The Prodigal Son Returns After A Convoluted Journey — Marketing Funnel and Customer Journey

Your customers go crazy when they decide to spend their money. Like the prodigal son, most customer decisions are swayed/ influenced by multiple factors. Most customers enter into a vicious cycle. Probing and Investigating the solution, later comparing it with alternates to make sure that they invest in the right solution.

It’s a fact that technology has radically influenced the customer journey. In this digital age, the customer is bombarded with a huge volume of information. With the whole world a fingertip away it’s not fair to judge the customer if they are incertitude about their decisions.

One thing for sure, it’s hysterical to think that a marketing funnel is no more relevant. Instead, I would say that the marketing funnel has become too complex with multiple interaction points.

A Peek Into Your Prodigal Son’s Mind — Should I Buy Now or Wait Till the Big Day Comes

By default customers are looking for opportunities that give them the best value for the money they invest. Whereas the business is on a crusade to understand their customer behaviour and create a personalised customer journey for its customers. Creating a customer friendly environment that positively impacts the top line.

Every individual you come across has their own beliefs, values, preferences, and taste. Even in the midst of these diversities, a business anticipates a couple of favourable reactions when the customers are subjected to certain campaigns. After all certain subtle reactions are ingrained into our DNA as a spontaneous reflex.

The Psychology of Human Thought Process

People buy from entities they are familiar with, entities they trust. Building a strong relationship with the customer will go a long way in positioning your brand among your target customers. Understand your target demography and create a marketing funnel that best fits the segment.

Note:- It’s not that your marketing funnel ends with a sale.

The Psychology of Numbers:- Why do you think most companies price their products $99 instead of $100 and $2.99 instead of $3. Most people will process these digits at a huge margin.

Breaking Down the Product Price:- Consider that the final product price is $600. Instead of asking the customer to pay $600 at once create a monthly payment plan for the customer $50 per month for one year. Your customer will find it more appealing to pay $50 a month than a one-time payment of $600.

Second Thoughts — Highlight the Urgency:- With a plethora of alternate solutions out there in the virtual market, your customer may have second thoughts about buying the product. So when running a campaign you need to highlight the urgency to why the customer should buy the product at the earliest. Remind the customer that the campaign is for a limited period and it’s about to expire soon.

Craft Messages that Address a Customer Pain point:- Use your words wisely. Tell the customer why he/ she needs to take up the opportunity now. How the solution will help them solve a puzzle that muddled their daily lives. Leverage the power of words, “Secure your future with a small investment of $10” seems like a right fit than “Take a policy worth $10 per month”. Educate the customer with benefits and connect the solution to the customer’s pain points.

Most customers find it more promising to buy products or services when they find value with it. As a business when you add value to your customer’s life that’s when your customer decides to interact with your business and engage with a commercial transaction.

Don’t Settle for a Traditional Marketing Funnel

The ease to explore options and the increasing digital competition has led the way for a complex consumer market. People are often bewildered with the choices available online. The traditional strategy of filtering the customers from the awareness stage to purchase may not be feasible. The digital footprints are getting complex. Digital entrepreneurs/ marketers should adopt an omnichannel marketing strategy that encompasses all the digital signals.

The lack to construct a foolproof metric for sentimental analysis will play a profound role in completely understanding the intent of every interaction in the virtual world.

The customers are overwhelmed with solutions. A plethora of solutions is available in the market. In the digital world, the customers want to compare multiple solutions, understand their benefits and then make an informed decision. Digital nomads are trying to broaden their search and later narrow down to the best solution. Their hunt for a perfect solution invites them to explore multiple tools and platforms.

There is No Perfect Marketing Funnel

In this digital age, you rather chase the customer than plan to perfect a marketing funnel. Your customer’s desires and decisions are swayed instantly. There are multiple solutions that compete in the global market deemed to coax the customer expectation.

With most solutions fail to meet the market demand or labelled as obsolete (outpaced by the competitor solution) even before it hits the market its a genuine question that we ask ourselves, How could we master a perfect marketing funnel in a dynamic world?

The marketing funnel is a convenient idealisation of how we anticipate our customers move along the buyer journey. The intricacies of representing customer moments along the funnel have become too complex. The digital signals clearly indicate that customers interact with the same business from multiple devices and locations. Based on the customer’s motivation/ moods they navigate and explore multiple stages of the buyers funnel. The customer often considers comparing and testing multiple solutions before making a final decision, making the whole process of plotting a perfect marketing funnel difficult.

How Technology Influence the Anatomy of a Marketing Funnel

The traditional concept of prospects entering into the awareness stage and slowing moving down to the decision stage is radically influenced by modern technologies. Real-time marketing strategies are trailing customers with enticing offers and discounts, making sure that the opportunity for a transaction materialises.

Creating A Distraction-Free Marketing Funnel

Technology has introduced distraction free channels that could completely redefine how a brand position its brand proposition. Technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality has opened a distraction-free digital space. Channel that can be effectively used to convey messages in a single swoop.

A Data-Driven Approach To Target Customers on the Marketing Funnel

Customer information is the new frontier that defines a brands success. Data enables a business to attract and retain the right customers with minimal investment. Every interaction in the digital world leaves behind bits and pieces of data. Data, when put together in a structured format gives valuable insights about their customers. Brands are integrating innovative technologies like IoT and predictive analytics to anticipate the customer’s needs and target them with the right solution. Solutions that most likely meet the customer’s demand and have the potential to generate revenue. Most businesses around the world make use of data to target their customers with timely messages.

With technology, brands are able to deliver personalised messages and campaigns to prospects who are at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Finely crafted messages are sent to motivate people to take the desired action and move down the buyers funnel. Brands are readily refining their online strategies by incentivizing customers upfront to grab their attention and convert them at the earliest.

Digital Consumer’s And Their Convoluted Journey

Most online purchase decisions are influenced by multiple factors.

Few decisions are influenced by multiple stakeholders, the omnichannel presence of a brand (the digital footprint), High volume discounted sales (Offers/ Discounts), and so on goes the reasons. With digital technologies closely integrated into our day to day life it’s better to say that there are numerous digital touch points through which an individual customer interacts and learns about a solution. This increases the complexity in tracking the customer behaviour, making the marketing funnel complex, but not void.

Parting Note:- In a volatile consumer-driven world business need to adapt to the buyers demand. There is no perfect marketing funnel. Businesses can use data to trace paths (travelled by customers) and try to optimise their solution to best meet the market demand.