The Customer Journey: From Search to Sale

The path from a potential customer discovering a business to eventually making a purchase is rarely as simple as clicking an advert and immediately buying a product or service. Modern customers have access to more information than ever before. That’s why it’s important to know and understand the customer journey, from start to finish. So, let’s take a closer look at everything you need to know about the customer journey.

What is the customer journey?

The customer journey is the complete process someone goes through when they interact with and make a purchase from a business. It’s the journey from a website visitor to a lead to a customer and, maybe, to a repeat customer. Depending on the product or service you offer, their journey can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few months, so it’s far more involved than you might have otherwise thought. To understand more, you need to be aware of the customer journey steps: awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, retention and advocacy. 

What are the steps of the customer journey? 

Every customer journey is different. But they will generally fall into a wide range of different stages, including awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, retention and advocacy. Each stage will present a different opportunity for a business to build trust and move the customer closer to a sale. But what are the steps of the customer journey, and what do you need to know about them? Let’s dive a little deeper:

Stage one: the search

The customer journey often starts with a problem, need, or question. A person may realise that they need a product, want to solve a problem or are simply curious about a particular topic. Their first step is often to search for information. 

For instance, a business owner might search for: ‘how can I get more traffic to my website?’ ‘Why is my website not appearing on Google?’ or ‘How do I generate more leads online?’ At this stage, the person may not know exactly what solution it is they need. 

Instead, they’re simply looking for relevant information to guide them in the right direction. This is where content marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) can play an important role, and that’s something we can help with here at Kumo.

Stage two: exploring the options

Once a customer understands their problem, they often begin researching possible solutions. They may search for specific information, compare approaches and explore different products or services. 

For instance, the business owner who originally searched for ways to increase website traffic may now search for ‘SEO vs PPC’, ‘how much does SEO cost?’, ‘best ways to generate business leads’, and ‘should I hire an SEO agency?’. At this point, the customer is becoming more aware of the available options. 

They may visit several websites, download guides, subscribe to newsletters or follow businesses on social media. Some of the content that you can include that customers are likely to read and consider includes:

• Comparison guides
• Case studies
• Buying guides
• Product demonstrations
• Webinars
• Frequently asked questions
• Email campaigns

Stage three: choosing a business

Once the customer is happy, they’ll reach the decision phase in their journey. They may now know exactly what they need to be able to make their searches more specific. As such, they’ll begin searching for things like ‘SEO agency near me’, ‘best SEO agency for small businesses’, ‘affordable SEO services’ and ‘digital marketing agency reviews’, as opposed to the broader terms they would have searched for initially. At this point, the customer is close to making a purchase or commitment to a service, but there’s still another stage for them to go through.

Stage four: turning interest into action

The purchase stage is where the customer takes action. Depending on the business, this could involve things like: buying a product online, booking a consultation, requesting a quote, completing an enquiry form, signing a contract and visiting a physical location. Although this is often viewed as the end goal of marketing, it’s also a critical part of the customer experience. A customer who has spent time researching a business can still abandon the process if purchasing or making contact is unnecessarily complicated. To avoid this, you need to reduce the friction at the point of sale as soon as possible. You can do this easily by:

• Writing and displaying clear calls to action (CTAs)
• Creating simple contact forms
• Displaying easy-to-understand pricing
• Ensuring a straightforward checkout process
• Having multiple payment options for customers to choose from
• Generating fast-loading website pages
• Giving clear instructions on what happens next

Stage five: retention

Never assume that the customer journey has ended at the point of sale. The experience after the purchase can be just as important. A positive post-purchase experience has the potential to lead to repeat business, customer loyalty and recommendations. 

Businesses can therefore continue to build relationships through things like excellent customer service, onboarding support, helpful follow-up emails, loyalty programmes, exclusive offers, educational content and regular communication. For service-based businesses, strong communication can be particularly important. 

Customers will want to understand what’s happening and will then feel confident that they made the right decision. A good experience can turn a one-time consumer into a long-term, repeat client. 

Stage six: turning customers into promoters

The final stage is to ensure a happy and satisfied customer. This way, they’ll be far more likely to recommend your business to others. They do this by writing reviews, providing you with testimonials, giving you permission to use them in case studies, through word of mouth, becoming repeat customers or mentioning your brand in their own professional line of work. Customer advocacy can be incredibly valuable because recommendations will often carry a high level of trust. A potential customer may discover a business through a review or recommendation and begin their own customer journey. Therefore, the journey becomes a cycle. A successful customer can help to create awareness among future customers.

How to map the customer journey

A customer journey map helps businesses to visualise the different stages that a customer goes through during their consumer journey. Creating a journey map can reveal gaps in a marketing strategy. 

For example, a business may have plenty of educational blog content, but it could have very little information for customers who are ready to actually make a purchase. Alternatively, it may have strong sales pages but limited content to attract people at the beginning of their research. 

By identifying these gaps, marketers can create content and experiences that ultimately support customers throughout their entire consumer journey. Mapping the customer journey can include:

• Awareness – the customer’s goal is to understand the problem, and they do this by reading and watching blog posts, videos and social media posts 
• Consideration – the customer’s goal is to explore their options, and they do this through guides, comparisons and case studies
• Decision – the customer’s goal is to choose a provider or product. They do this by reading service pages, reviews and testimonials
• Purchase – the customer’s goal is to complete an action. They do this by checking out their online basket and submitting a contact form and requesting consultations
• Retention – the customer’s goal is to get value from their purchase. The business needs to ensure this through onboarding, support and email communications
• Advocacy – the customer’s goal is to recommend the business if it goes above and beyond their expectations. This is done through reviews, referrals and social sharing

How to improve your customer journey

Improving the customer journey is easy if you start at the right place. It all starts with understanding the audience you have. In order to do this effectively, you should ask various questions, such as:

• What problems are potential customers trying to solve?
• What questions do they ask before making a purchase?
• Where do they search for information?
• What concerns might stop them from making a purchase?
• What information do they need at each stage in their journey?
• How easy is it to contact or buy from the business they’re looking at or searching for?

Customer feedback, website data, search behaviour, sales conversions and support enquiries can all provide valuable insights. Once you understand the journey, you can identify opportunities that improve it. 

This may involve creating new content, improving navigation, simplifying forms, adding clearer calls to action (CTAs) or providing more information about your products and services. 

Kumo is pleased to provide a wide range of digital marketing services, including content creation, SEO, PPC, website design and more. You can rest assured that our team of dedicated experts can set you apart from your competitors with excellent content creation and copywriting services. If you’d like further information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our friendly, specialist team – we’re always happy to hear from you.