Introduction to the customer journey
The customer journey, also called a customer lifecycle or marketing funnel, is the path people take from being unaware of your brand to becoming loyal customers. It includes the following stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Purchase
- Retention
- Advocacy
By breaking the customer journey into stages, you can better understand and speak to customers based on where they’re at in their own journey. That’s where flows come in. A flow is an automated series of messages, allowing you to send relevant content at the right time, moving people along in their journeys with your brand.
Identify the stages of the customer journey
Let's quickly run through each stage of the customer journey with an example from Bola's Baked Goods.
Tip: As you go through each stage of the journey throughout this course, follow along in this interactive workbook where you can take notes and plan out your own flow strategy.
Awareness
A prospective customer has a problem, need, or interest, but may not be aware of your product.
Your goal: Show up where your prospective customer is and educate them about your offerings.
Consideration
Prospective customers are considering your brand over others with similar products and services.
Your goal: Stand out from the crowd and explain the value of shopping from your brand (e.g., price, quality, discounts, etc.).
Purchase
A shopper decides to purchase your product or service.
Your goal: Keep customers informed and delighted through post-purchase communication.
Retention
Your customer will decide whether they want to continue to shop and engage with your brand over time.
Your goal: Encourage customers to shop again, and reduce churn.
Advocacy
Customers who reach this stage are delighted by their experience and are willing to advocate for your brand.
Your goal: Encourage customers to advocate for your products and services.
Locate where a customer is in their journey
Meet your customers where they’re at with marketing messages that guide them to the next stage of their journey. To do so, you must first identify where a customer is in their journey. Let’s run through the data that can signal where someone is in their journey.
View marketing engagement
- Website traffic
Metrics like active on site and signup form submit rates showcase how engaged someone is, and whether or not they’ve shown interest in your brand. Someone who has been on your site before but has yet to sign up may require some additional marketing, such as on social media, to encourage them to move from awareness to consideration. - Social media engagement
Social media marketing (e.g., Meta advertising or Google ads) can help move folks along in their journey. Use ad engagement as a signal of whether someone is aware of your brand or moving into consideration or purchase based on their engagement with your content. - Email and SMS engagement
Before a contact becomes a customer, their engagement with your messages signals a lot. Someone who subscribed to your list months ago but never purchased nor engaged with messages is unlikely to buy. In contrast, someone who subscribed, opened, and clicked your emails is closer to making a purchase and may be waiting for the right offer.
For instance, by building the segment below, you can learn who has filled out a specific lead ad on Meta, and are thus aware and interested in your brand.
Monitor shopping behavior
- Number of purchases
Someone with no purchases is still in the awareness stage of their journey and should be encouraged toward a first purchase. Someone with one purchase is in the retention stage and should be encouraged to make an additional purchase. Someone with many purchases may only need a suggestion to become an advocate and begin referring friends. - Customer lifetime value (CLV)
CLV is part of Klaviyo's predictive analytics and measures the total amount, both past and predicted, that a customer will purchase from your brand over time. For instance, Customer A and Customer B both make 1 purchase. However, Customer A spent $10 and Customer B spent $70. These are very different purchasing behaviors. Customer A may be more cost-conscious, or Customer B may have more trust in your brand. They may need different incentives to effectively encourage a second purchase. - Time between purchases
Time between purchases can help you to better understand your customers’ buying patterns. Customers that purchase frequently likely have a stronger positive sentiment about your brand than less frequent purchasers. Knowing the average time between purchases also means you’ll know when someone has exceeded that timeframe and is at risk of churning.
Within a profile, you can view metrics like placed orders to see where someone is in their journey.
Interpret loyalty data
- Reviews
Customers who leave positive reviews show a high level of engagement with your brand. They are likely in the retention or advocacy phase of their journey, depending on the number of reviews and purchases. Pinpoint customers who left positive reviews and encourage them to share their experiences with friends through a referral program, ushering them into the advocacy stage of their journey. - Referrals
A customer making referrals is an advocate. If you have not already, consider integrating with a third-party referral program tool. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and your loyal customers are likely already telling friends and family about your brand. Reward that behavior to foster stronger relationships with these advocates, and encourage referrals from customers who may not have shared otherwise.
If you collect reviews in Klaviyo, you can build segments to get a better idea of how many customers have left positive reviews on your site.