Make the most out of your efforts when reaching out by using the Customer ProfitAbility Journey process.

You know who your customers are, perhaps you have been through the process of identifying your best potential customers by using our Customer Avatar Exploration sheet.

Knowing your audience is key to focusing your effort and engaging the right people.

If you’d like to know more about drilling down into your best potential customer base using the Client Avatar Journey, then you can read our blog here.  

Now you know who they are the next step is to have a think about how you want to engage.

How do you go about enticing people to trust you in the first place and then to be more engaged, to purchase, to be a brand ambassador and tell their friends and family about your amazing products and services and to encourage their friends to engage with you too?

Well the great news is there is a process that you can use, and that’s called the Customer ProfitAbility Journey.

What is a Client ProfitAbility Journey?

A Client ProfitAbility Journey is essentially a map that visualises the customer journey from the time before they have even heard about you, right through to becoming a loyal fan of yours. It is also called the customer journey, buyer journey or user journey. It helps you visualise the journey that your customer will take in order to develop a deeper understanding of your brand and to walk them through the different stages of your relationship with them across all of your touchpoints. Whether your customers interact with you via social media, email, livechat or other channels.

By writing out the Client ProfitAbility Journey, it helps small to large business owners to visually see how your prospects are developing trust with your brand and it helps ensure no customer slips through the cracks.

It doesn’t matter if your selling your items B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business), this process helps leaders gain insights into common customer pain points which in turn will allow them to better optimise and personalise the customer experience.

The Client ProfitAbility Journey Map

Here it is.

You can see there’s a straightforward progression from box to box that will lead you through the journey.

There are also opportunities to redirect clients back through the process if they get to a point and just don’t feel ready to commit yet, or perhaps they need more time to develop a deeper understanding of how your brand can help them to achieve their goals … because at the end of the day, we are here to solve a particular issue that they are experiencing at the time. This is what the lighter arrows represent.

The journey helps you to engage with people, and build a loyal customer base.

The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%

The probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5% to 20%.

Source: https://www.markinblog.com/customer-loyalty-retention-statistics

The Client ProfitAbility Journey Breakdown

Below I’ll dive into what each section is talking about so that you can get the most out of following though the journey.

This section will run you through each box on the diagram and give insights into what each section is talking about and why it is relevant.

The other thing to note is you should run this process with each of your individual products or services (and each of your lead magnets and trip wires … but we’ll get to that advanced level other time!). Alternatively, if you are just starting out or you are really short on time, you can use it for your whole business.

So let’s get started

Marketing

A potential client discovers you in these locations for this particular marketing piece or informative piece.
Examples include on social media, Facebook ads, word of mouth, google search, networking event, podcast.

Remember when marketing having your client avatar in mind will get you better results and more responses. Knowing who you are talking to will influence the style of your branding and copy. It will also help define audience parameters such as age, gender, location and interests, crucial information to use for effective advertising.

If you are working on an individual product or service this area is for working out where people have exposure to this specific thing.

Potential Client

A potential client is encouraged to learn more about who you are and what you do. They demonstrate this by looking at things YOU own.

Examples include checking out your website, going to a landing page, reading the blog, giving you their email address or contact details.

Again, a great example where getting the tone of your message right is so important when communicating out to your audience.

Lead magnet

The potential client is gifted or purchases something of very low cost, however highly valued.

This lead magnet MUST solve a pain point that the potential client is experiencing and it MUST show your expertise in this area of their interest.

Examples can include a whole range of things. Perhaps a downloadable info pack, a form people can download and use, a cheat sheet, or some sort of a recipe (cooking / instructions for making something). The possibilities are endless.

You want to give people a taste of what you have on offer in such a way they both feel satisfied with what you’ve given them AND want more.

Trip wire

The potential client makes a commitment to you. This can be either by paying for a higher low/medium cost item, or a commitment of their time – which is extremely valuable. Examples include attending a webinar, event, consultation, demo or making a purchase.

This follows on naturally from the lead magnet mentioned in the last point. If your lead magnet is of genuine value, you are not just giving something away, but also gaining trust.

Often a lead magnet will contain some sort of soft upsell. Something along the lines of “If you liked this and want more, for just $x you can have/download/attend X. Follow this link or Get in touch to find out more, or purchase now”

Quite often this upsell isn’t directly within the lead magnet, but mentioned in a follow up email.

