I once saw a Dp image shared by a friend that reads thus : ” You just met me in two weeks and you want to meet my parents, it even took 9 months for my parent to see me.”
Although that statement speaks about relationships, it depicts the marketing approaches some business owners are taking.
Telling someone that is yet to know or build trust in your brand to make a high investment in your product or services is like a guy meeting a lady today and then proposing to her to marry her, we all know it doesn’t work that way. It takes time to develop trust and confidence in a relationship.
This is not left out in business also, to move a cold prospect to a lead, from lead to customer, from customer to raving fans, it takes time, and several stages are meant to be put in place.
Below, are 8 stages you need to be aware of, to move a prospect through a customer roadmap journey, from mere stranger to someone that recommends and advocate for your business. This is also referred to as the Marketing pipeline in some organizations.
State 1: Awareness
This is the initial stage at which a prospect doesn’t know who you are and what your brand does. This is the stage where you run advertisements, apply social media marketing, and also SEO Marketing strategies.
Stage 2: Engagement
At this stage, you let prospect engage with your brand by providing useful marketing content such as blog post that solves a particular problem related to your business, podcast, online video, and informative content sharing via social media.
Stage 3: Subscription
This is the stage, a prospect has permitted you to have conversations with him/her. This has to do with following you on Instagram or Twitter, liking your Facebook page, and most especially subscribing to your Email List. At this point, you have converted a prospect to lead for follow up.
Stage 4: Conversion
At this stage, the major aim is to request a small amount of time or money by offering low-dollar products or services, webinars, and product demos.
The image below shows conversion offer from Whogohost: No. 1 web hosting company in Nigeria
Stage 5: Excitement
In one way or the other, at this stage, subscriber has received certain value from your transaction with him or her.
Stage 6: Ascension
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 business are much more likely to buy a more complex, expensive, or risky product or service from you. This is the stage where you make the core sale and offer more.
Stage 7: Advocate
When you’ve reached this stage, your customer has received amazing experience with your business, he or she knows you to be a brand that fulfills its promises, at this stage, he or she can leave good reviews for your product or service.
Stage 8: Promote
Image having customers that do not have to pass through stage 1 of your customer roadmap journey, brand promoter makes this possible. These are customers that they have developed trust in your brand and they can easily recommend your business to family and friends.
In conclusion, any customer you do business with once passes through these stages even though if you are not aware of it. Your digital marketing approaches should focus on how you move your customers from one stage of the customer journey (from Awareness to brand promoter) to another to let customers have amazing experiences with you, that Worth recommendation.