A consumer journey visually represents all of the different barriers that might exist along the path to purchase on one piece of paper. It’s a tool that helps to order a lot of information about the consumer, align all of the different marketing functions, and most importantly create a plan for action.
Why It Matters: It’s common to think there is one barrier we should be going towards, while actually there are multiple barriers we must overcome.
The End Game: The goal of the Consumer Journey is to identify the top barriers to help get you towards a Communication Framework and begin creating action steps to overcome.
How To Choose The Right Consumer Journey: There are different journey’s based on the attributes of the product or service. The following chart maps different levels of involvement and emotion, offering a good starting point for which type of consumer journey will be most useful.
Human Journey (High Involvement/Emotional)
A personal journey that an individual goes on that is not contextual to a certain time (DIY project, wedding, road trip, holiday)
Cultural Moment (Low Involvement/Emotional)
For moments when you are trying to attach to a bigger cultural moment (NYE, Back to School, Father’s Day, Christmas, Superbowl).
Day In The Life (Low Involvement/Rational)
Day in the life looks at the key steps the consumer takes during their day. This journey can also be applied to their week and year. It usually can be more effective if you choose a topic to overlay on the journey (working, eating, exercising).
Path To Purchase (High Involvement/Rational)
Based on the search for and purchase of the product being the main event to the journey. These can be created for all products but tend to have more steps for the high involvement products.
