Customers’ buying journeys have changed dramatically as technology has made huge advances. Most customers today have more than one device they use for shopping and tools (such as price comparison sites and more) that have made purchasing designs more unpredictable and the buying journey more spontaneous and scattered.
A customer may start their buying journey on Facebook by clicking on an ad, or switching to a mobile device to research the product on Google. However, it’s also possible they could become distracted by reading a Google review and end up finding an alternative product that is more highly recommended. The result could be a completed purchase that they didn’t intend to make from a retailer they are not familiar with. Wow! How confusing is that buying journey?
As you can see, one buying journey can span across several devices and multiple touchpoints. There’s no question that buying journeys have become more complicated over time.
So, it’s more important than ever for businesses to put more time and effort into exploring their customers’ buying journeys. Doing so could result in finding more effective ways to engage their customers at each stage of their buying journey.
How to Explore Your Customers’ Buying Journey
We’ve put together a list of tools that can help you explore your customers’ buying journeys.
1. Heatmap Tools
Heatmap tools are a great way to see how site visitors interact with specific web pages, page elements, and sections. They’re also beneficial for analysing your customers’ buying journeys.
Heatmaps come in a wide variety of versions, including a move map, click, map, and a scroll map. Each of these records different types of on-page interactions. These are all important for understanding how customers navigate your site and running tests on your landing pages.
2. TouchPoint Dashboard
The TouchPoint dashboard allows you to create customer journey maps through different touchpoints and evaluate customer experience at each step. Each touchpoint includes images, audio/video files, data attributes, and real-time feedback from customers.
The dashboard also offers powerful collaborative features that allow your team to add touchpoints they’re responsible for and make notes.
It’s also possible to ask customers to provide insights, such as ranking the importance of touchpoints.
3. Oribi
Oribi takes multiple analytics data points and makes them into actionable results. With this app, you have the chance to watch each and every journey through your site to get a better understanding of what engaged your visitors the most.
In addition, the app allows you to pin every event in the journey. Pinned events represent the main conversions and other actions you’d like to monitor. With this app, coding skills are not required to set up your events. All you do is locate them in the list and click the “Pin this event” button. That’s it!
The app also makes it easy to create event groups for better organisation and to create more insightful reports.
How to Engage Customers Better at Each Step
There are many ways to engage your customers, so it’s not possible to provide one single recipe to build a more engaged customer base. Engagement tactics should be as diverse as your customer’s journey is scattered.
Here’s a quick overview of a basic sales funnel and some tool ideas for this section:
1. TOF: Create More Engaging Copy
It’s essential to have well-written content for organic visibility and to find success. Good copy makes your content rank and can improve organic click-through rates, keeping visitors on your site. For this reason, content handles many tasks that your funnel strategy includes:
- Organic visibility
- Attracting clicks
- Time on the page
Text Optimiser: is a tool that helps create high-ranking, more engaging copy for your pages. It uses semantic analysis to identify underlying concepts and entities that you can include in your site content. The result is that your copy meets Google’s and users’ expectations.
In-content-calls-to-action: this tool, by Digital Eagles, also works to improve the performance of your copy. So, it’s important to consider what users are supposed to do next after they’ve landed on your page.
2. MOF: Use Smart Engagement Tools
Are you looking for ways to drive visitors further into the site? If so, trying to sell them something right away is not a good idea. This method doesn’t work, especially if the visitor is in the research phase.
Engaging your visitors with more content suggestions often delivers better results. So, you may want to consider using AI (Artificial Intelligence) or chatbots on your site. These smart solutions empower site visitors to find solutions in real time rather than waiting for customer service to open.
Conversational forms are another easy method to drive engagement.
3. BOF: Exit Intent Solutions
When a site visitor has reached your sales funnel button (the shopping cart), they need to be handled with care. Avoid putting distractions in this area.
One of the safest methods to help in this instance is a type of exit-intent technology that identifies when a user is about to leave and engages them immediately. Exit intent software is often used to increase an email list. However, it can also be used to improve sales funnel performance.
Using an exit intent bot, such as a smart chatbot, is a great way to save the sale by guiding the customer through the final purchasing process.
DontGo is smart bot technology that specialises in exit-intent technologies.
4. Post Funnel: Invest in Retargeting Ads
It’s not possible to convert all the visitors to your site. However, you may want to consider using retargeting campaigns to help you reach those site visitors around the web.
Remarketing is a powerful tool that helps people remember your brand and complete their purchases. Retargeting campaigns are offered by Facebook, Instagram, and Google. For best results, using these remarketing channels can increase your success rates.
Summing It Up
There’s not question that it’s getting hard to engage and convert customers; however, with the right tools, you can develop ideas on how to get more customers into your sales funnel and help them finish those purchases.
