Here at WIZZ&CO, we’ve utterly obsessed with customers and believe that they should be put at the heart of every single strategy. This may sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget who you’re actually selling to when you’re busy building a business!

That’s why I have broken down the customer journey into six stages, so that you can learn how to woo them from the moment they learn about you, to when they become advocates of your brand.

1. Awareness and Discovery

This is the point at which your customer stumbles upon you, whether they read something in the press or find you through Google. It doesn’t always happen on social media, as you may expect!

To best harness this step in the customer journey, ask yourself this: What comes up on Google when someone is searching for the problem that your product solves? Do you come up? If not, it’s time to create more valuable content (mainly blog posts) with consideration of SEO.

Also consider retail partnerships, brand and media partnerships, working with like-minded brands or influencer collaborations. All of these are ways people can stumble upon you, ready to fall in love with what you do.

Next ask: When customers come across your brand, what will they see? Make sure your visual first impression is what it needs to be to appeal to your ideal customer. Ensure that you have a well-developed customer profile so that you can do this effectively and get clear on the USPs you want to highlight so that you stand out against the competition.

2. Interest  

This is your social channels: A potential customer has decided to look at you online or follow you. They’ve remembered your brand, though they may need to see you a few times before going from step 1 to step 2.

How do you make it clear what your brand is about to make the most of the interest stage? The answer is a strong content strategy that gets across what you’re about AND what you stand for. In your content strategy, have about 5 themes that your brand talks about. One should be your brand story, one about your products and one that is either your brand founder OR your brand ambassadors to add a personal touch. Then add two more themes relevant to your niche.

Test which themes get the most success and pivot if needed. 

3. Customer’s Consideration

Once a potential customer has seen you about 7 times, they will consider purchasing from you. But this number can be a lot higher, as the first few times they see your brand it may be subliminal! Each place you’re featured is one piece of the puzzle, so expand your channels/touchpoints to get to stage 3 more quickly.

At this step in their journey, your customers will go to your DTC channels, your retailer or to stores if you have them. When they get there, you need to educate them.

Online: What content do you have? Create videos and blogs to educate, as a sales associate would in-store. Send emails that are truly valuable and aren’t just supplying a discount code.

Retailers: Provide as much information as possible to your retailers for staff training and supply alternative images and videos for website product pages and social media. 

Offline: Train sales staff regularly.

Wherever the customer is, they should be able to access as much information as possible about your brand. 

4. Retention

The customer has bought your products - YAY!

The biggest opportunity here is nurturing that customer so that they come back and purchase from you again. 

Email: What’s your email marketing strategy? Make sure to set expectations through email: Follow up with a customer and tell them when their delivery will arrive. Ask whether they liked your product and suggest other products that could work well with it.

Retailers: Being stocked by retailers proves to a customer that your brand is legit. Use it as a chance to encourage them to your DTC site by offering something that they don’t get on a the retailer’s site/in-store.

5. Loyalty

This is when your customers are coming back to buy from you. They are your VIPs! For this reason, you should focus on looking after them. It’s easier to encourage your loyal customers to purchase again than it is to get brand new customers, after all.

How do you communicate with them on a regular basis?

How do you reward them? Are you using loyalty programmes?

What else can you offer other than discounts and points? Could you offer early access to products, limited editions or something else exciting?

Don’t be scared to ask your customers what they want and what they want to hear from you in emails and in content. 

6. Advocacy

These are your VVIPs - they’re raving about you!

The key is to give these customers enough information so that they can then share it online or with friends and family. 

Also, consider referral marketing: Encourage people to talk about you by offering your advocate and whoever they refer a freebie or a discount. I recommend gifting instead of offering discounts, as it allows you to introduce them to a new product that they may want to repurchase later down the line.

Maybe you could do events for VIP customers and use what you talk about with them as research. You can create products based on what they want.

Review your messaging and USP (again!): What do you want your customers to be saying about your brand when they tell their friends? As well as this, listen to what people are saying about your brand and whether it aligns with what you think your USPs are. They might give you inspiration!

The takeaway

Come back to these six stages frequently and use them to ensure that you’re looking after your customer at each step of their journey, to boost profits and gain consumer trust. 

Bonus video Training: Learn how to create a disruptive brand to get your customers raving about you

I am in a unique position having seen hundreds of brand strategies and been pitched to thousands of times.

In this free masterclass I share what she has learnt from working with some of the largest global brands to helping indie brands scale their business and navigate their challenges.

Put simply, she knows what works and is passionate about helping brands combine innovation, creativity and commerciality to get results.