ANALYSING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY TO SHAPE ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES
In Customer Journey: why is it so important? A strong digital marketing strategy requires a holistic perspective. One way to achieve this goal is to analyse the customers online journey, a structured methodology which can provide meaningful insights to reallocate the spending for any digital activities. By monitoring the customers behaviour over time, sophus3 can deliver crucial, holistic and strategic information. In fact, sophus3 have a unique capability to correlate multiple online touch points with bespoke benchmark analysis and ultimately help the brand to maximise both users experience and lead generation. This paper aims to explain the sophus3 approach and show how the cryptic customer journey is just a click away. 1
The Customer Journey in 5 Steps 1. Awareness 2. Familiarity 3. Consideration 4. Action 5. Loyalty Access the website Surf the website Check the Products Engage with the brand Promote and Return Picturing the Customer Journey Building a customer journey implies observing the user experience and representing that experience through its touchpoints. Hence the very first step to approach the Customer Journey is to picture it in consequential phases. At Sophus3, we believe it can be structured in five steps: Awareness, Familiarity, Consideration, Action and Loyalty. Each step identifies specific actions taken by the users who: access the website, get familiar with it, check the model pages and compare products, hopefully get engaged with your brand and potentially return or promote your brand throughout social media channels. Assessing the website performance at every stage of the customer journey is a need OEM s can no longer ignore to sustain competitive advantage. As each step is equally important, the different phases deserve specific analysis and ad-hoc reporting: from the more generic overview on the different sections to a more detailed assessment on leads generated and conversion rates. 2
Loyalty Action Consideration Awareness Familiarity Understanding each step Picturing the path How Sophus3 can help This first phase is meant to provide an overview of the brand online performance and which marketing channel and device is performing better in terms of traffic acquisition. This second level of analysis will help the brand to understand which portion of traffic is reaching the different sections and what is the drop-off rate. This will show the most popular products and which other brands and models users consider during their buying process. It will outline any major business threats or opportunities. SEO SEM Direct DEM Landing Page HP Microsite All models page Model A Services Model B Finance Promotions Model C Competitor 1 Model D Competitor 2 Sophus3 can support the OEM in measuring the effectiveness of your website to push the users down the funnel. We provide bespoke insights to help our clients maximise the customer s engagement through an optimised use of campaigns, top navigations, contact forms and touch points. The focus is on users who generate a lead and to ultimately understand what is the impact and ROI of your online activities on your business. Info/Contact Req Test Drive Req Dealer Locator Brochure Req The focus is to understand how users, who are already familiar with your brand, return to your website or promote it throughout the Social Media channels. Purchase Returning Visitor Social Media Sharing 3
Putting it into context If it is true that each customer journey is unique. However, it is not enough to analyse the most common customer journeys on their own. They need to be reviewed in context with other internal and external/competitive factors. Sophus3 s USP is based on our understanding of auto marketing and our experience in measuring and benchmarking digital marketing performance across a large number of auto brands and markets. Thanks to its unique industry database, sophus3 is able to report on the full customer journey, from the research phase to the final purchase. We look outside the brand website and cross track SEO and SEM data, The navigation path is performed on Social Media, Publishers and Dealers platforms with access to the main sections on Competitors websites. The Quote: Sophus3 tracking is really important to us. We use Sophus3 in an active way to identify the value of the lead and to understand if visitors are coming from competitors.. Petra Kurutz, Audi CRM Manager 4
Using data as actionable insights Collecting data is not enough. Many companies do not go beyond this. In fact, the data needs to be checked, analysed and turned into actionable insights. These insight reports can provide a complete picture of online activity and performance, which will help define the most appropriate digital strategy going forward. Thanks to its tracking codes, sophus3 are able to provide the OEMs with a holistic management report which can include: 1. Overview and Benchmark 2. Customer Journey 3. Brand / Model Consideration A traffic overview and Performance Benchmark Analysis to provide an overview on the brand websites comparing their results against the competitors and market trends. A Customer Journey Analysis of engaged and non-engaged users with a specific focus on lead generation and conversion across different phases and channels. A Brand and Model Consideration Tracking Analysis allow the brand to highlight which other brands and models are also visited. This analysis is crucial to define the percentage of traffic that the brand shares with it s competitors. 5
Linking the CRM through a Leads Back-Tracking System Sophus3 offer the opportunity to backtrack every hot prospect who filled in any type of online form which requires users to leave personal contact details. This way our clients are able to link online and CRM data. Why? Knowing the single paths of prospects will allow the brand to promptly react and call back the most engaged users and accurately retarget them. It will also allow dealers to be prepared to welcome them and to provide them with the right service and quotation. How? The implementation of an additional cookie within the brand s forms will automatically generate an anonymous UserID, which will be sent directly to the brand s CRM database, together with personal details allowing the match with the single user s navigation. See how you are performing against your competitors at a glance Dealer CRM Website 6
About sophus3 We are at the forefront of designing and applying technology and processes that monitor consumer behaviour in the online sector. Our key strength lies in our ability to identify and gather the right data and information, combined with advanced and objective analysis. We provide expert services and support to companies in areas where they don t always have in-house expertise. www.sophus3.com 7