Don’t give your customers what they want. Give them what they need.

“Get closer than ever to your customer. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”

Whatever your opinion about Steve Jobs, we can probably agree on this: He was a genius when it came to figuring out what customers need. And that last word is really important. Steve wasn’t as worried about what customers want—after all, the general public can be pretty irrational when it comes to the stuff they buy. So he gave people what they needed.  

That takes a nuanced understanding of, well…your people.. Without that, your brand will never come off as authentic or relatable. So you’ve got to get what makes people tick. Wouldn’t it be great if you could really and truly get to know your audience with questions like:

You get the idea.

Going beyond surface level demographics (stuff like age, education level, location, etc.) with these kinds of questions help you deeply understand your people. And whether it’s a third arm to carry more groceries or a text reminder for a dental appointment, the answers give you the first clues into what they need. But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), you can’t hire a thousand interns to follow strangers around asking a zillion questions about their lives, preferences—and all the potential touchpoints with your brand. That would be expensive and weird.

There’s a better way to target an audience—and really get to know them.  

A customer journey is a visual representation of how people perceive and interact with your brand as they progress through the stages of marketing: awareness, engagement/consideration, conversion, retention, advocacy. While it highlights positive interactions, it also shows your customers’ (and potential customers’) pain points. These could be anything from a delayed order to a late email response to a complicated buying process. 

There are many different customer journey models, and just as many ways to go about creating them. But generally speaking, every customer journey model has two key parts – buyer personas and journey maps

Buyer personas—when done the right way—help you target an audience by giving you an accurate representation of the people you’re trying to reach. There are many buyer persona examples, but yours should include the same information, ranging from basic demographic things to answers about much more nuanced questions—including the kind of stuff alluded to in the list above. In some persona exercises, it can be helpful to write a short narrative giving insight into daily habits and tendencies. You can create visual identities for buyer personas—and even their families—as well. Some models encourage you to give your personas names. We’re barely scratching the surface here of what you can do when creating personas to make them realistic, but check out the example below to get a better idea of what one might look like.

Your buyer personas will only be as good as the research that backs them up. You need to do extensive target audience analysis—and that starts with data. But where does that data come from?

Unsolicited sources. This refers to data you gather from people without directly asking them for it. It could be information about how they interact on your website: time spent on the site, bounce rate, page views, etc. Or it could be data related to how often and when they make purchasing decisions. You could look at whether they’re reading the newsletter emails you’re sending—and for how long. Unsolicited data sources are almost endless, and can provide crucial insights.

Direct interaction with customers. This includes everything from focus groups to customer surveys to documentation of interactions with employees at your company. Much of this research can be anecdotal—and that can be valuable, especially in developing a narrative when creating customer personas.  

Once you’ve built buyer personas, it’s time to map out their customer journeys. This is where it’s crucial to have a detailed understanding of all the potential touchpoints and communications your customer might encounter—everything from a billboard to your website to a word-of-mouth conversation with a buddy at the gym. Some of your buyer personas may start with a strong familiarity with your brand while others may have never heard of it. The goal is to create a theoretical journey that details how each persona might discover, learn about, interact with, and ultimately become a customer of your brand. And to document their emotional state along the way. You can see for yourself what an example of that might look like below. 

A truly successful customer journey doesn’t end with a purchase. It creates a lifelong advocate—someone who does the hard work of telling others how great your brand is. But of course, not everyone who interacts with your brand will get there. In fact, most won’t—and if most of your journey maps end in a lifelong brand advocate when you’re done with the exercise, you’re not being realistic.

The stages of a customer journey can typically be translated into five phases:

Awareness. This is your customer’s first exposure to your brand or product. It’s a chance to make an initial impression and educate them about what you stand for.   

Engagement/Consideration. This stage is your first chance to interact with your customer. It’s where they’re thinking about what they want to do, and likely comparing your product or service to similar offerings. And it’s your opportunity to convince them you’re the right choice.

Conversion. Actually making a purchase is a huge step in building a lifelong customer. There are plenty of ways to incentivize a first purchase, which can include a discounted rate, free trial, or helpful demonstration.  

Retention. Now it’s important to show your customer why they should keep coming back, and why you have lasting value. Keep in mind: Retaining a customer is much more expensive than finding a new one.

Loyalty/Advocacy. This is what it’s all about. A satisfied customer will tell others about their good experience, driving those people to the awareness stage to start a whole new journey.  

In short: To help plan your business strategy and customer relationship model going forward by understanding consumer behaviors. If your journey maps are accurate—and totally transparent about potential pain points and hangups—you’ll quickly get insight into how to streamline and improve your customers’ experience. And how to design new experiences that are exactly what they want. You can even use buyer personas and customer journey maps to identify and go after an entirely new base of customers in addition to helping retain the ones you already have.

There’s more utility, yet. Some organizations have lots of partners/vendors or subsidiaries within the company. Understanding the customer journey can help all of these partners get on the same page while giving them a better understanding of the people they serve. This builds unity as the organization works collectively toward a bigger goal.

Just about any organization that wants to grow and create more long-term customers. But the experience that’s created—depending on your industry—can be very different.

For example, a customer journey map for a healthcare network might include touchpoints like YouTube preroll spots, a sponsorship sign at the local fair, online scheduling portals, front-desk interactions, in-person doctors’ appointments, etc. In other words, the cohesive brand experience told as a linear story. As you might guess, doing the same thing for an audiobook subscription company would result in totally different—but equally valuable—journey maps.  

The last part of what Steve Jobs said: “…tell (your customers) what they need well before they realize it themselves” is where the true power of doing a customer journey exercise lies—and the ultimate goal. One needs to look no further than the iPhone to understand the incredible impact reaching that goal can have.

This primer on customer journeys is just a starting point—and you probably want to know more. We’re going to answer all of your questions about steps of a customer journey, the customer journey cycle, target audience types, and more as we continue to create additional insights on these topics. But if you don’t want to wait for those…let’s jump on a call to talk about your customers’ journey today.