to have an omnichannel customer journey map. This map helps a business understand how a customer will experience your brand and ensures that each interaction will be a smooth and positive experience. Thus, creating a more optimized omnichannel strategy.
Want to create one for your business? Scroll down to learn more!
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey is a visual storyline of a customer’s experience with a brand. It shows the different stages they take from the moment they become aware of your brand to after they purchase a product.
What is the difference between the customer journey and buyer journey?
Buyer journeys mainly focus on guiding a customer to a purchase. After their purchase, the journey ends.
The customer journey extends past that to focus on nurturing them into loyal and repeat customers. This can be through sending out thank you cards after a purchase, giving out discounts for subscription renewals, to establishing a loyalty rewards program.
What is an omnichannel customer journey?
While customer journey is a term you’ll mainly see in digital marketing or sales strategies, it’s also present in omnichannel marketing.
An omnichannel customer journey in particular focuses on the customer’s interactions and experiences in each stage of the journey as well as the different touchpoints they encounter at each stage.
The Role of the Customer Journey in Omnichannel Strategy
Understanding your customer journey is crucial for a successful omnichannel approach. This is because your journey map can help you:
- Provide a better experience – Knowing every customer’s actions, emotions, and motivations helps you understand what they are looking for. This helps you provide a better experience for them.
- Identify your touchpoints – Most brands think that they have to be everywhere. But in reality, not all touchpoints are valuable for you. By knowing your customer journey, you can identify which touchpoints are effective and which ones you can drop.
- Identify pain points – You can also spot where your customers are experiencing problems in their journey. For example, you may find that they leave when they go to your checkout page. You can then check if you have any problems with the visual design or with the UX and resolve their issue accordingly.
- Get more conversions – A deep understanding of your customers helps you give them a more personalized experience. You reach them with the right message at the right time. This leads to increased engagement, and of course, sales.
Key Stages of the Omnichannel Customer Journey
Insert visual for an omnichannel customer journey here
Awareness Stage
This is the stage where your potential customers first become aware of your brand. Your goal in this stage is to capture your customer’s attention, fast.
Potential Touchpoints: Social media ads, Google search, influencer marketing, TV ads, billboards
Optimization Tips: Focus on creating eye-catching visuals that are stamped with your branding. Ensure that your messaging is cohesive across all channels so that you’ll be more recognizable to your customers.
Consideration Stage
Your customers are now evaluating their options by researching products, reading reviews, comparing prices, or going to physical stores to check the products themselves.
Potential Touchpoints: Websites, blogs, review sites, forums, email marketing, in-store browsing, customer service queries
Optimization Tips:
- Make sure your website has complete information and is easy to navigate
- Create informative blog articles, videos, or other content marketing that explains why your product is useful and relevant
- Write clear product descriptions on your e-commerce site
- Highlight user-generated content (UGC) like reviews and testimonials on your website and social media pages
Decision Stage
This is the stage where your customers decide to purchase either online or in-store. For a more seamless omnichannel experience, give your customers hybrid options like click and collect.
Potential Touchpoints: Checkout pages, in-store POS systems, e-commerce sites or mobile apps, vouchers from email marketing
Optimization Tips:
- Provide multiple payment options for both online and offline
- Have consistent design across platforms to help build trust and make your customers feel secure when purchasing
Post-Purchase Stage
It’s a big no-no to ignore your customers just because they already purchased something. Make sure to maintain engagement to help nurture your relationship with them. Send them receipts of their purchase, give them a way to track their orders, give them coupons for their next purchase, or send them a survey asking about their experience.
Potential Touchpoints: Email marketing, feedback forms, social media
Optimization Tips:
- Ensure that you provide excellent customer support should they encounter any issues with your products
- Have a great refund, return, or exchange program set up
- Encourage reviews and feedback
Loyalty and Retention Stage
Happy customers are more likely to return to your business. They can even turn into advocates, actively promoting you to their family and friends after their positive experience with you.
You can do so by providing loyalty programs, special events for loyal customers, discounts for subscription renewals, or exclusive memberships.
Potential Touchpoints: Loyalty programs, referral programs, social media
Optimization Tips: Always share UGC on your social media pages or websites. You can also provide “shareable” moments with your business via unique packaging, cool in-store designs, or fun events to encourage more of these UGCs.
Step-by-Step Guide To Mapping Your Omnichannel Customer Journey
Here are the best practices to follow in to create your omnichannel customer journey:
- Identify Your Target Audience: Before creating a customer journey map, you need to first know who your customer is. Do customer research and create a customer persona first.
- List Key Touchpoints: Where are your customers? Are they active on Twitter? Do they prefer Instagram? Do they like reading blog articles, or do they prefer watching an informative YouTube video? Make sure to list these touchpoints and figure out where to put your focus.
- Analyze Customer Behavior: Use analytics and omnichannel tools to understand how customers are interacting at each touchpoint. For example, you can use Google Analytics for your website, TikTok Ad Manager for your TikTok ads, or talk to your in-store reps for your physical stores.
- Optimize the Experience: You can determine how to improve omnichannel personalization based on the analytics. For example, you may find they leave when they reach your website. Is it because it’s slow? Or is it because of the clunky design?
- Track Your Metrics: You need to track your results to understand how effective your customer journey map (and your omnichannel marketing strategies) is. Metrics like page views, customer retention, customer satisfaction, repeat purchases, and channel engagement can be used to measure your performance.
- Adjusting Based on Feedback: Customer’s wants and preferences are ever-changing. There are also new trends and technologies popping out every so often. It’s best to continuously adapt and change your strategies based on feedback or evolving customer behaviors.
Create Beautiful and Cohesive Omnichannel Marketing Visuals With BrandCrowd Today
An omnichannel customer journey map can help businesses provide seamless experiences across all their channels. By having this visual representation, one can easily visualize all paths a customer will take and employ the necessary steps to make sure each stage is as smooth as possible.
However, there is more to omnichannel marketing than just having a journey map. Another essential factor that you can use to optimize it is your branding.
Consistency is key in omnichannel strategies. A recognizable brand helps build trust and loyalty, whether the customer is interacting online or in person.
Creating a recognizable brand doesn’t need a huge marketing agency or millions of dollars to do. Small business owners can turn to BrandCrowd to create professional, consistent branding for each touchpoint across their customer journey.
Use our tools now to get an eye-catching logo design, a dynamic animation for an interactive email campaign, or a simple yet beautiful website.
Need more guidance on how to optimize each channel? You can also read our other in-depth guides here:
