The Digital Revolution - Plotting the user journey

In my last article I looked at how you should go about building user personas. Recent Gartner research states 80% of CMOs are not ready for the next big step in digital experience management. Digital personalisation is here. With the technology getting cheaper more and more organisations are taking note. By personalising your customers’ digital journey you can achieve better conversion rates and more leads and sales. But it’s not easy. You need not only the right technology but also the right strategy behind it. This article explores the key strategic steps you need to deliver relevant, personalised user journeys.

Plotting the user journey

All users are on journey, no matter how they found you, or where they proceed to. By mapping the user journey you can pre-empt drop offs and maximise opportunities for conversion.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows a typical end-to-end user journey using the inbound marketing methodology, in its simplest form. However, some steps are missing. You need to map as many interactions as possible.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows a simple user journey where you aim to get a user to sign up for your newsletter. It is a flat, transactional journey. There are plenty of exit options. Most users will drop out before they get to the form. If your user experience is poor further drop offs will occur at the registration phase.

Move beyond transactional interactions, engage with the user at every stage.

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows a different picture. The goal is to get a user to download a whitepaper. Because you have information gathered from users when they registered you can offer industry/job specific content. This is more likely to engage the user. You can start to nurture them as a lead.

In reality interactions are more complex. This is just an example of how the user flows through your site. By mapping their interactions and matching them with analytics data you can deploy strategies to minimise drop-offs.

If you run an e-commerce site, these interactions become more complex, with highly targeted product placement based on customer/user profile behaviour metrics.

In my next article I will examine how to integrate online and offline processes.