To be competitive as a brand, it’s essential to constantly offer value to your customers. 

Customer value is what makes the wheels of commerce go around. It’s what makes your customers buy from you, engage with you, follow your accounts, give you positive reviews, and recommend you to their friends.

If you’re familiar with our Customer Value Journey framework, you’ll already know a lot about how to create and curate customer value. In this article, we’ll zoom in on what customer value is and some ways you can deploy it in your Customer Value Journey.

What Do We Mean By “Create Customer Value?”

“Customer value” is anything that makes your product and/or brand more appealing to customers. By adding value to your brand, product, and customer experience, you bring more decision-swaying benefits to your customer’s journey.

“Value” is anything your customer wants, needs, or enjoys. The most obvious “value” is monetary—getting a quality item for a low price is something every bargain hunter enjoys—but it’s far from the only “value” available. 

Value for your customers can include:

• Great product quality
• Fantastic customer service
• A positive brand presence 
• Ongoing customer support
• Relevant and personalized marketing
• A rewarding loyalty program
• A positive customer experience
• A trustworthy brand reputation
• A caring brand community

Let’s say, for example, that you are a Canadian telecoms brand. You produce the best business phone system in Calgary, but people still buy from your competitors. How can you bring them to you?

Adding value is the best way to turn the tide of customers toward you. You can do things like improve your customer service, add 24/7 support options, tailor your marketing in ways your customers prefer, produce engaging and educational content, add loyalty rewards, and more.

Why Is It Important To Create Value For Your Customers?

Creating value for your customers is crucial because the more value you can offer, the more likely customers are to buy your product, subscribe to your brand, and ultimately become loyal members of your customer community.

Think of every purchase decision in terms of a pair of scales. For a potential customer to purchase your product, its value has to outweigh its drawbacks.

The most obvious element of the purchase decision is the monetary cost. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Things like time, negative experience, and risk also add to the perceived “cost” of your product or service. 

For example, if your website does not look safe and professional, your customer may avoid buying your product because they fear credit card scams—even if they would find your product useful and can afford it.

Similarly, if your buying process is too complicated and lengthy, or your customer service could be better, the purchase-decision scales could tip in favor of taking custom elsewhere.

By creating extra value for your customers, you weigh the scale towards the decision to buy. And the more value you add, the better the benefits get. 

As well as buying your product, customers who get value from you will return again and again. They will also engage with your content, recommend you to their friends, and boost your brand reputation in general.

All in all, creating customer value is well worth doing. So, how do you go about it?

How To Create Customer Value

Use our Customer Value Journey

Our Customer Value journey is a framework that helps you to understand where and how you can add value to help your customers along their journey to conversion and beyond.

It consists of eight steps: Awareness, Engagement, Subscribe, Convert, Excite, Ascend, Advocate, Promote.

You can find plenty about our CVJ framework, but here’s a (very!) brief rundown:

• Aware: Get your target audience’s attention with content that is relevant and valuable for them. 
• Engage: Communicate with your customers/prospects. Let them know that you care about them.
• Subscribe: Try and persuade your burgeoning customers to subscribe to your emails and follow you on social media.
• Convert: This is the point at which your prospect becomes a customer. You can use various value-adding tactics to nudge them through this stage.
• Excite: Build on the excitement of a purchase by throwing in added extras.
• Ascend: Keep up communication and keep adding value to make your one-time buyer a repeat customer.
• Advocate: Ask your happy customer to write you positive reviews, share your content, or recommend you to their friends.
• Promote: Keep encouraging your customer community to promote your brand, and reward them for doing so.

Provide Stellar Customer Service

The quality of your customer service can make or break your customer experience. Great customer service adds a huge amount of value to your CVJ.

What does good customer service look like? Well, it ranges from things as simple as sending emails saying “Thanks for your order,” to more complex efforts, such as having a fully equipped and responsive customer support center staffed with patient, helpful, and friendly operatives.

Another way of offering great value and customer service is by having a product that will offer unique benefits. For example, offering online business cards with a QR code that automatically captures their information so that you can use analytics and metrics to measure your networking efforts.

