A Brief Guide to the Customer Value Journey

The customer value journey is critical to an effective marketing strategy. It helps businesses convert target customers to highly-satisfied, loyal fans who can buy repeatedly and serve as brand promoters. 

Some majorly established companies including Disney, Amazon, and Apple, have been leveraging the power of the customer value journey to gain an edge against competitors, increase sales, and get more ROI from their customer acquisition expenditure. 

If your brand needs to make the most of the customer value journey, we’ve highlighted the eight steps to get you started. 

Eight Stages of the Customer Value Journey 

Think of the customer value journey like an intimate human relationship — you cannot propose on the first meet-up and expect a desirable response. Instead, you make an excellent first impression, build some rapport, establish a good friendship, and propose after you have founded a trusted relationship. 

Similarly, the customer value journey strategy works like a relationship. You determine customer pain points, reach out with a valuable solution, gain their trust, and convert them to loyal fans. The following are steps to guide you through the customer value journey process. 

Awareness  

A successful journey starts by letting customers know who you are and what you have to offer. You can create awareness by advertising your business through social media, blog posts, webinars, events, or radio. Get noticed by establishing a strong online presence, supporting causes that matter, hosting marketing events, and requesting online reviews from existing customers. 

Engage 

After garnering reasonable brand awareness, new customers will flock to your social media platforms or website in search of more information. At this point, you need to engage them, giving them a reason to maintain their interest in your brand. 

You can create helpful blog content around shared concerns or FAQ content that answers the most pressing customer issues. Besides blogs and FAQs, you can engage prospective customers through social media posts. With 4.26 billion people using social media, the chances are that millions of target customers will be looking to interact with your brand through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 

Subscribe 

Once the target audience begins engaging with your brand, get their contact information for personalized engagement. Entice them with incentives like free on-demand webinars, insightful newsletters, blog subscriptions, or premium content downloads. 

Convert 

In this stage, prospects finally become customers! You have earned their trust. They see value in their brand and decide to make their initial purchase.  

Excite 

This stage is where your business makes a real impact. At this point, you surprise the customers with additional freebies, bonuses, and other wins they were not expecting. The extra surprises give prospective customers a reason to buy the actual product or subscribe to a service you offer. 

Ascend 

Now that customers understand the value of your brand let them know about additional products, services, and add-ons. You can now upsell and cross-sell at this stage. 

Advocate 

At this stage, chances are that customers will be delighted with what you offer. That means they will proudly recommend and advocate for your brand.  

Promote 

The promote stage entails customers becoming brand promoters who endorse on social media, through word-of-mouth, or by publishing reviews across various platforms. In return, your company motivates your supporters with rewards and incentives for their marketing effort. Since you could deal with several advocates at a time, you'd want to establish an affiliate or referral program to help you reward each promoter accordingly. 

Let Mid-West Family Help You Create a Marketing Plan Driven by the Customer Value Journey 

When you’re ready to maximize your customer value journey strategy's success, team up with Mid-West Family, an established media partner for marketing campaigns. Our team will help draft a multi-channel marketing plan to enhance your brand visibility, generating more leads for your customer value journey strategy.