Episode 29: Simple Way of Understanding Customer Journey


Get ready for the simplest way to understand that complicated buzz word “customer journey.”

Link to blog post: https://lizwilcox.com/the-fantastic-truth-about-the-customer-journey/

Episode 18: https://lizwilcox.com/episode-18-3-ways-to-grow-your-email-list-and-1-way-to-think-twice-before-using/

Episode 28: https://lizwilcox.com/episode-28-5-email-newsletter-ideas-to-make-you-money/

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Transcript​

    Hey, boo boo. Oh, I mean, I mean, friend. Oh, what’s up friend, boo boo, babe, darling, whatever you want me to call you. Uh, I’ll call you. Uh, and who am I? I’m Liz Wilcox, the fresh princess of email marketing speaking. And what are we doing here? While you’re listening to episode 29 of the email sound booth podcast.

Gosh, I feel so lucky that you are here. Especially for this episode, I really want to demystify that complicated buzzword, customer journey. Oh my gosh, my customer journey. Um, I don’t know why I did that. I’m, I’m doing okay. How are you? Let’s, let’s get through this. I promise it will be less painful than this intro.

All right. So we’re going to go over the, the, honestly, the fantastic truth about customer journey, uh, with my simple framework, the email staircase. So if you’ve been around the block with me for a while, you’ve heard of the email staircase. You’ve likely seen me present on it, but I wanted to present it to you today via this podcast.

So in a nutshell. The email staircase that is. The customer journey, uh, in disguise. I’ve never called it that, but now, you know, uh, in a nutshell, it is follower, friend, customer, it’s called the email staircase, and we’re just climbing the staircase first. We’ve got a follower, then you’ve got a friend, then you’ve got a customer.

This is how I look at my customer journey. Somebody follows me, I get them on the email list. Once they’re on the email list, I make friends with them. And once I make friends with them, they will turn into a customer. Why? Because I know them. We’re friends, right? And so I only create offers that I know my friends.

Need, want, and will like. Okay. That’s simple. We can end the podcast here. All right. Uh, as always, I’m joking. I’m joking. I’m going to go into these, but really that’s how simple it is that I can explain it in two minutes, uh, with a minute of me rambling awkwardly in the intro. Okay. So again, follower, get them on your email list.

Friend. Once you got a list full of friends, you’ll know what they want so you can sell them and turn them into what? Say it out loud. I know you might be around people, but say it anyway. Customer. Follower, friend, customer. So let’s talk about the follower, right? Um, And this is a podcast for another day. I think, let me look at what episode, uh, episode 18, we’ll talk to you about list building, uh, so you can definitely go to that after this, if you haven’t listened to that one, but when you get a follower, whether you’re, you know, doing bundles, you’re doing private trainings, you’re running ads, whatever, get them on your list, right?

And what I love about these types of followers is. Uh, versus like social media followers is they consented. They wanted to hear more. They opted in to hear from you, right? Awesome. So once we get them on the list, we’re going to turn them into friends. Yes, I know. I’ve said that five times. I really just want you to get this.

So follower to friend. Now, how the heck do you make a friend in the inbox? There’s a couple of different ways. I’m going to give you one chunk really quick. So in your emails, especially your welcome sequence, and this is going to be episode 30, I’m going to go way in depth on welcome sequences and newsletters and sales emails and all that, um, total spoiler for you, but in your welcome sequence and in all of these emails to, in order to make a friend, you got to do three things, or you got to share three things.

Share a little bit of personality. Uh, with Liz Wilcox, you know I’m kind of awkward, semi pro. Uh, my hair always looks okay, but never quite perfect. right? And I love music. Music and pop culture is a huge part of my brand. It’s also just a huge part of my personality. If you’re not watching YouTube right now you can’t see this but I’m wearing a survivor bunch, or buff, a survivor buff because I love survivor obviously.

I’m wearing a Grinch sweater and I’ve got NSYNC in the background. Uh, and I also have a giant. calendar that has my whole year. This shows you that, you know, maybe I don’t take myself too seriously, but I take the business seriously because I’ve got this big calendar, right? So share a little bit of your personality, then share your vision.

