What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in
this video you're going to learn the difference
between the customer journey map and the customer story
so you can understand where it is your customers are coming from
where they're going to and more importantly how to design
the experience in between
now if this is your first time to this channel where have you been
if you want to build brands that go beyond visuals with psychology
strategy and creative thinking then this is the place to be make sure you hit
that subscribe button then the notification bell
and you'll be well on your way now you've probably heard of the term
customer journey map or customer journey mapping before but
the term customer story might be a little bit unfamiliar to you but when
you understand both that is when you can design an
experience that will increase your customers chances
of their big picture success so what is the customer journey well
these are the individual steps or the individual stages
that your customer needs to go through on route to their preferred
outcomes so when you think of any journey we
tend to take a series of steps before we get to wherever
our end destination is and when we understand the steps
that our customers need to take then we can design
an experience that will lead them from one step to the next
on route to their successful outcome so what is the customer story and how does
that differ to the customer journey well the term
customer story is pretty self-explanatory it's the story
of your customer but it includes aspects of
their story that doesn't involve you or your brand or the problem that
you solve so it would start specifically with their normal life so
what does their life look like in their everyday
environment what do they do on a day-to-day basis what are the
circumstances of their life this provides the background to the
story and the background to the journey that
they're about to set off on and having this understanding having
this background is really important to understand
where they're coming from now at this stage in the story
they tend to be problem-unaware so what does that mean well
they're unaware of any challenge that they have any problem that they
need to overcome and through maybe your brand or
maybe experiencing the problem or the challenge they suddenly become aware
that there is a challenge there is a problem that they
need to overcome and that's when they set off on their
journey to go and fix whatever that problem is
now when they get to the end of that journey they'll have fixed
whatever problem they've solved but that doesn't mean that their story ends
there is a life after fixing that problem and you need to understand what
that life looks like what does life look like once
that challenge has been overcome once that problem has
been solved when you understand the life before the problem and you
understand the life after the problem that is when you can
get a real feel for the story of your customer so let me give you an
example of this now you might be a brand strategist or a
branding specialist or you might be a designer and you
provide services to your clients to help them to build a
brand to send them out into the marketplace
for success but before they come across your brand and your
services and your offering they have part of their story before
that point so they have their day-to-day lives
and you know the circumstances of their lives and then they'll suddenly have an
idea for a business now they might go ahead
and name that business and create a business plan but these are
the circumstances of their story before your brand comes into the picture now
when they decide that they need help and they
need your services in the form of a brand strategy
in the form of a website a brand identity you bring them through
your customer journey now at the end of that customer journey you provide them
with a successful outcome and you send them on their merry
way and they continue on their own story now this story might
mean that they need to go on and manage that brand but it's very very
important for you as a business and as a brand to
understand the full story if you understand
where they're coming from and where they're going to
regardless of the services that you provide then you can design
a better experience to help them on their journey so when you're considering
your own customer journey map or mapping out your own customer journey or
designing that experience don't just think about the first time they come in
contact with your brand think about the lives
that they have before that point the circumstances of
those lives and what they do on a day-to-day basis
to provide you with that background and that
understanding and think about the big picture
think about where they're going to long-term if you understand that if you
understand the background if you understand
their full story then you will be in a much better
place to design an experience that will help them to get
from one point to the next and there'll be many other opportunities for you to
resonate with them along your own customer journey but what
about you have you mapped out your own customer journey and have you considered
your big-picture customer story and have you taken that into account do you use
opportunities within that to resonate with your customer do you have any
challenges with mapping out your own customer
journey I'd love to hear from you about your experiences or about your
challenges if you like this video give it a thumbs up
hit that subscribe button and the notification bell
as well it'll let you know when I've got new videos coming out if you want
actionable brand strategy tips and techniques to grow your own business
well then head on over to BrandMasterAcademy.com
and get yourself signed up for the list it is free and I do keep some exclusive
content for that list and there are plenty of
resources on there that you can download as well
to get you going with brand strategy but as I said I would love to hear from you
about your challenges about your experiences until next time
brand like a master and I'll see you in the next video!
you