Jeson Clarke

Understanding the Importance of the Customer Journey

It would be nice if sales were simple. Customer A is looking for a product, company B sells the product and customer A buys the product. Simple.

The thing is, sales are rarely this simple, and most customers take a journey before arriving at a purchase decision. In sales and marketing, this is the point of conversion.

To reach this point, a customer may have gone through several steps along their journey, each one providing unique encouragement to convert. Some start their journey through an ad, some start a journey through an online search, and others start their journeys by interacting with a company on social media.

The problem for sales and marketing professionals in determining which one of those points along the journey should receive the attribution for the sale. Which touch point along the way was the thing that led to the customer deciding to buy?

Looking at Attribution Models

The examination of these touch points is done through what is known as a marketing attribution model. Essentially, a marketing attribution model is what is used to determine which point in a customer's journey can receive the most attribution for leading to a conversion.

In some models, each point is weighted, meaning different points receive attribution, but some receive more attribution than others. In other models, attribution is assigned to the point in a customer journey that received the most credit for the conversion.

Why the Customer Journey Matters

Understanding how and why leads convert is important because this information can help marketing and sales professionals to create more efficient campaigns in the future. This utilizes fewer company resources, is often more productive, and helps to convert leads faster. It also helps connect customers with the brands, products, and services they are looking for.

Discovering what points a customer identifies with the most along a journey can also assist in crafting additional marketing materials for customer education. If more customers find a business and convert through social media, a brand knows that social media should be an area of concentration for customer education and outreach. If a customer finds a brand through digital ads or YouTube videos, more concentration can be added to these areas instead.

Author Resource:-

Jeson Clarke writes about technologies, import/export data and customs data tools. You can find his thoughts at BI reporting tools blog.