I share this in just about every episode. I want you to make. money with email marketing. It’s why I have this daily podcast daily with a capital D and a bunch of Y’s after daily podcast, right? Because I really freaking mean it when I say I want you to make money with email. Okay. So that’s my vision for you.

That’s something I share in my emails often. And then the values, right? Um, as you can see from this. I don’t value being perfect. That is like an anti value of mine, right? Uh, and that comes across in all my content, but what do I value? And something that I share often, I value making mistakes. Uh, it’s actually in our, um, What am I thinking of?

Our, like our mission, we have mission statement and rules and a vision and all that, and, and a value statement, I guess you could say. And I think it’s like the number two thing I value is making mistakes. I think that’s the quickest way to learn. And what is my number one value? Efficiency. Uh, so of course making mistakes would make sense for number two, cause it’s the quickest way to learn.

It’s very efficient. Right? Uh, so again, in your. Cogda in your emails, sharing those values and no, this is not spewing your politics everywhere, but it is sharing the way you do business. It’s sharing the principles that guide who you want to work for, how you work, uh, how you show up for your students, clients, customers, et cetera, right?

So again, in order to make a friend, share three things, a little bit of personality, vision, And the values. All right. Now we need to do three things. That was share three things. Now we need to do three things in our newsletters. Uh, number one, and I shared a lot of this in the last episode, episode 28, um, on newsletter ideas.

I want you to make sure you are showing that you are invested in your customer, right? So in your newsletters sharing, you know, Oh, I got a new podcast microphone for my podcast that would share that I’m new or I’m not new y’all. I’m on one today. I’m not going to edit it because I believe in making mistakes, right?

Sharing that I got a new podcast. Mike would share that I’m invested, show that I’m invested in you, right? If I’m sending daily with a capital D and five Y’s, then of course I need to sound good, which reminds me, I literally didn’t even look to see if this is plugged in. Okay. It is again, making mistakes, right there.

Everything is always related. So sharing that I’m invested also sharing, you know, maybe I bought a new computer or maybe it’s, Hey, I took a new class. Uh, actually last week I went to Ecamm Creator Camp. Ecamm is an amazing video, uh, software and live streaming app for Mac users. Uh, and I learned a lot about pre production, production and post production.

I learned a lot about content planning and monetization. Uh, sharing that. Which I did in a newsletter a few days ago sharing my takeaways shows that I’m invested. I know not everyone can afford to go to creator camp, but everyone can learn something from it. So I’m sharing my takeaways, right? Okay, then we want to relate.

So that was invest, right? Invest to make friends. Friends need to know you’re invested. Now we want to relate, right? We don’t make friends with people we can’t really relate to, right? So in your newsletters, make sure you’re relating to your potential customers and ideal clients. And this is the end. You know, I just made a super awkward intro.

I’ve stumbled over my words. What could be more relatable than being imperfect? Uh, so, you know that shares that how relatable I am. I also share a lot of 90s pop culture and 2000s and I have a lot of like Uh, gen x and millennials in my audience. That’s really sweet Super relatable. And, uh, just as a reference, something that I don’t share a lot about, and even after nearly, uh, you know, 30 podcast episodes, I don’t share a lot about my survivor experience.

Uh, if you don’t know, I was on the show Survivor. I actually did really well. I was the last person to be eliminated from the competition, um, and only the fourth person in history to make it as far as I made it without winning the game, uh, and without getting eliminated. You know getting any votes cast against me.

Um, that’s not very relatable. That’s a crazy crazy stat Uh that kind of puts me I don’t know in a different place in your mind and the thing is like i’m just a lady Uh that doesn’t always remember to plug in her podcast mic Uh never brushes her hair That’s why I keep it short, by the way, um, and has terrible lighting, you know, that’s, that’s what’s relatable about me.

Um, and so that’s what I want to share. That’s what I want to bring forth because I want to relate to you. I, I know that if I can relate to you, I can help you. Okay, hopefully that makes sense. And the last thing, so we said invest, relate. And the last thing, this is where a lot of people get tripped up because those first two things are actually really easy because you’re already doing them.

You’re already invested because you’re listening to this podcast. You’re already relatable because you’re a human being. The third thing is a little tricky. Stay top of mind. And this is where it’s like, You know, my number one question is, uh, ghosted my list. What should I say now that I’m back staying top of mind?

