The right customer journey captures your customer's attention over a longer timespan, bringing them back to your site more frequently. The secret? Creating a post-sale experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
I once ordered a coffee machine online. I loved the idea of a beautiful barista-level cup of coffee at the touch of a button. That wasn't quite what happened though. The machine arrived with a manual thicker than a Tolstoy novel. It took a hilarious number of failed attempts, resulting in what I’d call ‘espresso soup’, before I finally figured it out.
This experience really brewed (hehe) my understanding of how crucial after-purchase support is. It would have been so much better for me, if I got some distilled information as to how to use this machine, maybe over time even some insights in cool variations of coffee I didn't know about.
I think it's fair to say that many e-commerce sites excel at driving sales but drop the ball post-purchase. If a customer feels overwhelmed or neglected after buying a product, they are unlikely to return. A content journey that supports the customer in the long run, can transform an otherwise regular purchase to something memorable.
Creating such a journey is done by feeding your users meaningful and supportive over time. Some interesting things to send them could be:
- product tutorials;
- loyalty programs; and
- personalised emails.
For each of these, let's go over a "before and after" scenario to see how they could improve the customer journey.
(1) Product Tutorials
An example of how product tutorials could help would be as follows:
Poor: A camera store provides a generic, text-heavy PDF manual.
Improved: The same store could offer interactive, video-based tutorials tailored to different skill levels, so customers can easily understand how to use their cameras.
(2) Loyalty Programmes
Loyalty programmes could also help improve the customer journey even after they have completed a purchase.
Poor: A beauty brand’s loyalty program sends generic monthly emails that ignore customer preferences.
Improved: The brand could use customer purchase history to send personalised product recommendations and rewards, enhancing relevance and engagement.
(3) Email Campaigns
Email campaigns are a very popular way of keeping your customers engaged. Especially if you're already tracking how they are behaving when they are on your platform. Haven't seen them for a good month or so? Send them an email with some of the products they were looking at last time they visited. Perhaps they left some products sitting in their cart .. you could send an email asking if they're still interested.
Poor: An online bookstore blasts weekly “discount” emails to all customers.
Improved: Segmenting customers by past purchases and preferences, then tailoring emails to include relevant book recommendations, reviews, and exclusive author interviews, can significantly boost engagement and repeat sales.
A challenging journey
As marketers, it’s our job to keep finding way to increase engagement of people with our brands. It's not just about holding onto customers but about creating an experience so positive that they become advocates for your brand.
Now, take a moment to think about your current content strategies. Are they truly tailored to support and engage your customers post-purchase?
If not, it might be time for a rewrite. Can you enhance your customer’s experience to ensure they return, not out of necessity, but because they want to?
