How The Customer Journey Has Developed Over The Years

How The Customer Journey Has Developed Over The Years

When it comes to marketing, it doesn’t matter what type of services or products you offer; ensuring your customers think positive is absolutely crucial when it comes to creating any marketing campaign.

Along the customer journey it’s imperative that you grab their attention, persuade them into making a purchase, nurturing a trust between the customers and potential customers with your brand.

So, the main question we are going to answer today is, “Where does digital marketing come into play with this?” – But before we answer this, we’re going to research a little further into how customers interact with brands within today’s society.

How the Customer Journey Has Changed Over The Years

Purchase Funnel

Going right back to 55 years ago, in the 1960s, brands would use the purchase funnel which consisted of 4 stages along the customer journey – AIDA

This funnel was originally designed as a type of test that will show potential customers drop off at certain stages of the journey, leaving at the end a small majority of quality leads for you to reach out to.

Basically, not everyone will have heard of your brand before and will therefore not be interested in your products or/and services. The funnel encourages consumers to think about what happens next once they have reached the end of the line, such as will they come and purchase again? In 2009, a more modern vision was created to consider the experience of the customer journey, called the “consumer decision journey”.

Although the older style model of the customer journey does not entirely ignore customer loyalty, this model aims to highlight the very moment when the customer’s attitude and way of thinking about your brand changes and influences their ultimate call to action (making the purchase and returning)

If you are able to provide customers with a pleasant post purchase experience then you will encourage the customers to stay loyal to your brand. Just because the customer has made a purchase, it does not mean you the hard work needs to stop there. If you want your customer to come back and make a purchase again or on a regular basis, you need to ensure you are always one step ahead of your competitors.