Understanding the Golden Customer Journey
People get caught up thinking the customer journey is a straight line or a tidy, step-by-step path. It's never that simple, I think - not even for the most basic product or service. Some marketers seem to picture a neat sequence of phases where customers advance in predictable ways, but that's not how people actually behave online. The golden customer journey, for most brands with any kind of modern reach, is presumably circuitous and non-linear, more like a meandering walk than an escalator.
And rather than being one-size-fits-all, it splits into dozens of forks - every micro segment's journey looks different. Sometimes it runs backwards too, with people revisiting parts they've been through earlier because they're seeking new or updated information. But digital gives us more visibility than ever before.
A touchpoint here, an interaction there - we can see so much about how people engage with products and brands. It's illuminating to observe how the customer journey evolves in real time as customer behaviours and expectations shift. I'll admit it's a bit overwhelming sometimes.
All this complexity can throw off even experienced marketers. There are so many moving parts and changing needs, that it's vital to keep listening to your customers (instead of dictating what their journey should be). It's important to always remember: You're guiding the journey, not controlling it - your influence is only as strong as your ability to give customers what they want, when they want it. Mapping the customer journey is challenging - but rewarding too.
Every conversation with a brand counts towards the quality and success of these journeys. And with drip marketing moves designed to align with each step along the way, you can begin guiding those conversations towards more meaningful interactions and deeper connections with your audience.
The Power of Drip Marketing
I Think people seem to think drip marketing is about selling non-stop. It isnât. Bombarding inboxes with promos is desperate, quite frankly. Instead, drip campaigns serve as a reminder.
They allow brands to have their customers say, âIâm still here. Buy from me. â but less in-your-face and more, âHey, Iâve missed you. How have you been.
â. And with a personal touch - which always helps.
There appears to be a fine line between pushing out too many emails and providing too little information. Or being overbearing and not being assertive enough. So one needs to tread carefully. But drip marketing can help with that - helping brands send out the right content at the right time to enhance customer experiences as they move through sales funnels.
With this enhanced experience, customers feel like brands care about them and cater to their wants and needs (and who doesnât want that. ).
Crafting Targeted Content for Each Stage
One thing I see people get wrong - I think - with their drip campaigns is that they send too many emails about themselves and not enough content that serves the customerâs journey. What they need to realise is that customers donât always care about how great your brand is or how fast you can deliver. They do, however, care about how you can solve their current issues and needs, whether itâs advice, tips or tutorials.
The reality with sending targeted emails during each stage of the journey is that they have to resonate with the customer. If it doesnât, thereâs a high chance it goes unread or worse - straight into the trash. For example, new subscribers who are only just getting to know your brand might like an email thatâs educational, while hot leads who are ready to buy might want to see discounts or promotional offers. It does get complicated if you sell different products or services with different audiences.
More or less. Not all content will fit everyone. But what you can do is experiment and test which emails work best for which audience and journey stage so you can better segment your list and target your content accordingly. No matter what stage the customer is at, brands should aim to create content thatâs personalised to them.
That means talking about how customers can get value out of using the product or service and its features versus simply writing about the product itself. Customers in the consideration stage should also receive emails that make a compelling case for why they should buy from you over a competitor but without making it too salesy or pushy.
Timing is Everything: Scheduling Your Drips
Itâs a common error to simply drip out emails at regular intervals. Time-bound or not. Thatâs what most people get wrong. Relying on a calendar to define your customer journey rather than actual cues from your customers.
A great way to get started is to use your sign-up form as your cue for the beginning of a potential customer journey. Once your potential customer interacts with your forms, you have two kinds of signals - first, a reliable data point, and second, implicit information about what they want to hear about. You could even go one step further and ask them what kind of content theyâre looking for. Or if youâre short on time, you could just ask them how often theyâd like to hear from you.
When all is said and done, it can be difficult to get this right the first time. The hard truth is that youâre going to have trial and error your way into the right schedules - often learning more about yourself as a brand along the way. This might seem like a lot to undertake but good news is, all platforms today make it incredibly easy for you to analyse your analytics.
It may sound like something marketers say all the time but this might actually be one instance where you would benefit from A/B testing different strategies with different segments before deciding what works best for you.
Measuring Success: Key Metrics to Track
People often get too obsessed with open rates. Itâs the first thing marketing platforms measure, so itâs become what marketers â and even business owners â look for when they want to measure how well a campaign did. But the truth is, a lot of people âopenâ emails without actually reading them, or worse, might accidentally click on it while scrolling and immediately delete it without getting past the subject line.
In reality, it should never be the only metric you look at to measure drip marketing success. Click-through rates are a much better measure as they indicate your audienceâs interest in learning more about whatever it is youâre saying. Theyâre spending time on what youâre offering, considering, and maybe even buying.
So yes, I think thereâs a lot of value in tracking click-through rates, but they too are slightly not enough for complete evaluation. Tracking conversion rates can help quantify what the result of each journey step looks like in concrete terms. You can use these numbers to compare the success of one campaign against another and make tactical adjustments so that your future campaigns do even better. It does get tricky if you offer several products or services but with more metrics in place, youâll have greater clarity into whatâs working and what isnât.
Of course, all this becomes quite difficult to effectively keep track of when running campaigns across various platforms like email, SMS, social media, etc. This is where reporting dashboards come in handy as they provide a visual summary that makes sense to all stakeholders and allows you to see correlations between different metrics that otherwise wouldâve been hard to spot. Plus side. Most drip marketing software has pretty great dashboard features now so it takes a lot less effort than before.
Case Studies: Successful Drip Marketing Campaigns
It seems like strikes me as many people assume that drip marketing is a one-size-fits-all approach with an array of automated emails. Set it up and forget about it, they think, while the emails do their thing and lead to more conversions and better relationships. But itâs more nuanced than that.
Successful campaigns donât just happen by accident - they are rarely meticulously designed and curated. For example, insurance companies leverage drip campaigns with a conversational approach to connect with prospects. The content is tailored for people who want to buy car insurance or are simply exploring their options. The companies gently nudge leads down the sales funnel until theyâre ready to make a purchase.
If thereâs one thing that insurance policies have taught us, itâs that people need some time before making a final decision (if at all). But with informative email drip campaigns, you can increase your chances. It seems like another good example of successful drip campaigns is online education platforms. These companies want students to sign up for their platforms and then complete the courses as well.
It seems like their communication is engaging but also focuses on reactivation with gamification elements to keep students motivated and engaged through the course journey. It all comes down to designing an experience for your audience based on their buyer persona and product lifecycle. More or less.
Drip marketing is great at identifying different stages in the buyerâs journey to make sure youâre sending out relevant content that adds value every time your customers interact with your business.