Cheers to Brian Solis at Altimeter for a great visual on the Customer Journey in the digital age [Original Post on AT&T blog]. Most important, this is a cycle, not a funnel. Believe it or not, this is the digital consumer buying pattern.
” Touch points open and close whether a customer stands on the stage of awareness, consideration, purchase, or post purchase” according to Solis. “It is in those moments that engagement, regardless of source or shape, affects the next steps and impressions of customers.”
Awareness and consideration are still at the front end, but a blended content-centric marketing approach and new measurement metrics are required .
Circles of influence that affect buying happen all before prospects speak to a salesperson. The goal is to migrate a prospect through loyalty to advocate. This is the stage when things go bad (or really good), they are the first on the scene to share it. Forrester says only about 20% of people will reach this point, but there are more subtle ways that people can share their opinion on your company.
Your job is to start moving away (but not totally) from traditional methods and consider one-to-one and inbound marketing. Think of it as Business-to-Person (B2P) marketing, because simply, every person counts and can affect the sales of every prospect and customer.
Solis reminds us, ” Whether customers are navigating social, mobile, Web or in real life (IRL), they approach each stage of the journey with different needs, in varying stages of decision making, and with one of several frames of mind depending on the context of engagement and also the screen (smartphone, PC, tablet, TV, etc.) they’re using in each moment. It’s becoming increasingly complex, but then again, so is the path of consumer decision-making.”
As search engines continue to weigh social heavier, social media optimization (SMO) is becoming more important than SEO. This should be reflected in your marketing strategy as well.
Originally uploaded by b_d_solis
