Podcast 34: How to Review Your Client Journey
Oct 08, 2020
The way we work and market ourselves has dramatically changed this year. It’s time to review your client journey and understand where you’re missing steps and where you need to focus your communication.
What is the client journey?
Your client journey is simply the route they take from discovering you, to working with you. Once you start seeing clients, they already follow a path whether you realise it or not. Having clarity over this will help you focus your marketing efforts.
You may have heard the terms ‘sales funnel’ or the ‘flywheel’. These are simply models’ marketers use to map out how prospective customers progress through the business to becoming customers.
Sales funnel
Imagine a funnel shape, wide at the top and narrowing as you pass through it. The idea is to move people through the funnel from one stage to the next as smoothly as possible. Especially when you’re marketing online, you need a lot of people going into the top of the funnel in order to create a few paying customers at the bottom. It’s a numbers game and most marketing effort goes on attracting people into the top of the funnel.
Flywheel
This model moves your focus away from spending your energy trying to attract the attention of people who don’t know you. It moves you towards building relationships and connection which then turn into referrals. It helps your happy clients become your best marketers to grow your business.
Map out your client journey
Keep it simple and work out how you communicate with your clients at each stage of their journey.
Consider the following:
The steps of your clients' journey
What are the steps a new client takes from first hearing about you to working with you? How easy is your system to navigate for them? In my example above, clients go to the website, complete an application form, have an assessment call prior to becoming clients and working with me.
To move them between the steps, there are a number of different ways I communicate with them. The different media support them in making the journey and help them to know, like and trust me in the process.
Marketing to attract new clients
How do people discover you in the first place? A great exercise is to start asking new clients how they heard about you. This will give you a good indication of where your marketing is working or not.
In my example, I use content marketing on the website to attract attention and promote it using social media. Occasionally I use Google ads but by far the biggest way I attract clients is from referrals.
Engage with prospective clients
At this stage, it’s about being really helpful and demonstrating your expertise. You are turning strangers you’ve attracted into clients who want to work with you and know you’re the best person to help them.
I offer regular free talks and calls to people interested in working with me so they get to know me. They can decide if I'm the right person for them and they want to apply to work with me. I also follow up on these people with personal emails to remind them I'm there, linking to useful information (from my content) and to offer to answer any questions they have.
Delight clients
By clients having amazing experiences from working with you, you will then turn them into your best marketers. How are you maintaining your relationship with these people?
Happy clients are willing to share their experience. Think about the times when you’re looking to buy something. You’ll ask your network for ideas, check reviews, you want to know we can trust our choice. This trust is what you want to capture to help you build your business efficiently.
In my example, I provide clients with the information they can share with friends and family to make referrals easy. I also keep in touch with a monthly newsletter including useful articles links and send the occasional personal email for an update.
Reflect on your client journey
From your review, are there any stages that you’re not communicating with prospective and existing clients? Ensure you’re doing something to help and support clients at each stage of their journey to working with you to keep you front of mind.
If you're struggling with your client journey and marketing, contact me and find out how I can help you.
Podcast 34 show notes:
- (01:06) What is the client journey?
- (01:44) Sales funnel
- (02:16) Flywheel
- (02:56) Map out your client journey
- (03:33) The steps of your clients' journey
- (04:24) Marketing to attract new clients
- (05:19) Engaging with prospective clients
- (06:54) Delighting clients
- (08:19) Reflect on your client journey
