by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Feb 8, 2023 | Customer Journey, Experience and Service |
There is and will always be a mix up with marketing terms – funnels, customer journey, strategy, tactics… and so on.
Especially around, what they meant when they came out vs what they mean now.
Marketing changes all the time, as you know. What I mean by this is the activities, techniques and strategies. However, the essence of marketing is the same as before and is needed now more than ever.
The essence being Communication at its purest form.
A question I’m asked regularly is around systems that work!
Having the right funnel, system or process to convert clients is essential, however there are so many to choose from. All are needed, however, at different times, for different reasons.
The devil is in the detail…
FUNNEL VS CUSTOMER JOURNEY… What’s the difference?
Are they the same?
No.
Which do you need?
Both.
Why?
Let me tell you…
Marketing terms are banded around all the time, without explanation, which is why marketing can become confusing.
Let me change your perspective and look at this from a different point of view.
With regards to a funnel and a journey, the process is the same, in terms of you are leading people in a direction you want to take them, but the context is different.
A funnel (sales or marketing) focuses on getting new leads to the purchase point and then starts again.
It is very focused on the lead, acquisition and automation elements, not the human.
A customer journey starts before the human/avatar/target audience turns into a lead and stays with them all the way through.
Even after the person has experienced you, your product, or service until they leave, are retained or reconnected with.
The customer journey doesn’t end.
A Customer Journey is a Cycle ∞
I called it an Eco-System.
It lasts the life cycle of your client (including before they know you exist) and is customer-centric, ensuring the person you are about to onboard has an exceptional experience with you.
Of course, you need a funnel inside your journey because the sale is what helps your business grow and allows you to make more impact.
The journey is the detailed path your customer will take based on their needs. Allowing them to choose, which leads to a better quality client who will stay for longer and will refer or recommend you on.
I liken to them to the breadcrumbs Hansel and Gretel leave… leading the right people to you so they turn into raving fans!
The journey breadcrumbs allow your audience to follow you in a certain way that allows them to make their own decision about you.
The funnel is based on your needs and what you want the customer to do, which is to buy from you AND is a very small part of getting and keeping your clients.
If you are looking for quality over quantity, a steady stream of interested people and to get MORE awareness than before, the customer journey will give you exactly that and will help you build a 5 Star Business at the same time.
When you allow your people to make their own decision instead of you “trying to convince or persuade them”, they will be a better client.
Don’t take your peoples power (or decision journey) away…
Convincing and persuading will take their power away.
To make an impact, we need to empower, inspire and motivate our people.
If you’d like to be seen as the expert or deliver the best service to your clients, this is the way forward for you!
Have questions?
Amazing… Leave a comment with your questions below, as I am more than happy to answer them for you.
No question is a silly question. Ask away!
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Jun 7, 2022 | Customer Journey, Experience and Service, Opinion + POV |
Customer Experience is the new place to show your difference!
89% of companies say, Customer Experience is the new competitive battlefield, and that’s not a battle you want to lose!
It’s never been about technology and which platform(s) you are on.
It’s about your customers and their feelings, it’s about psychology.
Customer Experience isn’t just carried out once you have the customer, it’s there from the first step of their journey with you.
What is CX, Customer Experience?
Customer Experience is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioural consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. (Taken from Wikipedia)
Which means, every touch point your customers (potential, new and current) encounter need to take into account your customers feelings, thoughts, understanding and acceptance of your brand and how they interact with you.
If you want more engagement, you need to create content that sparks engagement.
To get more shares, you must create content, experiences, products and services that are shareable.
For more comments, you should start a conversation.
Creating an experience isn’t just about creating content but getting the reader to do something because of what they have read, watched, listened to and consumed.
To sustain your business growth and have loyal customers, creating a customer experience help you keep clients for longer and encourages brand ambassadors and love.
How do you create a Customer Experience?
Answer these questions to create an amazing customer experience for your audience;
- Create a Customer Experience Vision (C.E.V) – What does it look like to work with you? How can you see your customers coming into your world? What needs to happen? What skills do you need to learn? What needs to change or be amended?
- Understand who your people are and what they want from collaborating with you – Knowing everything about your people is important when it comes to customer journey. Understanding their feelings, beliefs, whims, thoughts, decisions, fears and more, equips you you speak to them in their language.
- How do your people discover you? – Ask yourself, how did your last 3 clients find you? Were they recommended, was it LinkedIn or did they come to an event you ran? How do they discover you and what are they actually looking for?
- Spark an emotional connection – When you get a new client, I’m sure you create an emotional connection with them by asking questions and wanting to learn about the problem you are here to solve. Get to know them, listen (without wanting to answer but to hear what they have to say) and be interested in them, as they are in you!
