The customer journey: How to make your customer purchase and order?

What does the customer journey consist of?

The customer journey is something every customer goes through. The journey for B2C consists of five phases: awareness, consideration, purchase, upsell, and ambassador. Below you will read how your customer moves through the entire customer journey.

Step 1: The customer journey - awareness phase

Every customer journey begins with awareness. In this phase, the customer realizes they have a problem that they need to find a solution for.

How do you tap into this phase with a webshop? By knowing what is going on with the customer, researching what they need, and formulating the problem for the customer. Once you have identified the problem, you can offer the solution.

We draw a comparison with the movie Wolf of Wallstreet. The main character, Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), is looking for salespeople. He holds out a pen to the applicants and gives them a simple task: "Sell me this pen." While one applicant lists all the benefits of the pen, another takes a different approach. He takes the pen and asks Belfort to write down his name. Belfort can't do that since he has given the pen to the seller. He creates awareness of Belfort's problem and offers him the solution: the pen.

Back to reality. What does creating a problem and offering the solution look like? For example: someone has back pain. They navigate to Google and type in their problem: "Why do I have back pain after waking up?" It soon becomes clear that the mattress is causing the back pain. The search term shifts to finding a new mattress.

Generating awareness

It is now your task as a marketer to generate awareness around your product. The content should focus on the pain points of the potential buyer and not specifically on the product or brand itself.

The awareness phase is almost complete. The customer has done research on the internet and discovered their problem. The search terms the customer uses are becoming increasingly specific to what they are looking for. Returning to the earlier example, the search term shifts from back pain to "The best mattress for side sleepers." Thanks to the abundance of information, they now prioritize certain search results. Webshops that do not answer their question are eliminated. A few webshops remain.

At this stage, the customer is not yet convinced to make a purchase, but their information needs have changed. They are mainly looking for specific content such as tutorials or information about the webshop, such as delivery information, reviews, and the return policy. A shift occurs: the customer moves from the awareness phase to the consideration phase.

Step 2: The customer journey - consideration phase

There are still a few webshops left offering the solution to the problem: a new mattress for side sleepers. The potential customer returns to Google, looking for more information. This is the phase of the customer journey in which they start comparing products. Which product best fits the pain point?

Influencing the consideration

The challenge in this phase is to provide information that helps the potential customer make a choice. In the case of a mattress, this could be a warranty period. How long can they "try it out"? And what if they are not satisfied, how can they return the mattress? What do others think of your product and service? At the end of the consideration phase, the customer also looks for ways to justify the purchase.

By creating and distributing content that answers all possible questions about your product, you can influence the customer in their consideration.

Step 3: The customer journey - the purchase

In the third phase, the customer has done enough research. All options have been considered, and your webshop comes out on top. Only a subpar product page or a malfunctioning order process can cause the purchase to fail.

The flag can be raised once the customer has placed an order. But you're not done yet. Aftercare is just as important as attracting the customer. Keep them informed about the status of the order. Send a confirmation, share information about the delivery, and send instructions for the maintenance (or installation) of the purchased product. The more effort you put into showing that your webshop is reliable, the greater the chance that this customer will return.

Step 4: The customer journey - upsell

After completing the order, you don't have to lose contact. According to the GDPR, you may contact customers following their purchase (unless they opt out of email communication). In phase four, you get the opportunity to bring the customer back.

A big advantage is that the customer already knows your webshop. They have gone through the entire order process and know what to expect. Only a little push in the right direction is needed to place a new order. But how do you give such a push? A few examples:

• Share related products based on the previously purchased product;
• Give a discount code for the next order;
• Ask for a review in exchange for a discount code.

Prevent a new customer from being a one-time customer. Read more about bringing visitors back to the webshop.

But what about webshops that sell products with a long lifespan that you only buy once, like a mattress? How do you get customers to return? Although a direct repeat purchase or upsell in such a case is unlikely, the steps after the purchase are even more important. Leave a good impression, and the customer will think of your webshop again next time. If not for themselves, then for friends, acquaintances, or colleagues. And that free word-of-mouth advertising is the most valuable marketing you could wish for.

Step 5: The customer journey - ambassador

In the final phase of the customer journey, the customer has made multiple purchases from you. It is still uncertain whether they will continue to do so. It is now up to the marketer to turn the returning customer into an ambassador. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Through loyalty programs;
• Through an online community;
• Through email campaigns.

By sharing the right content in the ambassador phase, you turn one-time customers into returning fans.

The e-commerce customer journey and marketing automation

With marketing automation, you perfectly respond to every phase of the customer journey. Thanks to the ability to segment customers, you recognize which phase each customer is in. Setting up campaigns, spread across different channels, is then a piece of cake.

Within Reloadify, you will find twelve standard customer segments, with all your customers divided over the customer journey. These segments are compiled based on RFM and always accurate thanks to A.I. Curious about how this feature will generate more revenue for your webshop? Try Reloadify for free or schedule a demo.