From Awareness to Advocate, Refining the Customer Journey- Part One

The customer journey can be a long one. It’s your job to be the guide.

 

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” -Jeff Bezos

When most companies look at the customer journey, the experience is often aggregated into silos, as individual steps, which while connected, are typically disparate, not thought out, designed or implemented in a fluid manner. While addressing each need as individual is the logical way to approach the journey, it misses the mark on the larger picture at play, your customers end-to-end experience.

A great way to start looking at your customer journey is through multi-step methodology which properly approaches each stage while keeping a holistic frame of thought towards the entire process.  While there are several interpretations of this journey, the bulk of it can be boiled-down into five parts.

  1. Awareness
  2. Research & Consideration
  3. Evaluation and Decision Making
  4. Repeat Customers
  5. Awakening Dormant Buyers

In part one we will take a deep-dive into parts one through three. Walking you through your customer’s journey from awareness to initial sale.  In a few weeks we will examine parts four and five, repeat customers and awakening those dormant buyers.

Awareness

The customer first becomes aware of your product or brand.

This stage of the customer journey is characterized heavily by the exploratory process.  Your future customer is in the beginning stages of the purchase path. 

In today’s market, and the one which ClickBank primarily operates, it is generally marked by the acquisition of a new email address into your list through some type of opt-in form. Rather than immediately attempting to market to this new lead, use this opportunity to nurture and educate. More on this in the next step.

 

Email-Based Attribution

ClickBank’s email-based attribution is the perfect way to properly attribute a sale to an affiliate on the initial awareness touchpoint- from up to 60 days after the email address was provided.  This means if a customer’s email address has been passed to ClickBank and associated with an affiliate and the customer purchases your products and uses the specified email address, the specified affiliate receives a commission.  Happy customer, happy affiliate.  Learn more about email-based affiliate attribution right here.

Customer Research & Consideration

The customer researches and evaluates their options.

At this stage in the journey the customer has identified their need and is beginning to weigh their options. Gone are the days when a simple product description or user submitted reviews will do the trick and tilt your iffy customer into a happy paying customer.  Instead, it’s time to leverage one of the many perks of modern marketing technology; a drip campaign which nurtures those potential buyers.

A recent Forrester study, highlighted a curious trend. Internet marketers who nurtured new leads saw an average 20% uptick in sales versus those who were not given some type of welcome series or drip campaign.

Setting up a drip campaign can be a little bit of leg work upfront, but pays off big time in the end.  Many popular email service providers offer great solutions right within their platform.  For some great tips on how to set up a successful drip campaign which will continue to nurture those leads you’ve just brought in check out Wishpond’s comprehensive guide right here.

When potential customers start their research process the majority of the decision making process is going to be about how your product is marketed to them.  Does your sales funnel encourage customers to take action? Are you having to use a complicated and wide range of software and programs to piece together a solution which works for your business?

Partner with the performance marketing platform which has withheld the test of time.  With robust feature sets, a strong and stable platform and an industry-leading affiliate network, ClickBank has all the bells and whistles you’ll need to secure the “wow” factor and market to customers from all around the world.

Evaluation and Decision

Here we are.  Your lead is at the final stage of the buying portion of the journey.  They properly understand the benefit of your product(s) and are moments away from clicking “buy”.  Have you done everything to encourage a sale and turn your lead into profit?  Often, this stage requires a more personalized touch.  Zig Ziglar once stated there are only 4 reasons why a customer won’t buy from you:

  • No need
  • No money
  • They are not in a hurry
  • They have no trust

While the first three are difficult to address, the fourth is certainly not.  To increase trust and tip the scales to a purchase consider:

  • Adding testimonials, citations and honest reviews. Linking to evidence builds consumer confidence.
  • Don’t shy away from providing customer support numbers or email addresses BEFORE the purchase. Sometimes a quick email or conversation on the phone is the only necessary extra step consumers need to feel confident in their purchase.
  • Convey honesty and trustworthiness through professionalism. Your site’s aesthetics are key to conversions. Double and triple check typography, graphics and copy. Unprofessional websites murder any shred of trust you’ve built via other means.

Lucky for you, ClickBank supports a wide range of conversion-boosting tools to help you land your sales.  Our advanced customer order forms lets you take direct control of your payment page.  Implement your branding via fonts, colors, images and more to create a seamless shopping experience.  Learn more about advanced custom order form right here.

ClickBank also supports an industry leading no questions asked 60-day money back refund policy. You may be thinking, “Wait! I don’t want my customers to refund their product!” Good news for you, this is rarely the case.  Clearly stating ClickBank’s refund policy at many stages in your sales funnel helps build consumer confidence in your product. Get more info about our refund policy here.

Ready to Learn More?

In the next installment, we will dive deeper into the last two steps of the customer journey where we will learn how to turn your first-time buyer into a repeat customer and deliver some great tips and tricks to awakening those dormant leads you collected during the first step.

Want to accelerate your learning? We recommend Spark, the only ClickBank-endorsed education platform on the web.