- What is the best way to engage with them? – How do you engage with your clients? Do you speak regularly, find out how they are and what they are up to? Do you keep a log of this information?
- Capture customer feedback before, during and after their time with you – Do you survey your customers and check in with them? Ask them how they are getting on or what more they need from you (if anything). Gathering feedback enables you to not only be attentive but be able to anticipate their next move. Being able to answer the questions they have in their head before they know they have the question.
- Can you improve upon your delivery of your product/service? – When was the last time you updated your system or processes of taking on new clients? Is it in your head or written down? How do you know if it has been improved? What are you measuring against?
Next Steps…
Customer experience (like marketing) is an area that needs constant nurturing and care.
Review these questions every 6 months to see how your customer loyalty has improved as well as the retention or recommendations and income.
With a greater focus from you on your customer experience strategy, you will see a positive impact on your customer loyalty, higher retention rates and an increased revenue growth!
Because of what you are about to create, they (your customers; potential, new and current) will want to share you and not keep you for themselves.
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Jun 15, 2017 | Audience + Avatar, Customer Journey, Experience and Service, Marketing Strategy |
Imagine…. You’re in the car, you know where you are going but get lost along the way because you have taken a wrong turn and didn’t realise where you were? OR you’ve got in the car, set the Sat Nav to your destination (it has found it) and you still didn’t get to where you needed to be?
A brands customer journey can be the same…
Here are 10 steps to help you create your perfect customer journey AND we have a download for you to print off and help you make a start TODAY!
File Size – 1.59MB
Step #1 – Follow the 10 Steps
1: Avatar
WHO is your perfect client? This is an answer you should know and if you don’t this is the first place to start! Before you can begin your customer journey you MUST have and understand your buyer’s avatars!
Ask Amanda for a copy of our “Define your Audience” Spreadsheet!
2: Goals for your Avatar
What does your Avatar hope to achieve as they experience EVERY step of the journey you are about to take them on? Conduct surveys and interviews…
3: Goals for Products/Services
What are the business goals for the products and services you provide and the specific goals for a customer journey?
4: Research
Research can cover several areas; your client, your product/services, customer support and complaints, analytics social listening and competitive intelligence.
5: Touch Points
Mapping touch points is where your potential or current customers encounter your business BEFORE, DURING and AFTER they buy something from you!
6: Empathy Review
This is where you depict your clients FEELINGS during the experience they are having during one of your touch points.
7: Prioritise
At this point it’s time for you to prioritise your website pages and work out WHICH are the best to review, optimise and test to see where they are getting stuck!
8: Timeline Creation
It’s now time to put all client journey together: start with each touchpoint and the channels, emotional highs and lows, and use all the data you have collected to improve your future customer journey!
9: Testing
Now it’s time to roll out journey and A/B Test it! Knowing what to test first depends on how well you know the data collected and understanding where you’ll get the biggest gains with the least amount of effort.
10: Review and Refine
Now that you have tested you need to measure your success AND non-success. If your journey isn’t working or you’ve noticed a shift do something about it. Go back to Step 8 and follow the steps!
EXTRA Step!
11: SHARE with your Team
Evaluate how your current journey has worked, the differences and what YOU and your team now need to do to create the new experience for your customers.
Step #2: Download and fill in the Customer Journey Mapping Tool
We have a document that you can download and print so you are able to start that journey today!
File Size – 1.59MB
Keep us informed and let us know how you get on by commenting below…
![[Testimonials] March – May 2017 Feedback and Reviews from our Clients](https://www.koogar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/feedbacktestimonialsandreviews.png)
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Jun 1, 2017 | Customer Journey, Experience and Service, Testimonials & Reviews |
Here are some more recent testimonials and reviews from some of our clients over March, April and May for 2017 and we have received 5 Stars all round!
I had a full day with Amanda and her team. The day was powerful and thought provoking. I was given a strong marketing strategy to help grow my business with ideas for blogs, YouTube, Podcasts, etc. Everything we had discussed in the meeting was delivered in the marketing plan.
– Anne-Marie Mayers – 5 stars on Google
Within the first coaching session with Amanda, I instantly noticed great improvement and growth to my business. She was very detailed and gave me a perfect guide on how to bring in more customers… and it really worked!! She’s friendly, passionate and incredibly knowledgable. I would love to continue working with Amanda in the future!
– Christopher David Mitchell – 5 stars on Facebook
Amanda Daniels is very approachable, and her presentation style and technique made delivery of her contact easy to understand. I highly recommend Koogar Limited for all your Integrated & Digital Marketing.
