Marketing Funnels integrated into your Customer Journey Maps: A Winning Combination

Transcription

1 B2C Marketing Management Marketing Funnels integrated into your Customer Journey Maps: A Winning Combination On most websites the most common path is usually followed by less than five percent of visitors, usually 1% i. It is often for companies to measure the performance of their marketing efforts and to research and plan for the customer journey. However, these tend to be independent tasks and are often times disconnected. In this white paper we discuss ways to merge both activities in order to align the management of customer experiences with marketing objectives.

2 Presented by: NextUser Odds Are Your Customer Journey Does Not Match Your Sales Funnel Every marketer builds funnels, where they map out the steps and initiatives their company will take to persuade visitors to take a desired action. The commonly-used AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) model has been around since 1898, and, in various forms, has been widely used as a framework to manage marketing campaigns, as well as to inform product requirements. Looking at marketing initiatives only from a funnel perspective, however, can make a marketer s job appear to be a zero sum game; either the marketer wins by getting as many people possible through their funnel, or loses if not enough are persuaded by the marketing campaign. NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 2

3 The marketing funnel alone doesn t provide the complete picture of the customer experience, as it does not take into account the customers perspective of the experience created by the marketer. Moreover, the overall customer experience is one way companies are able to add value and differentiate themselves. The framework used to understanding the customer experience is referred to as the customer journey map. While the customer journey mapping is a brainstorming exercise to help companies look at the customer s experience through the customer s perspective, marketing funnels look at the customer s experience through the business s perspective. The customer journey is the complete sum of your customers experiences interacting with your company, product, services and brand. The goal of building this map is to identify ways of improving the customer experience by adding value at individual touch points. Put another way, customer journey mapping is an attempt to look at the customer s experience through their perspective, while marketing funnels look at the customer s experience focused on accomplishing business objectives. By creating both marketing funnels as well as customer journey maps in tandem, a company can ensure that its business objectives are met while optimizing customer satisfaction. NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 3

4 Conflicts between the customer journey and the sales funnel Though they deliver the most value together, there are large differences in how the Two frameworks are built. Consider the differences in shape and complexity of the two models. Marketing funnels typically describe the various customer stages that lead to one or multiple purchases. Only a handful of KPIs need to be measured at each step of the funnel to analyze the performance of a marketing campaign. So, the funnel follows a linear path until a conversion occurs. It can look very similar across many companies and even across different industries. A customer journey, on the other hand, is unique to each business and includes hundreds of micro interactions. Every individual seeks to satisfy unique requirements, so there s no single way to measure the experience of everyone who interacted with your business. A couple going to a restaurant on a first date will have very different expectations and goals than a couple on their 30-year wedding anniversary, even if the food is the same. Consider these best practices for each model: Best Practices to building a Marketing Funnel - Identify significant activities a customer might take indicating where in along the funnel they might be - Define KPIs for each step of the funnel. This will enable you to measure the effectiveness of your funnel at all stages. - Segment visitors based on their intent and needs. This will enable you better understand why your funnel performs one way or another - Measure and optimize your funnel by testing new initiatives NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 4

5 Guidelines for building a Customer Journey Map - Collect both qualitative and quantitative user insights. Quantitative could come from Web Analytics, Marketing Research, Satisfaction scores, call logs statistics and customer surveys. Qualitative could customer interviews, observations, contextual surveys, user videos, etc. - Do some research by listening and looking for triggers of the journey, customer expectations, actions taken, feeling at different moments in time, people involved, technical devices involved, events and locations and last impression - Establish cartography by mapping the experience including the following elements: lifecycle stage (e.g. check-in), the touchpoint (e.g. getting a room key), the actor (e.g. kiosk), the doing (e.g. using touch screen), the feeling (e.g. I m tired) and the thinking (e.g. How do I make special requests?). - Sketching to quickly explore the different visual models and convey the story in an articulated manner. A good experience map is has a lot in common with a good poster. It should include hierarchy taking into account the scale, unity, and contrast to visualize the story. - After, use this map to identify and prioritize opportunities, codify your touchpoint experiences, generate stories of future experiences, define cross-channel experience principles and model the ideal customer experience. NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 5

6 How to use the two frameworks together It s critical to dig deep when thinking through the customer journey: ensure it truly reflects customer centricity this is a more sustainable long-term marketing strategy 1. Once the customer journey map is complete, a purchase funnel can be superimposed to align the business objectives with the customer needs. Since the marketing funnel can be seen as a linear process to bring the customer from point A to point B, it can be used as one dimension in your customer journey. This will allow marketers to plot different scenarios the customers are in, the experience they receive for these scenarios, and at what stage these experiences manifest themselves along the marketing funnel. 1 NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 6

7 Merging the two frameworks also gives marketers a thoughtful way to better anticipate the effect their initiatives will have on the customer experience. By mapping customer intent and emotions to the moment they will encounter a specific message, the marketer will be equipped with context to the performance of their campaign. While KPIs answer the what, this context partially answers the why. Building a representation of the customer journey in conjunction with the marketing funnel will enhance both activities. Marketing initiatives will become more effective since they will be more directly aligned with the pain points, channels and intents of the customer. Furthermore, optimizing the channels in which the company operates in as well as opening new channels depending on what makes sense from the customer s perspective can lead to previously untapped opportunities. Additional considerations when merging the two frameworks: Subjective data points: Determining where the customer is in the marketing funnel is a bit of an art as well as a science. The visitor s intent is also somewhat subjective (in some situations, machine learning can only provide correlation and rarely causation, which means automated decisions are also somewhat of a best guess). Likewise, unless clearly communicated, the customer s needs and emotions can only be somewhat accurately inferred, but are not exactly known. You should strive to use your entire marketing department s input when building this framework to ensure everyone is aware of all assumptions used. Rate of change: In an online environment, things change very quickly. Many people browse the internet on more than one device. People have conversations about your brand on many social networks. The rate of change can make it very difficult to monitor intent signals of your users. You will need a thorough understanding of your analytics tools in order to record and interpret these signals accurately. NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 7

8 Consistent user experience: By plotting all of the interactions along with their outcomes on the same document, you can use this as a tool to better offer a consistent branding experience, and ensure your communication is consistent along the customer journey, so that it meets your marketing needs. Revisit often: Since there are so many variables in both parts of the framework, we recommend reworking the framework every few months to ensure your marketing initiatives are fully aligned with the customer experience you are hoping to offer. First, start by analyzing the outcome of your marketing funnel (what parts of your marketing campaigns were a success, and which parts need to be tweaked?), and look for problems in the customer experience. Then, act on this information to improve both your marketing funnel, as well as your customer experience. i NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper 8

9 About NextUser NextUser is an intelligent marketing platform that enables ecommerce marketers to deliver dynamic behavior-based messages both on your website, and across your full suite of marketing channels. A core competency of NextUser is enabling marketers to tailor the messages displayed for any user based on behaviors they exhibit, ensuring the marketing campaign is fully aligned with the desired customer experience. NextUser works with consumer oriented ecommerce companies to help them maximize the value of every user type. We ve helped companies identify and attack previously unknown revenue opportunities, as well as tapping into revenue opportunities that were always there, but out of reach given their marketing solutions. Prepared by Edmon Moren Head of Product & Marketing at NextUser CONTACT US - WE CAN HELP! Matthieu Dejardins Founder/CEO m@nextuser.com NextUser Platform Customer Journey White Paper Damon Campolo VP Business Development damon@nextuser.com 9