2020 has been an interesting year in marketing to say the least. Yes, we have all undeniably suffered under the conditions of the pandemic – but where there’s hardship there’s also opportunity to be found and many of us have been forced into new and exciting places.

As a professional services firm, customer experience is in part about relationships and how well a marketing consultant listens to the customer’s needs, deciphers it, and executes on providing a solution to a problem.

Competition is rife for all businesses especially due to the impact of COVID. With an increasing number of people unemployed, the marketing profession has especially been affected by lay-offs and changing working conditions.

Social media has now matured far beyond its initial iterations of platform-based news and meme sharing. Today, not only does social allow us to cultivate our online personas but it gives us an opportunity to professionally market ourselves as well. LinkedIn has truly changed the way we professionally interact, including overhauling business news, recruitment, and onboarding processes, as well as the way that companies market themselves online.

On January 7 this year, I opened by diary for the first time in 2020. It was a remarkable moment, one that was so full of promise. Like any entrepreneur on the rise (or at least I thought that was to be the case), I had written down the goals I had set out for the year ahead in my diary in December. 

The World Incubator is a not-for-profit business incubator based in Wherry House, Charters Towers. Modelled on incubators in the USA, the philosophy of The World Incubator is to develop business ideas and take them to the world, employing local people. The World Incubator aims to help local communities in the Charters Towers region grow their and start-up businesses from the idea stage to commercialisation. Each incubator participant has access to mentoring, education, training, development and marketing to help them develop their business ideas and take them to ‘The World’ stage.

Marketing Eye worked with The World Incubator to create a marketing strategy that focuses on a clean look and feel that directly reflects what their brand stands for. Outsourced marketing through Marketing Eye also allowed the not-for-profit to create a modern and easy-to-navigate website that provides an optimal user experience for potential users making it that much easier to contribute to the cause.

Is there a lack of focus in your marketing efforts? Are you having trouble committing to a certain approach? Do you have a marketing strategy in place? It can be really difficult to execute any plans without a marketing strategy. Marketing is like a game of chess, where you’re constantly thinking of the next step. A marketing strategy will map out what goals you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish these goals.

The most significant blind spot that companies have to deal with is understanding what their customer's journey is. What is it like to purchase your business? Understanding your customer's journey is a crucial part of improving the overall customer experience. Without this insight, you will never know the obstacles or challenges that your customers might be facing in their decision to make a purchase. You need to deeply understand what it is about your brand that attracts customers, and what could potentially turn them away. Essentially, you need to walk in their shoes. Below, we have five steps to consider when creating a customer journey map.