Build Community

You can easily add value for your customer by making them feel valued. One way to do this is to focus on building relationships and community with your customers.

You can strengthen your customer relationships through things like sending emails on their birthdays, personalizing your marketing content so that it’s relevant for each customer, and generally showing that you are listening to them and you care for them.

You can expand on this by providing space for your customers to communicate with you and one another. Loyalty clubs, social media pages, events for loyal customers, and so on can all help to build a rewarding community that will add value for your customers.

Focus On Quality Over Price

It’s a common misconception that making an item cheaper adds value for the customer. While price is certainly an important consideration in purchase decisions, quality often trumps it.

However low your prices are, your customers won’t be impressed if your product is low quality. Most customers are happy to pay a bit more for a product that works well, looks good, and will last.

Most customers understand that true quality costs more. So, if you drop your prices too low, customers will automatically assume that your product is low quality.

The old “quality vs. quantity” debate is, to an extent, false—but it is still important that your customers have a good experience with your product. And that means creating something of acceptable quality.

So, we recommend focusing on the quality of your product first and foremost, and deciding the price once you are aware of your profit margins. A quality product that costs a little more will gain you more repeat customers than a poor-quality product at a low price.

Play To Your Strengths

Your strengths are where your true value lies. Maybe you have an excellent customer service team, the best quality product on the market, or a fantastic social media following. Whatever it is that you do best, play to it.

Your strengths form your USP (or, at least, part of it). Your strengths are where your value exceeds that of your competitors. So, make the most of them!

Educate, Entertain, & Engage

Producing great content is a quick and easy way to add a lot of value and boost your brand’s presence and reputation.

Blog posts, videos, newsletters, social media posts, competitions, games, and webinars—all of these are great for entertaining, educating, and engaging your customers.

Anything you can put out there that your customers will enjoy or find interesting adds value to your product, no matter what your product is.

Let’s say, for example, that you provide online fax services in Canada. On the face of it, this may not seem like a promising topic, but the right content can bring a huge amount of interest to your brand.

You could produce how-to videos, talk about the history of faxing, run case studies, and more. All of it will add value for your audience and bring in new customers.

Reward Loyalty

A loyalty scheme adds value for your customer and directly encourages repeat purchases. 

You can use your loyalty scheme to add value in a variety of ways. Many retail businesses use point schemes, in which customers get a certain number of points per purchase which they can then use to offset the cost of later purchases.

Other examples of loyalty rewards can include:

• Exclusive content
• Free gifts
• First looks at new product lines
• Discounts
• Privileged access to events, products, and services
• Enhanced customer service

Boost Your Business & Add Customer Value with A Customer Value Journey

By designing a Customer Value Journey, you will give yourself a head start when adding value.

A Customer Value Journey will show you exactly where in your customer journey to add value and the form it should take.

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For example, a speedy and safe website adds value at the point of sale. It encourages people to convert quickly and with confidence.

After a sale, a loyalty scheme and follow-up emails reinforce your customer’s positive experience and help strengthen your brand/customer relationships.

At all points, a positive brand presence, rewarding content, and a quality product are brilliant for adding value for your customers.

So, to give your customers the value that they deserve, sit down and plot your Customer Value Journey.

The post How to Effortlessly Create Customer Value appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Podcasting has become an increasingly popular way for businesses to reach their target audience and build a loyal following. But how can businesses use podcasting as a part of their overall marketing strategy?

I know firsthand as a business owner the importance of creating a targeted and effective marketing strategy that maximizes the value of each customer and builds long-term loyalty and advocacy for my brand.

That’s why I decided to leverage the power of podcasting by launching the Creative Visionaries Podcast as a part of my overall marketing strategy at Creative Marketing.

To create a targeted and effective podcast marketing strategy that maximizes the value of each customer and builds long-term loyalty and advocacy for their brand, businesses can turn to DigitalMarketer’s Customer Value Journey (CVJ) framework.

While it is most commonly used in the development of a marketing plan there is a huge opportunity to align each stage of the CVJ with the podcast marketing process.

