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Digital Marketing Transformation

How to audit a digital buyer journey

For many organizations, the coronavirus seemed to take sales from 70 mph to a screeching halt. Virtually overnight, companies found themselves having to adapt. Essential businesses kept their doors open, virtual teams worked from home and many organizations watched and waited for lockdown orders to pass. With one flip of a switch, digital flexibility shifted from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” – and with it, the ways we’ve always done things are falling to the side. Digital marketing transformation is underway.

Digital marketing transformation—the use of technology and online channels to sell products and services and to gain a competitive advantage—began about 20 years ago. Today, and especially since stay-at-home orders were implemented, online business became a sink-or-swim—those that could adapt or had a previously-established online business continued to swim. Ecommerce sales in our country rose 345% since the pandemic began, proving if we can’t get it online, we have learned we can live without it. And, this isn’t going away. It’s expected COVID-19 will change the face of ecommerce and business for the long-run. Economists predict our desire to access nearly everything we need online will stay even as restrictions ease.

Assessing your digital customer journey

Now, more than ever, your business needs to be prepared to compete digitally. As your customers journey from awareness to consideration, decision and repurchasing, you’ll want to ask the right questions to ensure your touchpoints meet customers every step of the way.

Ready to audit your digital marketing transformation? Ask these questions:

Discover how they discover

Here, you’ll explore your potential customer and figure out what makes them aware of your particular product or service. How would your customers become aware of you online?

  • How well do your existing channels match up with your prospect demographics?
  • How does your target demographic typically search and receive information?
  • How well optimized are you to reach them in search?
  • What percentage of online market share do you own for your products and services?

Consider their possibilities

Next, examine how prospects would consider your product or service against competitors. Ask yourself:

  • Where are competitors online?
  • What are your customers searching for? (Think keywords.)
  • How well does your messaging align with the questions they’re asking?
  • How do prospects perceive their customer experience?
  • What sort of support or evidence do you have to back up your claims?
  • How strong is your online reputation?

From bricks to clicks

How does your target audience go from considering your business to signing on the dotted line? Ask:

  • What percentage of prospects become customers? How does this compare against industry benchmarks?
  • For those who don’t become customers: Where do they step out of the journey?
  • What, if any, incentives do we offer to encourage online purchases?
  • What are the barriers to purchasing online? How can you ease these difficulties?
  • How easy-to-access is customer support?

Keep them coming back

Now that you have them, how will you keep them coming through your virtual door? It comes down to experience. To evaluate your repurchase and customer lifetime value of your digital buyer’s journey, ask:

  • What percentage of customers buy again?
  • How do you stay in front of your target audience?
  • What, if any, ways do we reward loyalty?

It’s time to get started

If you need to improve the digital touchpoints along the digital customer journey, how do you choose which ones to focus on? When marketing in a downturn, every dollar counts. That’s why it’s so important to know cost per lead for both online and offline channels and the size of your potential digital audience to determine whether digital channels can replace offline channels—without compromising lead generation activities.

If you need help navigating the digital marketing transformation, give us a call. We’re happy to help!

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