– Andy Scott – 5 stars on Google
Amanda is awesome. Spent a couple of hours with her, and it turned out that I had stacks of things to work on that I’d never even considered. Only half way through the list of things she suggested, and I’ve started getting new business already! Thanks Amanda!!!
– Aiden Ogden – 5 stars on Google
I was incredibly impressed with the professionalism and ease of working with Amanda from Koogar. As someone that books a lot of speakers I can honestly say she is the real deal. Authentic with great value to offer. I highly recommend her.
– Will Polston – 5 stars on Google
At Perito Property Ltd we originally commissioned Amanda to provide social media training for our new company. What we got was much more than this. She was able to get the team thinking strategically about the company and how this could then be translated into content on social media. An excellent session and great value for money.
– Clare Doyle – 5 stars on Google
Amanda was the Marketing Speaker at my BizMums child friendly networking meeting in Nantwich. She stepped in at the last minute when my speaker let me down. We had a large group of ladies and the room was very noisy with our kids and others at the venue. However, Amanda gave a great talk, full of really useful advice and information about marketing and how to make a plan and everyone really got a lot out of it. She also gave us several links to information to summarise her talk and to help us get started after the meeting. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Amanda and hope she will come back again soon.
– Kirstie Edwards – 5 stars on Facebook
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Mar 1, 2017 | Customer Journey, Experience and Service, Testimonials & Reviews |
I was given a task from my Mastermind Group where I should get new testimonials and ask for them more often. In February this year I spoke on 3 separate occasions, delivered specific work on numerous occasions and have delivered value to other business owners.
When was the last time you asked your clients for feedback, a testimonial or a review?
This will keep you on track to see how you are helping them, their thoughts about you and how you can improve your service.
I have taken these testimonials from Facebook Reviews and Google! And you can click to see some of last years (2016) testimonials.
Today Amanda shared some useful information about your business benefitting from a marketing strategy. The guidance, tips and info shared today was invaluable and already I’ve put so much of it into action. Thank you so much x
– Helen Young – 5 star
Amanda truly is amazing. I had gotten myself into a rut over putting something onto my website and needed it doing urgently, within a day Amanda had resolved all the issues and had my website up and running. You truly are an angel, l cannot thank you enough. Xx.
– Leighann Morgan – 5 star
I attended Koogar Ltd’s Marketing Planning Day course. The course was intensive but very informative and gave me a lot of useful and interesting insights that I can use in my marketing efforts going forward. Throughout the day’s course, Amanda was very helpful and her passion for her subject is infectious. I would heartily recommend this course and Koogar Limited.
– Tania McGee, Cullimore Dutton
Amanda, thank you so much for your talk at our networking meeting yesterday! As a small business owner myself I really appreciated your 11 Top Marketing tips. I know there was such a buzz in the room after you had finished too :) This gal really knows her stuff!
– Stacey Knight-Jones – 5 star
I have attended a workshop run my Amanda and a talk, both of which have been incredibly useful. She has a way of pointing out what should be obvious but we so often miss or over look in our businesses and is full of useful help and advice.
– Tara Louise – 5 star
Amanda is a fantastic speaker, she has spoken at the ladies networking group I run on a number of occasions. She is engaging, knowledgeable and interesting. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her if you are looking for a speaker for your event.
– Dawn Beschorner – 5 star
I was at a recent event where Koogar were talking. I came away feeling inspired, but also clear about the focus of my marketing plan and where to take it. Thanks Amanda “I have taken a knee”!
– Zoe Lancaster (from Google)
Amanda is fab. Hugely knowledgeable, fun, intelligent and approachable. Particularly from a small business point of view she’s that invaluable sounding board, the kick up the ass, the hi five!, the motivation, the encouragement… All the bits that are hard when you work for yourself. Highly recommended.
– Joanna Nelson – 5 star
I attended Amanda’s marketing plan for 2017 workshop last December. The training not only helped me with getting clarity about my business but also packed with useful tips and advice that I could take away and start working on it straight away. She made me prioritising my to-do lists in a realistic way. And I love listening to your podcasts!
– Yifan Nairn – 5 star
I attended Koogar Marketing’s Planning Day in December and found it very useful and also very fun! It was a great way to ensure the business is ready for big marketing changes going forward and is also organised so we can keep on top of any marketing work! The day was a great way to also network with other businesses and learn how they can fit the material taught in the training into their businesses.
If you’re looking to create an organised marketing strategy for your business, attend the Marketing Planning Day!
– Charlotte Wright, Foreman LLP
An amazing insight today from Amanda on marketing strategy. If you are running a business this kind of knowledge and experience is so invaluable. Thank you.