Businesses can create episodes that attract listeners, build trust, and ultimately convert them into loyal brand advocates. This approach ensures that every podcast episode provides value to the listener, while also advancing them further along the customer value journey toward becoming a loyal customer.

To better understand how the CVJ framework can be applied to podcast marketing, let’s take a closer look at each of the eight stages:

• Awareness: At this stage, the customer becomes aware of the business and its products or services.
• Engagement: The customer engages with the business in some way, such as by visiting the website or signing up for an email list.
• Subscribe: The customer opts in to receive more information from the business, such as a newsletter or free content.
• Convert: The customer makes their first purchase from the business.
• Excite: The customer experiences the product or service and becomes excited about it.
• Ascend: The customer makes additional purchases or upgrades to higher-priced products or services.
• Advocate: The customer becomes a loyal fan of the business and recommends it to others.
• Promote: The customer actively promotes the business and its products or services to others.

Applying this framework to podcasting, businesses can create and market a successful podcast that guides customers through each stage of the journey.

At the Awareness stage, a business might promote its podcast on social media or through paid advertising to reach new listeners. By offering valuable and engaging content in the podcast, businesses can then move listeners into the Engagement and Subscribe stages of the journey.

Encouraging listeners to subscribe to the podcast and leave reviews can help move them into the Conversion stage, where they become paying customers.

During the Excite stage, businesses can leverage their podcast to deepen engagement and foster brand loyalty. By offering valuable content that speaks directly to their customers’ needs and interests, businesses can generate excitement and enthusiasm around their brand, further strengthening their connection with their audience.

This leads them directly into the Ascend stage, where customers are offered opportunities to move up the value ladder by making additional purchases or upgrades to higher-priced products or services, building a deeper relationship with the brand.

For example, a digital marketing agency could establish authority in their industry by offering marketing consulting services and using a podcast to provide valuable insights and tips to potential clients, ultimately building trust and establishing themselves as an expert in their field.

At the Advocate stage, businesses can use their podcast to create a community of loyal fans who actively promote their brand. This can be done by encouraging listeners to share the podcast with others, leave positive reviews, and engage with the business on social media.

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Businesses can create long-term loyalty and advocacy by promoting their podcast to their existing audience and leveraging the Promote stage of the customer value journey, which involves creating a sense of belonging and community around their brand.

So, we’ve talked about how podcasting can really benefit businesses. It’s a great way to get your brand out there, engage with your customers, and connect with your target audience. Plus, it’s a powerful tool for establishing your expertise and building a strong, recognizable brand.

By incorporating the CVJ framework to guide their podcast marketing efforts, businesses can create a more targeted and effective strategy that maximizes the value of each customer and builds long-term loyalty and advocacy for their brand.

To Create a Successful Podcast, Businesses Should Follow Some Key Tips:

First, they should identify a specific niche or topic that appeals to their target audience. By focusing on a specific topic, businesses can differentiate themselves from other podcasts and create a loyal following.

Second, businesses should produce high-quality content that provides value to their listeners. This can include interviews with experts in the industry, tips and advice, and engaging storytelling.

Third, businesses should promote their podcast through various channels, including social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.

With dedication and creativity, podcasting can be a valuable asset for any business looking to stand out in today’s digital landscape. By creating high-quality content that resonates with their audience, businesses can increase brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty.

Incorporating the Customer Value Journey framework can help guide their podcast marketing efforts and create a more effective and targeted strategy. So, if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, consider starting a podcast today and join the millions of businesses already leveraging this powerful tool.

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Up until now, any “promotion” your customers have done has been passive. But in the promotion stage, your customers actively spread the word about your brands, products, and services. They tell stories, make recommendations, and share your offers because they truly believe in them.

Active promotion may be an affiliate or commission relationship—or just a free offer for sending some new customers your way. The point is, it’s a win-win for both of you.

One thing worth mentioning before we dive in; Happy customers don’t promote, SUCCESSFUL customers do. 

Our biggest question in the Promote stage is: How are you going to turn your BEST customers into your marketing partners? 