Quick wins

The potential client MUST get value from the Trip Wire transaction and they must acknowledge in some way that they have receive great value from it. Examples include telling you, giving you a testimonial or becoming a True Client.

People sometimes get embarrassed about marketing, feeling that it’s somehow intrusive or coercive. A better way of looking at this is your product / service is awesome, but people just don’t know about it yet.

Using marketing to reach out is in fact letting people know about something they were previously unaware of; you are in fact helping them connect a need with a solution.

And this is why it is so important that whatever you give away or upsell MUST have value in order to keep people engaged and move through to the next step.

True client

I’ll break this up into the sections, the core offer, the profit maximiser and the upsell offer

Core Offer – The potential client becomes a True Client once they have signed up to your Core Offer.

Examples include buying the product or service you have been marketing to them.

The tripwire mentioned earlier may be your main product, but leading with a free or smaller item engenders trust and mitigates any potential resistance to a big sale.

Think about it. If you go in first with an offer on your $1000 item, well, that ffeels like a lot to commit to.

If however people have had something free, purchased a couple of lower value items and are happy with what they have received, it makes selling the big ticket item a lot easier as what you have done is built trust, desire and expectation.

There is an old but very effective sales trick called the ‘yes set’

Once people have been given the change to say yes two or three times, they are more likely to say yes to your core questions than they would have been with no lead up.

“I noticed you looking at our selection of loafers, do you like wearing loafers?” – YES
“Were you able to find what you were looking for?”- YES
“Does the pair you’re trying on now feel comfortable?” YES
“Are you ready to buy them?”….. YES

This is essentially what we are doing with the process up until this point.

Profit Maximiser – The client is happy to immediately bundle another item/s to increase the value they receive.

With trust comes the ability to make suggestions that will be accepted without an immediate resistance response.

People are on-board at this point and believe in the products / services that you have available. Any suggestion you may make will most likely be considered as helpful advice as opposed to a hard sell.

I’m sure you’ll recognize the pattern… Something like…

“This belt would match those shoes perfectly, and if you buy them together now, I’ll be able to give you x% off”

Some of the digital marketing tools when it comes to e-commerce will allow you to specify “If they put x in their basket, offer them Y at checkout”

Upsell Offer #1 – The client is happy to add on another item to value to their initial Core Offer, within a short time frame following their initial agreement to the Core Offer.

Similar to the above but with a timeframe. Once they have received your item and had the chance to find out it is perfect for them, helpfully give them the opportunity to purchase something else they would enjoy too.

This does not negate the profit maximiser step above. They may well have purchased given your suggestion, in which case they may be even ore open to a follow up offer.

Email automation is perfect for this style of upselling.

Brand Fan

The True Client loves what you have done for them, or the item/s they have purchased. They acknowledge this by either giving you a testimonial/online review or taking part in your aftercare program or going down a return path for further products.

Examples are Google review, Facebook review, video or written testimonial or actively participating in learning how to look after their purchase (leading to further cross-selling / CPJ’s)

This is where people start to spread the love.

It’s awesome having a customer who buys from you and enjoys your purchase. It’s pure gold if they then leave a review that lets other people know all about the positive experience they have had.

Where possible offer people the opportunity to give their feedback.

Loyalist

A Brand Fan turns into a Loyalist when they either commence the Journey for another product/service, or they actively and regularly find opportunities to promote your business to their friends, family and peers.

If people become loyalists, they have in effect become active brand fans. These are people who will promote and your business far and wide. There is no better marketing tool than the recommendation of a satisfied customer.  

Summary – The customer journey

In effect this is all about selling. You are after all running a business, and the bottom line is making sales and generating profit.

That may feel a little cold, and put that way I suppose it is, but it is also about more.

The truth is there is more to it than dollars in the bank.

It’s also about supplying something of value to people, matching the need they have with the products you offer, and making people happy.

Then, and only then, will people want to progress to the phase where they become loyalists, and quite probably customers for life.

There is no greater satisfaction than creating something, reaching out and seeing that thing being enjoyed, and effective marketing is crucial to making sure your message is heard, and people get the chance to get to know ou, your brand and your products.

Find our more

I hope you have found this article interesting, enjoyable, and informative.

Marketing is a vast topic, but with an understanding of the customer journey you have all you need to understand how supplying value and taking certain steps can help people discover, enjoy, and talk about what it is you have to offer.

colIf you’d like to get in touch and discuss the subject more, or find out more about how we can help you implement the client journey into your sales funnels, please use the button below to get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.