Your audience’s journey is just as important as your message. When it comes to branding and marketing, many entrepreneurs tend to focus on one thing: the message. They want to make sure that everyone understands what they want them to understand. This is not a bad practice, but it only works if the audience is already receptive to what you have to say. In order for people to be receptive to something, they must first understand why it matters to them and then know how to use it in their lives for their own benefit. If they do not, they will not listen.
Are you wondering how to understand your audience’s journey? If so, we have compiled a simple guide to help you better understand the audience journey.
What is the audience’s journey?
An audience journey is the path a customer takes from being a complete stranger to your brand, to becoming an advocate of it. Let’s say your friend recommended a new restaurant to you. You have never been there before and you don’t know much about it – what will make you decide to go there for dinner? Or say you find a new podcast that looks interesting and want to give it a try. What makes you decide to listen to episode one?
Chances are that before you made any of these decisions, you looked into the restaurant or the podcast in some capacity. Most likely, you were prompted by someone else’s recommendation of either (or both) things above. Someone ‘sold’ these recommendations to your friend. This is what happens in every business transaction – someone has to convince someone else that they should try something out. The journey from ‘stranger’ to ‘advocate’ is one we take for every product and service we use.
Simply put, people have choices. This is why understanding your customer journey is so important – it helps you get inside the minds of your ideal buyers and discover what they really want from you. Once you know this information, you can create content that attracts them and converts them into paying customers.
Why do you need an audience journey map?
Creating an audience journey map can help you identify potential gaps in your efforts so you can fix them. Before you start mapping, it’s important to know the context of your audience. Think about how they’re currently experiencing your product or service. Spend some time reviewing their behaviors and try to get into their mindset. By doing this, you can better understand what they care about and where they get stuck. You can also see how your marketing efforts are impacting their path toward purchase.
As you learn more, consider where they are in the awareness stage of their journey. Are they new to your brand? Or have they already purchased from you in the past? These details will help you decide what content is most valuable for them and where in their journey this content will make the biggest impact.
You can create an audience journey map using a variety of tools and processes — from pen and paper to a spreadsheet or even a whiteboard session with your team. The key is to organize the information that you find in a way that makes it easy to share and discuss with others on your team.
How can you create content for each stage of your audience's journey?
Content marketing is a long game, and that's not a bad thing. In fact, by taking the time to understand your audience and plan out content for each stage of their journey with your brand, you can build trust and relationships that lead to conversions. But how do you create content for every stage of the journey? And what kind of content should you make?
The content you create should be aligned with the stage of the customer journey your audience is currently in. Content that focuses on building trust, establishing credibility, and building a relationship with the prospect should be used when they are still in the awareness stage of their journey. When they move into consideration, your content should focus on helping them evaluate their options and make a purchase decision. And once they have made their decision, your content should help them get started using your product or service (or even to make repeat purchases).
If you've never done something like this before, don't worry. It's not as hard as it sounds. You need to create content that speaks to each of these three stages, and you can easily do so if you know your audience. Not everyone who arrives at your landing page is going to convert. Some visitors may be ready to buy right away, but others will need more nurturing.
In summary, audience journey mapping can be a very effective tool in the hands of designers. It helps them identify how users might react to a product and consider the repercussions of that experience. Audience journey mapping helps audiences have successful experiences with companies, brands, and products.