If you don’t have a referral program, an affiliate program, or a valued reseller program … who is willing to drive your message to the organization you need to build out these programs? This is word of mouth marketing, and it is very important so start thinking about how you want to build this. 

Look to your most successful customers, they’re going to be the people who actively promote for you. But then, let’s think about our customers who already have our prospects but are offering a different product or service. 

At DigitalMarketer we are a training and certification company, we are not a services based company. What that means is we don’t compete with agencies or consultants. This also means that there is an opportunity for us to work with agencies and consultants. 

When we realized this we decided to launch our Certified Partner Program, which you can learn more about at DigitalMarketer.Com/Partner. This program lets us work with the largest segments of our customer base, who have customers that we want but they’re providing a solution that we’re not providing. 

When we train our customers, they are able to use our company frameworks to work with their clients. If their clients want to learn to do their marketing themselves? We’re the first education company they see.

So who is that for you? Remember, it’s not the happy clients that refer, it’s the successful clients. If you want to create more promoters, make sure that you’re doing everything that you can as a marketer to ensure that you’re marketing great products so you can see great results. 

How can our example companies accomplish this?

For Hazel & Hems, they can add an ambassador program to grow their instagram following and increase credibility with viral posts. 

Ambassadors can earn affiliate commissions, additional boutique reward points, and get the chance to build a greater following by leveraging the Hazel & Hems brand.

For Cyrus & Clark, they can offer discounted rates to their existing clients if those clients are willing to refer them to their strategic partners. 

For construction companies, this could be a home builder recommending Cyrus & Clark services to the landscapers, real estate developers, and interior designers that they work with to serve their customers.

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Happy customers love to share their experience, but sometimes they need some encouragement to do so. The cool thing is, once they do, they become even more loyal to your brand.

So, at this stage of the Customer Value Journey, ask people to share their positive experience with your brand by writing a review or sharing a social media post.

Once you get to stage seven, the Customer Value Journey is going to get a whole lot easier for you. This stage is all about learning your customer’s experience, and building up your testimonial database. 

The most important part of this step is asking these four questions. 

What Was Your Life Like Before Finding Our Solutions? What Challenges Were You Facing That Caused You to Consider Us? 

These questions are great not only because it gives you some really good stories, but because it gives you some insight on how you can provide similar prospects with that AHA moment. Understanding the average day of your clients is important in reflecting on your Customer Value Journey, and helps you understand what really set you apart from your competitors.

What Key Features Had the Biggest and/or Fastest Impact?

Not only is this going to get you to really specific stories, you will understand the specific things you provided that gave the biggest impact. The answers to these questions will not only give you great insight and testimonials, it will provide you with ideas for new lead magnets. This part is a new Entry Point Offer goldmine! 

What Has Been the Impact or Results in Your Life or Business Since Using Our Product or Service? 

This is a fairly broad question, and that’s why we put it after the others. You will have already gotten all of the specifics out of the way with #1 & #2. But when you ask this question, this is where you get the most valuable stories. You can use this part as testimonials, as an order form, as a sales page, this part is testimonial gold. 

If You Were Asked to Justify this Purchase to Your Boss or a Friend, What Would You Say? 

This is our favorite question by far. If you had to go back in time and justify this purchase, what would you say? I promise you what we’re going to find is a lot of great ideas for the jobs that your product or service has done. You’ll get a lot of great ideas for your core message canvas. This question is about backfilling all of the assets that you may not have. Here you’re going directly to the customer who are already happy, and using their justifications to help you sell to new customers. 

Hopefully you now understand just how valuable the Advocate stage could be, as well as the key questions you need to ask to get your customers talking. Here’s how it works for our example companies.

When it comes to fashion we all love to show off our outfits. So a good example for Hazel & Hems would be to have customers write reviews for a discount code or points towards their next purchase. 

Better yet, follow up with the customers to ask them to share and tag themselves wearing the items in a social media post and providing them with something valuable as a reward.

For Cyrus & Clark Media, hopping on zoom meetings or a streaming service for live talks about them and their business could generate valuable awareness for them, and a live case study for the agency. They can use the questions Ryan provided during this lesson to conduct the interview.

