FIGURE 1-11: This onboarding packet builds excitement and teaches the customer how to be successful with our product.

      Step 6: Making the core offer sale and more

At this stage, prospects have developed a relationship with your brand. They may have invested a bit of time or money with you. People who develop this rapport with your company are much more likely to buy a more complex, expensive, or risky product or service from you. We call this jump from passive prospect to buyer ascension.

      Unfortunately, this is where most businesses start and end their marketing. Some ask cold prospects to make risky investments of time and money with a company they know nothing about. This is the equivalent of proposing marriage to someone on a first date: The success rate is low. Other brands stop marketing to a customer after that particular customer has converted (made a purchase) instead of staying in touch with and converting that person into a repeat buyer.

      In the ascension stage, customers or prospects purchase high-ticket products or services, sign up for subscriptions that bill them monthly, or become loyal, repeat buyers. Assuming that you have done the hard work in Stages 1–5 of the customer journey, you should find that some of your leads and customers are ready to buy more, and buy repeatedly. That’s because you’ve built a relationship with them and effectively communicated the value you can bring to their lives. When you market to your customers in this sequence, they’re on the path to becoming brand advocates and promoters (see the upcoming sections about Steps 7 and 8). We discuss different strategies for selling more to your existing customers in Chapter 3 when we cover profit maximizers.

      Step 7: Developing brand advocates

      Brand advocates give you testimonials about the fabulous experience they’ve had with your brand. They are fans of your company and defend your brand on social media channels and, if asked, leave great reviews for your products or services on sites such as Yelp or Amazon.

      Your ability to create brand advocates depends on the relationship you have with these leads and buyers. When you’ve reached this step, your customer and your company are like close friends in the sense that developing the relationship to this level took time and effort, and maintaining that relationship — one that is mutually beneficial to both parties — will take time and effort also.

      You build this relationship by adding value, delivering on the promise of your product (meaning that it actually does what you claim it will do), and with responsive customer service. By consistently delivering quality products and services, you can turn people into brand advocates and ultimately move them into the final step: brand promoter.

      Step 8: Growing brand promoters

      Brand promoters go beyond advocacy and do everything from tattooing your logo across their chest (think Harley Davidson) to dedicating hours of their free time blogging and using social media to spread their love of your brand online. The difference between an advocate (Step 7) and a brand promoter is that the promoter actively spreads the word about your business, whereas the advocate is more passive.

      For brand promoters, your company has become part of their life. They know that your brand is one that they can trust and depend on. Brand promoters believe in you because your brand and your products have delivered exceptional value again and again. They have committed not only their money but also their time to you.

Preparing Your Customer Journey Road Map

      For successful businesses, the customer journey doesn’t happen by accident. Smart digital marketers engineer marketing campaigns that intentionally move prospects, leads, and customers from one stage to the next. After you become aware of your ideal customer journey, the tactics (taught in the remaining chapters of this book) that should be employed become clear.

      For example, if you determine that you have an issue building subscribers (Step 3 of the customer journey), you want to deploy tactics that generate email leads (covered in Chapters 3 and 11) and social media connections (discussed in Chapter 9) to move customers through this part of the customer journey.

      Creating a customer journey road map that clearly delineates the eight stages that we cover in the previous section of this chapter (see Figure 1-12 for just such a road map) is a fantastic way to plan and visualize the path that an ideal customer will take from cold prospect to brand promoter. Gather the stakeholders in your company and complete a customer journey road map for at least one of your major products or services. Brainstorm which campaigns and offers (covered in Chapters 2 and 3)