Step one in the stages of the customer journey’s is Creating a customer avatar that will give you clarity to move people through The stages of the customer journey but before we dive into that, let’s talk about an essential step called the customer avatar.
A customer avatar is your ideal customer, a well thought out generalized dream customer who will use your products or service.
By building out a customer avatar, you will know what digital marketing strategies to create and tailor for your customers. By designing the right Paid ads, Copywriting, Social media marketing, Content marketing, Email marketing, and Search marketing that speaks directly to your dream customer.
What to include in your customer avatar
- Demographics
Research the age, income, location, gender, marital status, employment, ethnicity, nationality, and political situation.
- Values & goals
List the values and goals that your customer avatar holds close to their hearts and what they’re trying to achieve.
- Pain points
What are the main things/reasons holding and distracting your avatar from achieving their goals?
- Information
Investigate what information your avatar is consuming, like news, blogs, books, and other resources that reference information.
- Objections
What would be a reason why your avatar did not choose you to buy your products and services.
The eight stages of the customer journey
Step 1: Generating awareness
Step 2: Driving engagement
Step 3: Building subscribers
Step 4: Increasing conversions
Step 5: Building excitement
Step 6: Making the core offer sale and more
Step 7: Developing brand advocates
Step 8: Growing Brand promoters
Step 1: Generating awareness
Every customer you encounter will have to be aware of the problem you will solve or the service they will love to use. The first step in the stages of the customer journey is turning cold prospects into a repeat customers. Building awareness is a significant part of digital marketing, and you can use these strategies to create awareness in your business.
- Advertising
- Search Marketing
- Social media marketing
Step 2: Driving engagement
It’s time to turn your cold prospects into prospects that engage with your content. You must capture attention and get them hooked! This will lead your brand as an authority in that industry when you have large amounts of engagement. These are great ways you can start building engagement in any business.
- Podcasts
- Blog posts
- Online Videos
- Forms
Step 3: Building subscribers
After getting your prospects to engage with your content. You must be capturing followers and more importantly email subscribers. Continue the conversation by email. Digital marketers love to build an email list because it is the cheapest and highest converting method of moving customers through the rest of the stages of the customer journey. This is why you should use email marketing to increase your skills in digital marketing. You should also collect subscribers and build social media connections on Twitter, Facebook, podcast, Pinterest, Tik Tok and many more.
Step 4: Increasing conversions
Increasing conversions by asking your followers and subscribers for a small amount of time or money. This is essential because it allows you to make low-cost products or services, webinars, and product demos.
Step 5: Building excitement
Starting to build off step number four and begin to create excitement. Your customer’s longevity depends on whether they have received value from the transaction. You could create a guide on How to use your product or service to be successful with your product or service. Building excitement is a step that you should take into account and is an essential part of succeeding in the stages of the customer journey. Some great ways to build up excitement.
- Lead magnet
- Ebook
- Infographic
- Survey
Step 6: Making the core offer sale and more
By this stage, you have already built up a relationship with your customer and your brand. You can offer more and more complex, expensive products and services. Your customer will have no problem being able to make these decisions. Some people make this their first step in the customer journey. This way has a low success rate when trying to turn a cold prospect into an immediate customer. Step six in the stages of the customer journey is the warm spot. Sell your product or service by selling your end result and the stage they see their selves in when they use it.
Step 7: Developing brand advocates
This is where you turn your brand up a notch. Make your costive their thoughts on their customer journey and the service that we offer to them via surveys and feed back. Your customers will gladly leave reviews on your site. They will become fans and go to bat for you and your brand. Ensure you have created a relationship with your leads from step one to this step. It will make the transitions effortless. You’ve done this by coming through on the promises that you have delivered.
Step 8: Growing brand promoters
This stage of the customer journey is when you become an authority in your niche! You will have a loyal following and customers lining up to spend money with you. They will make great reviews telling the world how great your product or service is. Your brand becomes a part of their life. The stages of the customer journey end at this step.
Final thoughts on the stages of the customer journey
The stages of the customer journey in 2023 have changed in recent years. These eight steps are vital for growing a successful brand and competing in an over saturated industry where everyone has options to choose from. You should have customers at every step of the customer journey at all times. So go out and create your own road map with the information that we went in detail to for your brand.