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At this stage, your goal is to generate repeat buys and real profits. While your entry-point offer was designed for conversions, your ascension offers should be geared for profits—because if you’re serving your customers well, they’ll want to buy again and again.

Ascension offers may be simple upsells made after that initial purchase… bigger, better solutions… or “done for you” add-ons.

So now we must ask ourselves, what is our core flagship offer and how do we continue to deliver value after the first sale is made? What is the thing that we are selling? 

How we continue to deliver value after the first sale is really important, because having upsells and cross sales gives you the ability to sell to customers you already have. It will give you higher Average Customer values, which is going to give you higher margins. Which means you can spend more to acquire new customers. 

Why does this matter? It matters because of this universal law of marketing and customer acquisition, he or she who is able and willing to spend the most to acquire a customer wins.

Very often the business with the best product messaging very often is the business that can throw the most into customer acquisition. Now there are two ways to do that.

The first way is to just raise a lot of money. The problem is if you have a lot of money, that doesn’t last forever. At some point you need economics. 

The second way, and the most timeless and predictable approach, is to simply have the highest value customers of anyone in your market. If your customers are worth more to you than they are to your competitors, you can spend more to acquire them at the same margin. 

If a customer is worth twice as much to you than it is to your competitor, you can spend twice as much trying to acquire them to make the same margin. You can invest in your customer acquisition, because your customers are investing in your business. You can invest in your customer experiences, and when we invest more into the customer we build brands that have greater value. Meaning, people are more likely to choose you over someone else, which can actually lower acquisition costs. 

Happy customers refer others to us, which is called zero dollar customer acquisition, and generally just ensures you’re making a bigger impact. You can invest more in the customer experience and customer acquisition process if you don’t have high margins. 

If you deliver a preview experience, you can utilize revenue maximizers like up sells, cross sales, and bundles. These are things that would follow up the initial sale or are combined with the initial sale to increase the Average Customer Value.

The best example of an immediate upsell is the classic McDonalds, “would you like fries with that?” You got just a burger, do you also want fries with that? 

What distinguishes an upsell from other types of follow up offers is the upsell promise, the same end result for a bigger and better end result. 

What’s your desired result when you go to McDonalds? It’s not to eat healthy food, and it’s not even to eat a small amount of food. When you go to McDonalds your job is to have a tasty, greasy, predictable inexpensive meal. No one is going there because it’s healthy, you’re going there because you want to eat good. 

It’s predictable. It’s not going to break the bank for a hamburger, neither will adding fries or a Coke. It’s the same experience, but it’s BIGGER and BETTER. 

Amazon does this all of the time with their “Customers Who Bought This Also Bought …” But this one is algorithmic. The point of a cross sell is that it is relevant to the consumer, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be aligned with the original purchase. What you don’t want to do is start someone down one path and confuse them.

You can make this process easy with Bundles and Kits. With a bundle or a kit you’re essentially saying to someone, “you can buy just one piece, or you can get this bundle that does all of these other things for a little bit more. And it’s a higher value.”

The idea behind bundles and kits is that we are adding to the primary offer, not offering them something different. We’re simply promising to get them this desired result in higher definition. 

The Elements of High-Converting Revenue Maximizers (like our bundles and kits) are:

1. Speed

If you’re an e-Commerce business, selling a physical product, this can look like: offering free shipping for orders $X or more. We’re looking to get your customers the same desired result, but with less work for them.

2. Automation

If you’re a furniture business, and you want to add a Revenue Maximizer, this can look like: Right now for an extra $X our highly trained employees will come and put this together for you. 

3. Access 

People will pay for speed, they’ll pay for less work, but they will also pay for a look behind the curtain. Think about the people who pay for Backstage Passes. Your customers will pay for a VIP experience just so they can kind of see how everything works. 

Remember, the ascension stage doesn’t have to stop. Once you have a customer, you should do your best to make them a customer for life. You should continue serving them. Continue asking them, “what needs are we still not meeting” and seek to meet those needs. 

It is your job as a marketer to seek out to discover these needs, to bring these back to the product team, because that’s what’s going to enable you to fully maximize the average customer value. Which is going to enable you to have a whole lot more to spend to acquire those customers and make your job a whole lot easier. 

