Practical Sales Training™ > How to connect with your buyer > Customer Journey

What is it?

Understanding the stages of the journey your customer makes when buying from you can help you to align your actions and messaging to be as relevant as possible.

Why does it work?

It works because it looks at buyer behaviour before they have purchased from you. Where are they looking for information? what are they thinking? When you have a clearer understanding of the specific journey your customers make, you know where you should be communicating with them and what to say at every stage of the journey.

How can you use it?

There are 5 steps to the customer journey and we simply need to consider each of them through the lens of your specific offer and your specific buyer type.

Awareness – This stage is all about reaching the right buyer at the right time to maximise your chances of making the sale.

Consideration – This stage is all about the buyer understanding how you compare to the other choices they can make and them being reassured that you can actually deliver on your promises.

Conversion – What is it that matters most to your buyer? What are they looking for in order to make the right decision for themselves? There are 50+ things that can help when converting potential buyers.

Retention – Looking after customers once you have them is often overlooked.

Advocacy – How do you encourage buyers to advocate for your offering? What mechanisms can you put in place like loyalty schemes or referral programs that would help make it as easy as possible for customers to promote your offering to their circle of influence?

Hypothetical Example:

A boutique skincare brand struggles with low repeat purchases. After mapping out the customer journey, they realise they focus heavily on Awareness (Instagram ads and influencer campaigns) but neglect Retention and Advocacy.

They redesign their journey by:

Awareness: Running social media ads showing common skin problems.
Consideration: Sharing comparison content (“Why our formula lasts 3x longer than drugstore brands”).
Conversion: Adding a 10% discount for first-time buyers and showcasing customer reviews.
Retention: Sending personalised emails with skincare tips and refill reminders.
Advocacy: Launching a “Refer a Friend” program with free samples.

Within 3 months, the brand sees repeat purchases increase by 35% and more organic referrals, all because they aligned actions to every stage of the customer journey.

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