What is your average customer’s experience when making a purchase from your company? How do they interact with your site and your products, from the moment they discover you to the moment their order is filled, and the transaction is over? This is called the customer journey, and if you can define it, standardize it, and map it out, you can ultimately improve business. And if you can do it using videos, then you can reach customers visually and connect with them on a whole new level. Let’s take a look at how to use videos effectively in a customer journey map.

Creating the Customer Journey

Every customer’s experience is different, so you can’t plan out every single step they take along it. But you can hit the highlights. Find the most important aspects of their journey: the crossroads that might prompt them to move either closer to the ultimate destination (i.e. a sale) or further away from it. It’s also important to note that different types of customers may have different journeys, particularly if you offer multiple services or have multiple departments. You may need several different customer journey maps to encompass everything.

So how do you create one? First, look at things from your customers’ point of view. What is it they’re looking for? What specific need do they have that your company is equipped to help them fill? Now, how are they searching for a solution? What are they typing into Google? Are they using other methods besides Google?

Then once they’ve found your brand, what do they do? How do they navigate your site? How long do they normally spend on a particular page before clicking away? How long do they spend on the site as a whole, and how many pages do they click before leaving? How long does it take the average customer to go from discovering your site to making a purchase, and what do they do in between?

After they’ve made the purchase, then the journey’s over, right? Not yet. Now you have to fill their order. Deliver the product or render the service successfully. If something goes wrong at this stage, then your customer journey map will take a detour to customer service, where you’ll have to help them sort out what happened and correct it to their satisfaction. Include interactions with customer service on your journey map as well.

Creating the Map

Once you’ve assembled all of this information, you can start to create your customer journey map. It will be different for every company, but let’s look at some basics you might have on yours:

• The customer looks online and elsewhere to find ways of filling a specific need.
• Their research leads them to discover your company and connect with you. This may mean visiting your website, calling you up, or coming into your store.
• The customer shops around a bit, checking out some of your competitors, to see who can meet their need for the best overall value (not necessarily the lowest price).
• Upon deciding that your company is their best choice, the customer makes the purchase that will fill their need.
• You give the customer whatever it is that they’ve purchased, whether it be goods or services. In a store, this means putting it in a bag and telling them to have a nice day. Online, it means shipping it to them, giving them a link to download, making an appointment to meet in person to render a service, or a number of other possible interactions.

Using Videos Along the Customer Journey

With the customer journey mapped out, you can begin to perfect it. What can you do to convince more people that your products are a better value than your competitors’, even though your prices are higher? How can you get more people to discover your brand in the first place? You’ll find that many of the stops on the map can be improved using video.

Creating different types of video for different stages in the customer journey will lead to a better overall experience. Some general branded videos will help people in the research stage to move into the discovery stage. Videos can be very effective for both SEO and social media to help people find your company. And the use of visual stimuli can help cement your brand into their minds more effectively. That way, even if they’re not specifically looking to buy right now, they’ll remember you when they are, and be more likely to engage with your brand.

Videos can also help during the comparison stage. Make some videos that demonstrate why and how your company is better equipped to meet your customer’s specific needs than your competitors are. Are your products better quality? Are your services performed better? Videos like this can help guide people from the comparison stage to the purchase stage. Then once their order has been fulfilled, follow up a while later with another video, enticing them to come back and go on the customer journey with your company again.

Obviously, the types of videos you make will vary depending on the map you create. But in many places, you’ll find that video content will help you convey your message and move people more smoothly from one stage to the next.

Quality video content is very important to the customer journey, no matter how it progresses. How will you use video content to help customers at different stages of their journey through your company? Let us know in the comments below!