The user journey has been likened to a winding river, one with twists and turns, eddys and rapids. As the river moves ever forward, so too does the customer journey as they make their way through the marketing funnel. Reach, Engage, Activate and Nurture (REAN) is a model designed to help companies navigate this turbulent landscape of customer engagement.
From initial outreach to building lasting relationships, REAN provides direction through each step of the process. By understanding how each stage works together you can create an immersive experience that resonates with customers in meaningful ways. With the right knowledge and tools you can bring your customers closer to your brand and provide them with an enjoyable journey from start to finish.
Definition Of User Journey Model
A user journey model is a comprehensive approach to understanding your audience and how they interact with your product or service. It helps you understand their wants, needs, and motivations in order to reach them through the most effective channels. It's about getting inside the head of your customer and seeing things from their perspective – so you can better meet their needs.
It involves understanding what drives them to take action. Knowing what interests them, which products they're likely to respond to, and how they prefer to be communicated with is key for successful engagement. The REAN user journey model provides a framework for identifying these points of contact and creating an effective customer experience that will keep users coming back for more.
The user journey model also offers insights into how customers engage with your product or service throughout their relationship with you. It helps you identify any areas where users are likely to struggle or drop-off, allowing you to anticipate problems before they become issues and increase user satisfaction. With this knowledge in hand, you can craft a nurturing strategy that rewards customers for engaging with your brand over time – helping build loyalty and trust between you and your customer base.
Reaching Your Audience (Reach)
Reaching your audience is essential to successful customer engagement. To do this, you must understand who they are, what motivates them and how they prefer to be communicated with. Here are three steps for getting started:
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Know your audience: You must first understand the demographics of your target customers, such as their age, gender, interests and lifestyle. This will help you craft messages that resonate with them in a more meaningful way.
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Understand motivations: Identifying what drives your audience to take action is essential for effective customer engagement. What do they want and need from your product or service? How can you meet these needs? Knowing the answers to these questions helps you create a strategy that will appeal to them on an emotional level.
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Choose the right channels: Choosing the right channels for communicating with your audience is critical for success. Consider how they prefer to receive information – email, social media, text message – then tailor your messaging accordingly for maximum impact and response rate.
By understanding who your customers are and what motivates them, you can create an effective outreach strategy that resonates with them on a deeper level. This allows you to create meaningful connections with customers that will keep them coming back for more - paving the way for successful customer engagement in the long run. With a better understanding of your audience's wants and needs in hand, it's time to identify where and when they'll interact with your product or service in order to maximize engagement touchpoints…
Identifying Engagement Touchpoints (Engage)
Identifying engagement touchpoints is the next step in creating an effective customer engagement journey. To do this, you must understand the different stages of the user journey and determine where customers should be engaged at each stage. Here are three key steps to help you get started:
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Map out the user journey: By mapping out the different stages of your customer’s journey, from acquisition to activation and beyond, you can identify when and where they need to be engaged for maximum impact. This will help ensure that your outreach efforts are targeted and effective.
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Identify channels: Knowing which channels to use is key for successful customer engagement. Consider which social media platforms, websites, email campaigns or other digital tools best fit your target audience’s preferences and habits - ensuring that your message reaches them in a meaningful way.
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Create engaging experiences across channels: Once you have identified your target channels, it’s time to create engaging experiences across all of them that reflect your brand identity and messaging goals. By creating an integrated strategy that speaks to customers on multiple levels – emotional, rational and experiential – you can maximize engagement with your brand for long-term success.
Through research-driven mapping of the customer journey, as well as thoughtful consideration of relevant communication channels and strategies, marketers can effectively reach their audiences and create meaningful connections with them for lasting loyalty and advocacy - paving the way for active customer engagement throughout their entire lifecycle.
Converting Your Audience (Activate)
So, how do you turn those customers into loyal fans? By converting your audience, you can create a customer journey that leads to long-term engagement and advocacy.
First, it’s important to identify the key moments in the customer journey and develop strategies to capture their attention at each stage. This could involve using interactive content to engage customers early on, or providing incentives for returning customers further along the pipeline. It's also essential to keep up with industry trends and new technologies that may affect your target audience.
The next step is to develop a retention strategy that encourages repeat visits and purchases. This requires understanding how customer behaviour changes over time and developing strategies to react accordingly. For example, you could use targeted messages tailored to different segments of your audience or use rewards programs as incentives for returning customers.
By crafting a comprehensive plan that takes into account both the customer journey and communication channels, you can reach your target audiences, create meaningful connections with them, and build effective retention strategies that will bring them back time and again.
Building Effective Retention Strategies (Nurture)
Now that you’ve identified the key moments in your customer's journey and developed strategies to capture their attention, it’s time to move on to retention. To build effective retention strategies and keep customers coming back, you need to understand how customer behaviour changes over time. This requires a deep understanding of the customer lifecycle and how different channels can influence the user journey.
To ensure sustained engagement, use targeted messages tailored to different segments of your audience and provide incentives for returning customers. Offering rewards programs such as discounts or loyalty points is an effective way of encouraging repeat visitations. Additionally, staying up-to-date with industry trends and new technologies will help ensure that your message is relevant and timely.
At the same time, it’s important to monitor user activity so you can continually refine your strategy – what works today may not work tomorrow! With a comprehensive plan in place that takes into account both the customer journey and communication channels, you can create meaningful connections with your target audiences, leading to long-term engagement and advocacy.
The REAN model for this website
Take a look at the picture above. This is a simple case of how I expect people to interact with my website and me personally. First I try to reach them through different channels I control such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Search, on occasion I may also use paid sources to drive more traffic. I could also just pick up the phone and talk to a prospect.
I try to get people to engage with my website, through blogs, downloads of a free white paper and also arrange calls, meet face to face, or go to an event. All of this is designed to get people more interested in what I'm talking about so I can close deals. Understanding and involvement of the audience is key, so I ensure people who sign up are in the CRM so I can potentially re-engage them on questions I get asked. I understand my services are expensive and it might take a dozen interactions with me before a deal happens, so I nurture prospects and sign ups with more free content, blog posts or follow up directly with emails to more promising contacts.
Final words
Ultimately, leveraging tools like the REAN model will improve customer satisfaction and help you develop long-term loyalty with your customers and prospects. When done correctly, it's a win-win for both parties.
You get the picture of how you're approaching and interacting with your audience, and they get the benefit of your hindsight and planning on your communications with them. And all the while this helps you guide them down the winding river.
