Understanding the Customer Journey: Mapping Your Digital Touchpoints
Digital customer journeys are highly relevant for businesses because buyers spend most of their time on mobile and computer screens. These platforms offer several touchpoints for interactions with the brand that can increase engagement and conversions. Businesses must understand every customer journey stage to send the right message through these touchpoints. It makes the customer experience more fulfilling and meaningful.
While SEO in Gold Coast is used for increasing traffic, conversions are generated by identifying the digital touchpoints and using them for customised marketing. It involves understanding customers’ expectations at each stage of their buying journey to create immersive experiences. So, here is how to map digital touchpoints throughout the customer journey. It can help brands to establish a strong bond with the buyers and enhance loyalty.
1. Understanding the Digital Customer Journey
The digital customer journey is the path followed by the buyer from the time they become aware of the products until they reach the stage where they become brand advocates. It goes through several stages: awareness, interest, conversion, retention and loyalty.
Businesses must interact with customers at each stage using the appropriate digital touchpoints to continue their movement towards advocacy. The marketing team must identify these interaction points to offer experiences that help in conversion and retention.
2. Touchpoints In the Awareness Stage
The awareness stage is the phase when the target audience discovers the products because they need them. For example, if a person needs a new backpack, they search for it and find a brand that they did not know existed. Since the buyer is unaware of the product at this stage, the business needs to use the touchpoints that are used for searching for products online.
These include creating compelling online ads for Google and Facebook, an immersive website and optimised landing pages embedded with keywords, social media profiles on leading platforms, online discussion forums and product review sites. Using influencer marketing and SEO in Gold Coast can help attract buyers at this stage.
3. Touchpoints in the Interest Stage
The interest stage is the second part of the customer journey, where the potential buyers consider purchasing the product after gaining more information about it. Businesses must create a careful strategy for attracting buyers at this stage because they can be tempted to buy competitor products. Thus, it is vital to inform and educate potential buyers about the unique selling proposition at this stage.
SEO in Gold Coast takes centre stage in this phase as the prospective buyers will visit the website for product information. Businesses can enhance engagement through informative blogs, emails customised for interest stage buyers, live chat on the website to answer questions, product demonstration videos, etc. The content must persuade the buyers to make the buying decision and gain a competitive edge.
4. Touchpoints in the Conversion Stage
The conversion stage is when the purchase takes place. It is the most significant phase for the business because it generates a return on investment. Thus, it must offer the best buying experience that can be achieved through a user-friendly and intuitive website. The site must offer several payment modes to make it easy for the customer to choose the preferred option.
The digital touchpoints at this stage are the e-commerce functionality that ensures the cart is not abandoned midway. The business must offer prompt customer support through email marketing, live chat and landing pages optimised for SEO in Gold Coast to provide assistance during the purchase and offer product recommendations for cross-selling. Many businesses offer first-time purchase discount codes to ensure conversions.
5. Touchpoints in the Retention Stage
The retention stage begins after the sale has been completed. The goal of the marketer at this stage is to stop customer churning and make them return for more purchases. It requires following up and providing the best after-sales service, which makes customers feel valued and recognised.
The engagement level can be achieved through digital touchpoints like email marketing to follow up and provide information about new launches and offers, social media messaging apps to connect, online feedback surveys on the website, mobile marketing, etc. Retention becomes easy if the business continues to provide the support and information it offered during the interest and conversion stages.
6. Touchpoints in the Loyalty Stage
The final stage of the customer journey is the loyalty phase. It is the stage where the buyer becomes a brand advocate and starts promoting it through word-of-mouth publicity. At this stage, the business can leverage customer loyalty to attract other buyers.
The touchpoints most useful in this stage are user-generated content on social media channels to be used as social proof and positive online reviews and ratings on different platforms. It is essential to show gratitude to loyal buyers for their efforts by sending thank you emails, loyalty program memberships and asking for referrals in exchange for discount coupons.
Wrapping Up
Digital customer journeys differ from traditional journeys because they had limited scope for interaction between buyers and sellers. However, social media and other digital touchpoints have changed the game and made it easy to customise marketing efforts.
