The marketing experts usually divide the key concept of customer experience – online or offline – into several smaller tasks like awareness, consideration, resultant demand and ultimately, the purchase decision. So what is the best way to approach digital marketing? Let us find out…

Awareness is broadly supposed to be impartial since potential clients are initially a bit skeptical, and understandably so! Consideration tends to add the kind of detail they need while making a purchasing decision – without selling any one particular option – whereas demand is more forward, mostly about how to buy, because ‘actual’ clients have already suggested that they are interested.

A crucial aspect of marketing functions is the assumed chain or sequence. No one will try purchase anything if one is not aware of the fact that you offer it in the first place. An informed decision takes into consideration all available options side by side. The success lies in guiding prospects through the funnel: starting with awareness, leading from consideration to actual demand and finally, a purchase call.

A searcher’s mindset
On the web, your potential customers are more or less in control of the process or flow of information. They can opt for non-linear paths and can move to the consideration phase. They can bookmark their relevant experiences and even revisit the awareness phase. The users are also in a position to search for specific products/services, fill up a cart, abandon the experience and come back to the consideration/awareness phases in case of any doubt or dissatisfaction.

So treat digital marketing just as a pool. Here, the searchers are in a hurry to get through the desired experience as fast as possible, albeit in the order they wish. If you can make the marketing content gripping, they might slow down and pause, to make correct decisions with the information that you help them locate.

Site search and pathing data
First, fix your masthead search! If it is ineffective, visitors will revert to Google with their queries. Your competitors might well show up in the search results and you will end up losing a business opportunity. When a website incorporates quality search experiences in the masthead, it frees your prospective clients to explore the data they need. If they don’t get it, they are unlikely to fill up another cart. So, you are not only pushing your prospects to competitors, but also making it tougher to find your content when they actually need it.

Do not fixate on pathing data
Marketers prefer getting an end-to-end view of how a customer moves through the sales funnel, which can be achieved with a good web analytics packages. You count total clicks from one Web page to another – by a set of users.

This method assumes that users consume sites like a book, serially from its home page to awareness, consideration, demand, and to purchase decision. However, they might land through search engines on the page most relevant to their query, and perhaps then navigate a couple of other pages. The key is to ensure that they do not get stuck.

In case of a higher bounce rate, try to tune your pages to relevant search results. Despite spending time on your pages, if users are not clicking anything, devise more compelling calls-to-action. Following their paths for a couple of clicks can provide you with actionable data.