During ECRM's Sun Care EPPS and Personal Care, Grooming, Travel & Oral EPPS, Trepoint CEO Bill Carmody will discuss the Customer Journey, and how to successfully address each of its phases to drive sales and create "raving fans" who help sell your brand for you.

Mapping your customer’s journey is the best way to understand their needs at each of the four phases of their interaction with your brand: Discovery, Engagement, Transaction, and Advocacy.

While most retailers and brands have spent time and resources in the Discovery phase, many have struggled to sustain high levels of Engagement. This is often a result of not understanding the needs of their customers and instead focusing on their own sales growth.

Additionally, while much of the marketing emphasis is directed to the transaction phase of the customer journey, far less is directed to the place where sales growth truly takes off and that’s the Advocacy phase of the customer journey. We see a similar challenge with the Customer Journey for HBC. With the sheer volume of health and beauty-related content available online, is your brand well positioned to ride the current growth curve in the HBC category?

Customer journey mapping ensures that these brands are well positioned to reach your ideal customer at each phase of the journey. In Discovery, for example, how have you positioned your brands in the minds of your customers when they are looking to solve specific health and beauty problems?

Even once they have found you, is your product or brand the kind that your customers want to talk about publicly? If not, you need some creative strategies to encourage better levels of Engagement so that they will look to Transact with you. When your product or stores deliver on their promise, you have a golden opportunity to develop and cultivate Advocacy – but only if you are listening and paying attention to what your customers are saying about you and your products.

About Bill Carmody