In today’s journey, digital engagement means that businesses can develop and sustain connections with their consumers at breakneck speed, with automation and customisation that can help drive up sales.
You can engage your audience with paid or organic advertisements, like blog posts, search engines, articles and images, or with personalised videos, to sell your products to your consumers. Rocketwheel makes sticky videos that businesses can use to sell their products with conviction.
What Is a Consumer Decision Journey?
Throughout the consumer decision journey, the brand must be honest, helpful, and upfront with its consumers, whether they are current or new. You can’t assume that once a consumer buys something, they’ll never consider another brand. Instead of letting people become prospective customers “by happenstance,” you must be able to adopt an informed approach. So what is this customer journey, exactly?
The McKinsey model, commonly known as the Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ), outlines how customers make purchase decisions. It’s a framework that captures the whole buying process of consumers and assesses how they make purchasing decisions in ways that marketers may influence.
The stages of a consumer decision journey include
Awareness:
This could mean an advertisement or blog post that suddenly brings potential clients to become aware either of your brand and product/service, or of their need for the product/service.
Consideration:
This is when an individual is considering a purchase, and they reflect on the brands they immediately think of due to the previously mentioned brand awareness.
Evaluation:
At this stage, the potential consumer is doing their research, looking through multiple sources, reading reviews, and evaluating which is the best option for them
Purchase:
Once the individual has evaluated their options, they make an informed decision and purchase your product
Continuous exposure:
This comes after the purchase of your product. Your consumer continues to be exposed to your brand and your products, and is repeatedly made aware of either their past purchase or potential options for their next purchase
Loyalty loop:
The loyalty of your consumer then comes down to whether or not they were satisfied with your product. Consumers that were both satisfied and continually exposed to your product are more likely to become loyal customers and make a purchase from your business again.
How To Improve Their Journey
Know Your Consumers
You must be able to recognise your consumers and understand what drives them to buy from you. You may achieve this by conducting an in-depth survey or by looking at your customers’ previous interactions with your brand.
Knowing your customers is critical in a marketing plan because it allows you to assist them in their decision-making process and help them understand what they require and why it should come from your company.
You should not only know your consumer, but also their journey. Learn about your consumers and you’ll be capable of understanding their journey; who they are, what they require, where they’re looking, and so on.
Tailor Messaging
One big way of making the consumer decision journey better is by creating a message that addresses vulnerabilities, either of the company itself or the consumers. A general message that cuts through all stages is not enough. New and personalised messaging is a requirement at this point to win your consumer’s trust and offer them the best opportunities.
By that, it means you can personalise your message to identify at what stage your consumers get stuck, or hesitate to continue their decision journey.
For example, for an electronics company, consumers are more likely to hesitate at two stages; the consideration stage, or the evaluation stage.
Paying attention to which stage you can potentially lose your customers can help send relevant offers and tailored messages to them, to keep them going on their decision journey cycle.
Make Smart Investments
A company must make the right investments at the right places. This could either mean investing capital in building awareness, or in using the right platforms to advertise your products and services.
The best space to currently advertise your brand is social media. Investing in paid digital marketing is of utmost importance for any upcoming brands and companies that want to establish a connection with their consumers, and subtly help guide them better through their consumer decision journey.
Summing It Up
There are lots of different ways in which you can improve your consumer’s decision journey, and get them to understand why your products and services are their best choice.
The buyer’s decision journey begins even before they are aware, so it’s critical to establish your brand’s presence in the community and through several different channels right from the start of their journey.
