I could help you drive all the traffic in the world to your website. However, one of the big missing components is what’s your customer journey once they get there? And then what’s it like to work with you?
We’re going to take a look at how you can create a super simple customer journey map so when they get to your site, that they know exactly how to work with you. When I think of the customer journey map, my brain goes back to the game Candyland.
I was thinking about that map. You know, that colorful map they could go around. When I was building my new site, I was like, I have a very complicated offering. I have a very complicated process that I have to explain to clients.
It just would kind of fall on deaf ears, I think people were thinking about leaving my site. They say a confused mind never buys. So, I’m like, “Okay, how can I unconfuse the mind?” And SEO was already confusing enough as it is but how do I make SEO simple?
Now let me share with you my customer journey map. I was thinking about Candyland. So, what I have here is a little bit of Partridge Family meets, I don’t know. Some fun graphics just to kind of lighten the load.
Because SEO can feel very heavy and overwhelming. And my old gig is to demystify and make it approachable and fun. So, when people come to the website and they’re like, “Okay, how do we work together?” We go right to the customer journey map and I walk them through. “We start here then we chat.
Then we do your online plan, then we find your keywords then we do your site map. The next step will be writing your content and we launch your site then we enforce it with social. I tell you, it has been a game-changer for my business.
It’s like all the way through there. And you go… You know, we go in there and they’re like, “Oh, you can help me here.” Like, someone finally. What it means to be truly SEO’d. I hate that word too but it is part of my business.
When you’re thinking about a customer journey map, sit down, I’m going to show you my template. I’m going to make sure this template is downloadable here in my blog.
I think it’s super fun and I’m kind of a geek. I’m a high creator so I love to create stuff. So, here’s my candle and map. I’ve got the donut forest and I’ve got the cupcakes. I know it’s a little silly but just have fun with me.
So, as we walk through here, I want you to really think about what it is that you are taking them through? Because it’s not just about I’m going to get you this at the end of the day. It’s about what are the steps we take to get through the whole process?
I think it’s in service if I help you drive all this traffic to your website and you’re not really able to communicate in a clear concise way. What is it you do and what that customer journey map looks like? And this has been such an amazing evolution in our content because when you think about it, you know, we don’t want things complicated.
I believe in sales we think by overwhelming them and making it complicated that you’re going to see a higher value and therefore you’ll hire us because we you know talk all the jargon and lingo and it’s all of our own stuff and you should be so impressed with what I’m saying right now.
Just go away, write me a check and I’ll tell you when you get information. That does not work. It hasn’t worked historically in SEO companies either. When I had a findability group, my agency in Denver, we had about 20 people. We were managing about a million million half dollars worth of assets every month and I’ll never forget the clients are just like, “I don’t know what you’re doing but I read a check and I trusted you’re getting stuff done.”
But at the end of the day, they would let us go because we weren’t able to convey to them (A) what we were doing, (B) the path that they took, and then finally what is the expectation of return once they got through that path.
So, I came up with this not too long ago on my website, and then now I’ve created this candyland map you’re seeing before you. I’m going to challenge you to download this map, sit down with your team and say, “What are we really doing with customers? How do we walk them through this journey?” And then I went back recently and redid this because
I’ve already done my journey like what we do. All the different things we do. But again, that’s the me me show the We do this and we do that and we wee wee all over ourselves. How can I talk to them about what we do for them and what will their experience be?
Well, so the first step would be we’re going to do your keywords and figure out who your real target audience is. Then we’re going to go in and we’re going to spy on your competitors. We’re going to figure out what keywords they rank for and how we can get in front of those same… That same strategy.
You’ll see I’m explaining it from their point of view. Not the way that I deliver it which is already on my website. This is going to be a map that describes how they’re going to take that journey with us.
What that’s going to look like, what are the earmarks where the mileposts so that they understand as we go through this, this is a three to 6 month process, this is what we’re going to do and then ultimately this is what we’ll see from the results standpoint.
So, a customer journey map is just a game-changer. I hope that you’ll download this. Fill it in, take a picture, send it to me. You can send it to me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at findability_university.
Go ahead and post it here or you can send it to me at Heather@findability.com. Happy to give you feedback on it. And then I’ve got some wonderful graphic artists that can actually turn this into something that looks really awesome for your site.
So, remember: Customers don’t necessarily know how to work with you. You’ve got to guide them. You have to lead them through the roadmap and that’s the customer journey map or what I like to call the Candyland map.