I know that can be a super difficult, but it’s really important, but I’ll give you, I’ll give you a little bit of reprieve here when you can do those first things really well, show you’re invested, share in a relatable way, staying top of mind actually becomes much easier, even though I disappeared for survivor, like I disappeared for over 90 days.

I was. Not online really, but I was still top of mind because I had invested so much in my, uh, students and potential students, right? Okay, so we’re going to talk a lot more about that stuff in tomorrow’s episode, episode 30, as far as how to do that in newsletters and such. But again, we want to share personality, vision, and values in our emails.

And we want to, uh, Invest, relate, and stay top of mind with newsletters, preferably weekly, in order to make friends. So we’ve talked about followers, we’ve talked about friends. Now that we’ve made friends in the inbox, right? We know them, they know us. That’s when we can turn them into customers. And again, episode 28 gave us five ideas on how to create customers.

Um, but the point is always this people don’t buy when you sell something they buy when they’re ready. So it’s our job in order to convert as many customers as possible. It’s our job to always be selling again. Last episode, episode 28 gave us five ideas. Uh, I’ve also got, hang on, let’s see, uh, episode 12.

I talk a lot about flash sales. Uh, I talk about, uh, you know, lots of different ways to sell in this podcast. I’m not going to sit here and like go through all the episode titles. That would be super annoying. Uh, but you get it. It’s very, very important to sell. And let me give you this analogy. It’s like, you know, the 7 Eleven, the gas station on the corner is always open.

You can always get gas. But the way people get gas is different. For example, my sister Patricia and I are total opposites. She hates getting gas. She waits until the last minute. But she drives a Volkswagen Jetta. You know, that gets a lot of miles to the gallon. I get gas very often. Why? Because I never want to be that lady stuck on the side of the road, uh, having to call AAA or whatever.

Um, my sister, she lives with her partner. If she ever ran out of gas, she would have someone to call. I am single. I live in an area where, you know, I’ve got a couple of friends, but they have jobs and they work kind of far away. Um, nobody can just. You know. drop everything because I am out of gas, right? Um, also I drive a 1989 Ford Bronco.

I do not want to tow that thing to the gas station. That would be very expensive. It is a giant, giant vehicle that takes a lot of gas. So the point here is Patricia might only be going to the gas station twice a month, where I tend to go twice a week. Our buying behavior is different. So turning those friends into customers, that customer journey, it’s always our job to keep that gas station open, so to speak.

That’s why the last episode was five email newsletter ideas. You know, to make you money, right? I want you to always be open, so to speak. It’s why something like I mentioned in episode 28, the super signature, uh, can be really, really helpful when someone. you know, is ready to buy, you are ready to sell.

Alright, so let’s wrap this up. Follower, friend, customer. The email staircase. This is how I look at customer journey, okay? And hopefully this helps you understand how you can take someone from just finding you online to customer. Now, how long this journey is depends on you, depends on them. I don’t know your business, I don’t know your clientele, and I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take.

But again, I’m going to reference yesterday’s episode, episode 28, to help you kind of shorten, uh, this customer journey. Remember, some people buy right off the bat, so they might buy in something like a tripwire, while others Might take their sweet time, but do your job of selling, right? And you will go far.

Of course, email marketing membership outlines all of this for you. If you need help writing these newsletters and, you know, crafting the strategy around this. My 9 a month membership already has all of this stuff baked in, so I’d love for you to join if that is in your budget and your time right now.

Remember, pretty much with EMM, 80 to 90 percent of this is done for you. I write and design all the email templates from this email staircase perspective. And of course, uh, this Black Friday, I’m excited to start talking about this soon. You’re going to pretty much get. you know, from 80 to 90 percent to almost 100%.

I say almost 100 percent because I can’t do the work for you, but I can give you just about every single freaking resource you’ll need with the annual pass. I’m going to share more about the annual pass next week and we’re going to open up that waitlist soon. Oh, so excited. All right, that’s it for today.

As always, come back And share in the reviews of this podcast, how this episode has helped you with email marketing today. I love seeing those. I’m Liz Wilcox. You are awesome. And I’ll see you on the next episode of the email sound booth.

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