Now that you understand the importance of the ascend stage, let’s apply it to our examples.

Hazel & Hem could have free priority shipping over $150, a “Boutique Points” reward program with exclusive “double point” days to encourage spending, and an exclusive “Stylist Package” that includes a full outfit custom selected for the customer. 

Cyrus & Clark can retain current clients by offering an annual strategic plan, “Done for You” Marketing services that execute on the strategic plan, and the top tier would allow customers to be the exclusive company that Cyrus & Clark services in specific geographical territories.

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Buying generates warm fuzzies. It’s a scientific fact. The dopamine from a new purchase gets people excited—which is why the fifth stage of the Customer Journey is to build on that excitement.

How do you do that? By giving your new customer a memorable experience.

Consider offering a quick-start guide… bonus features that surprise and delight… quick wins… any content that makes your new customers happy.

What we talk a lot about in the Excite stage is “The AHA Moment.” The AHA Moment is when you’ve been talking to a prospect and something that you said made their eyes light up. 

If it’s a piece of software, there’s a moment in the demo when the value just rushes in and they go, “oh yeah, I know what it is” and that’s a huge deal. 

It’s critical that we discover what that aha moment is for your business, so that we can build marketing and follow up to engineer towards that moment. 

Defined by Ryan Deiss, the AHA moment is when the true core value clicks with a customer. Transforming your product from a “nice to have” into a “must have NOW.” The AHA Moment is a combination of relating to feelings and emotions. When you have wonder combined with understanding, you have the AHA. 

But the AHA moment is just a simple magic trick, people are amazed and impressed, but they’re not necessarily motivated to move forward. Next we need to answer the questions that people are asking, that’s how we get our client’s understanding. 

When Twitter first got started they found that before someone could begin to see the value of Twitter, they needed to follow 30 people. The brand was starting to take shape, there was a kind of viral loop taking place by looking at other people’s tweets. 

The subscribe stage was when they registered, set up the account, and started using. But what they realized is that if they couldn’t get someone to follow 30 people they would bail. So they engineered the follow up, getting people to follow 30 accounts, that’s where they had their AHA Moment. 

The best example of this by far is Tesla. If you have a Tesla, or have ridden in a Tesla, you know that these are very fast cars. Tesla owners will never forget the test drive.

If we go back to Tesla’s customer journey, first thing we know off the bat is that they have brand positioning perfected. A lot of their marketing is in fact word of mouth, where this is happening engagement happens. All people have to do is go online, sign up (the subscribe stage) and do a test drive (the convert stage). Then, during the test drive, the AHA Moment happens. 

This is how Ryan Deiss’ Tesla test drive went:

“I’ll tell you how it happened for me. So the test drive started out like any other test drive. You get the car sales person next to you, a little weird, you’re in a car you don’t fully understand and a total stranger is sitting next to you judging your bad driving. So we’re driving around, and I’m like okay this is pretty good. I pretty much made up my decision that I’m going to buy the car. 

So I’m like, alright great let’s head back. The salesman is like “okay, but before we can head back you have to do a launch.” I asked what you’re all thinking, what’s a launch? He said you’re about to find out. 

So he took me back around to this back street where there weren’t any other cars, and said “okay the coast is clear … I want you to come to a complete stop, and then I want you to floor it.” You’re not supposed to do that in a car … but apparently in this one you are. 

I felt what 0-60 in 1.9 seconds could feel like. It was incredible. When we were done the salesman said “pretty cool, huh? Kind of like having your own rollercoaster isn’t it?” Boom, the AHA moment. In that split second I experienced the AHA, this wasn’t just a car it was my very own rollercoaster.”

So for Tesla, the AHA Moment is “The Launch.” 

What is your Launch? What is your first 30 followers? 

Let’s build some excitement for our example companies.

When a customer purchases an item, Hazel & Hems follows up with an email that thanks them for their order. 

They then go the extra mile by informing the new customer about their rewards program, and shows them that they have earned 100 points towards future product purchases.

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