Corona has turned the marketing world upside down. The search for customers and business contacts is, of necessity, shifting more and more to the Internet. This has a massive impact on the customer journey. How good or bad it looks with the digital customer journey can become a question of survival.
5 tips for the digital optimization of the customer journey
So Corona brings new and different opportunities when it comes to marketing. If you want to make the digital customer journey the best it can be, you should take the following five tips to heart.
Step 1: Pick up target groups digitally
Precisely tailored online campaigns, for example via Google Ads, are now a particularly important key to business success. This also applies to targeted banner advertising or specialist articles in portals that are heavily frequented by the target group. Social networks also need even more attention now. Virtual conferences and trade fairs can also bring rewarding customer contacts.
Step 2: Deepen contacts
Once the potential customer has been won over virtually, it is important to draw their attention to products and offers in a targeted and sustainable manner. Maintaining existing contacts (lead nurturing) is particularly important at the moment and, of course, also collecting leads - whether on your own landing pages, on industry portals or in social media. The absolute priority should now be the short-term optimization of the landing pages and the medium-term improvement of the entire website.
Step 3: Enable and optimize the virtual purchase
If a B2B webshop already exists, now is the right time to optimize and expand it. Product descriptions should be revised, information and offers should be updated and customers should be informed honestly and transparently about any delays by Covid-19.
Those who do not yet have an online shop can transform their website into a sales tool as best they can: by linking product information with clear calls to action, by integrating contact forms into product pages, by offering a free call-back service or by facilitating contract processing by means of an electronic signature.
Step 4: Stay in contact with the customer digitally
The fourth step is to improve and deepen customer loyalty after a successful sale: by optimizing e-mail marketing (e.g. multi-level e-mail campaigns), by expanding the customer or service portal, or by increasing online services such as providing user manuals and repair instructions.
Step 5: Get more recommendations
In the Covid 19 crisis, virtual recommendations are particularly important. For example, customers should have the opportunity to share their experiences and content via social media. Information-rich newsletters are also gladly forwarded to third parties.
More tips
- Keep a close eye on customer feedback and be more proactive in asking for it.
- Give the customer the feeling that you are there for them in the form of educational and entertaining information (e.g. white papers or blog posts that provide answers to current questions).
- Demonstrate loyalty to customers through special promotions such as additional payment methods, loyalty and discount promotions or an extension of return periods
- Offer direct communication channels with e-mail or chat
Which touchpoints become more important through Corona
Those who want to meet their customers in the best possible way now should also pay attention to new digital meeting points. Although events and trade fairs cannot take place at the moment, the corresponding content can still be made accessible to the customer on the company website. This creates effective touchpoints that bring customer contacts throughout the year. The better the presence on the web is planned, the less dependent a company is on meetings in the physical world and the more coherent the customer journey is across all touchpoints.