You want to understand your customers, which means you want to understand their journey. How do they become customers, and what steps do they follow on their path? And, is digital compressing the traditional marketing funnel from weeks to days, even hours, as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has suggested?
We surveyed 647 marketers about the value, technology, and problems with customer journeys. We also asked marketing influencers — including media, analysts, CMOs, and journalists — how customer journeys work, what’s wrong with them, and if marketers should even bother.
Mobile and other new technologies make customer journey mapping more challenging, because they increase the number of options.
But they can also make it simpler.
First, let’s briefly look at the challenges.