– Jane Hawkes – 5 star
I met Amanda at Northwich Women in Business last week. She is a fantastic speaker, really engaging, warm and approachable. Her talk was full of great tips and advice. She knows everything you don’t get round to doing as a small business owner, yes, guilty as charged! Her presentation gave me great motivation to tackle our business marketing this year. A really great speaker, thanks Amanda.
– Katie Paddle, Black Dog Wine
Valued at £72, this time is for businesses who want MORE from their marketing; digital and traditional with no strings attached.
The consultation will help us to find out about your business, your aims and people you want to target. We will then use this information to help you move forward with your current marketing strategy.
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Dec 7, 2016 | Customer Journey, Experience and Service, Digital Marketing Speaker, Testimonials & Reviews |
We constantly and consistently strive to be the best we can be at Koogar and within our industry by keeping up to date with the latest marketing activities, attending conferences and training days, reading book, watching videos and listening to podcasts.
We are always asking our clients there thoughts on our services and how we help them best. Here are some feedback, testimonials and reviews from various platforms.
As a Business Success Strategy Coach it has never been more important to have an exceptional online and offline marketing presence and that’s why I turned to Amanda and Koogar Integrated Marketing. Having initially seen Amanda as a keynote speaker it was immediately evident her knowledge, understanding and passion for what she does was overwhelming.
Over the past 2 years, we’ve brought all 3 of our businesses over to be managed by Koogar, and delighted with the response, interaction, recommendations and timeframe of execution.
I cannot recommend Amanda and the team at Koogar high enough for anyone who wishes to turn a marketing spend into a marketing investment.
– Jay Allen, MyTrueNORTHUK
I can’t speak highly enough of the time, efforts, ideas, encouragement, support, knowledge I received from Amanda at Koogar. I feel a whole new energy for my business and a complete drive to push things forward now. After one session with Amanda I knew I wanted her with me on my journey. I will be working with Amanda for the next year – I’m committed now!! I can’t wait to see how Amanda’s influence can help mould my ideas and where we take the business over the next 12 months.
Amanda creates achievable bench marks and sets realistic goals. I’m a one man band and having Amanda there to bounce ideas off is just invaluable!
– Joanna Nelson, Papas Tailoring
Amanda has spoken at the University of Chester on two occasions. The first occasion was as Keynote Speaker for the first annual Faculty of Arts and Media, Graduate Day; where graduates from the Faculty return to speak to current students about their experiences since leaving University. Amanda spoke eloquently about the importance of social media for self-promotion and its usefulness in finding work. I was so impressed with Amanda’s approach that I asked her to come back at a later date to speak specifically to the third year students in the Department of Art & Design.
Amanda was a confident speaker who was able get across the many benefits of social media to the future careers of Art & Design students in a way that was engaging for the audience as well as informative, tying in popular culture and motion graphics to get across her message. Students responded well to Amanda’s questions that encouraged active engagement with the lecture and Amanda took the time to stay behind for one to one questions from students, which was a bonus for those students who did not feel confident to speak up in a crowded lecture theatre. I would be happy to bring Amanda back to speak to future students.
– Bernadine Murray, University of Chester
Having attended one of Amanda’s workshops I have found her style of teaching and advice for best practise easy to understand, stimulating and a wealth of information that she will provide in placing you in the right direction to move forward. Enjoyed the event a lot. Punctual and lovely location.
– Nicky Abell-Francis, Zenchi
Recently attended a Social Media for Business course with Koogar – Intergrated Marketing at Coleg Menai-Llandrillo, and learned far more than how to just navigate the different Social Media platforms. She gave us a firm foundation from which to build various marketing strategies tailored to our businesses thus enabling us to draw on our own ideas, rather than mimicking others. Amanda’s style of lecturing is engaging, enthusiastic, very informative and direct. She managed to pass a lot of relevant information over in a way which we could use when we left the course. I left the course feeling much more positive. Thank you again Amanda!!
– Lowri Jones, Plas Brondanw
Went to the most interesting and informative talk with Amanda yesterday. She made me realise I need to tailor my marketing strategy on specific groups. Amanda suggested ideas, tools and resources that I had never even thought about, some i hadn’t even heard of. Thank you so much, I feel as though I’ve come out of your talk with invaluable knowledge to push my business forward.
– Freya Bentham, Pieces for Places
Valued at £72, this time is for businesses who want MORE from their marketing; digital and traditional with no strings attached.
The consultation will help us to find out about your business, your aims and people you want to target. We will then use this information to help you move forward with your current marketing strategy.
