Chapter 3

Now that you understand the value you bring to your market, it’s time to start making plans to intentionally deliver that value to more people and in a more predictable way.

To do that, you’ll need to understand the eight stages of a healthy business relationship. We call it The Customer Value Journey.

​Download your own Value Journey Worksheet PDF here.

More About The Aware Stage

Before someone can buy from you, they have to realize you exist—right?

Well, that’s step 1 in the Customer Value Journey.

This step is pretty self-explanatory: it’s where the person becomes aware of you. After all, nobody is born knowing who Apple or Amazon are. At some point they have to become aware of these companies if they are to become a customer.

The same thing is true of your company.

Examples Of Marketing That Generates Awareness

Here’s a short list of ways a prospect could become aware of your company, products and services:

• A BTL investor wannabe sees an advertisement for a new property investment networking group on Facebook
• A home owner searches Google to find a local estate agent
• A college student watches an Instagram video of her friend raving about a new space-saving sofa-bed.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Create Engagement

To improve engagement in your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Community Management

More About The Engage Stage

Your prospect is now aware of you—they know who you are—but this is just the beginning of the relationship. They don’t yet know you, like you, or trust you.

So, the next step is to start developing your relationship with the prospect.

Step two, Engagement, is where you start conversing with your prospects. You engage them through some form of content that provides entertainment, information, or both.

Engagement is something that must continue throughout the Customer Journey. It’s not something you do once and move on.

Examples of Marketing That Generates Engagement

Engagement typically comes in the form of content or community. Here are a few examples to get the ideas flowing for your company:

• A homeowner receives an email newsletter from his financial advisor detailing several ways to reduce his mortgage.
• The owner of a boutique letting agency becomes active in a Facebook community for BTL investors.
• A young family watch a YouTube video from Zoopla explaining how Help To Buy scheme works.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Create Engagement

To improve engagement in your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Community Management

More About The Subscribe Stage

At this point, your prospect knows who you are and they have engaged with you in some way or another.

However, if you fail to get that person’s contact information…odds are you’ll never hear from them again.

Why?

Because people today are inundated with marketing and content from many different companies. Just because someone reads one of your blog posts does NOT mean that you can trust them to return on their own accord in the future.

Instead, you need to get that person to progress to step 3 in the Value Journey, which is to subscribe.

This is where the person gives you their contact information along with permission to contact them again in the future. Often this is given in exchange for an “ethical bribe,” such as free content, products or services that requires that the prospect give you their contact information.

Examples of Marketing That Generates Subscribers

For many online companies, subscribing means getting the person to opt in to your email list. Here are some examples:

• A young professional attends a webinar held by a local estate agent about the best practices of purchasing a first home.
• A landlord fills out a form on a blog to receive updates with the latest stats from the local market.
• The owner of an estate agency signs up for a demo of a new CRM he can use to manage the any new prospecting buyers and sellers.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Generate Subscribers

To get more subscriptions for your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Digital Advertising
• Community Management
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Copywriting

More About The Convert Stage

If the subscribers you gain in Step 3 of the Journey remain engaged, some of them will be ready to increase their level of commitment. A prospect shows that commitment by investing time or money.

This is a critical stage in the Customer Journey and one that frustrates many business owners. The key to success in this stage is to employ what we call “entry-point offers”. These offers are designed to give the new prospect tremendous value without forcing them to put too much “skin in the game.”

This is not the time to ask your prospect to invest a significant amount of money on a complex product or service. That would be asking too much, too soon.

In fact, this is not even the time to necessarily concern yourself with profitability. That’s correct, in this stage you might be losing money on the prospects you acquire as buyers.

This is, perhaps, the most important lesson you must learn so it bears repeating:

The Convert stage of the Customer Value Journey is about acquiring buyers or ramping up the commitment level of the leads you already have. It is NOT about profitability.

The most valuable businesses in the world all understand that the most-costly marketing activity your business undertakes is customer acquisition. It’s the reason GoDaddy offers domains for £2.95 and it’s the reason VistaPrint will sell you 500 business cards for £9.

The goal is to acquire the customer, the profits come later.

Examples of Marketing That Generates Conversions

There are two types of entry-point offers: those that require a commitment of time, and those that require a commitment of money. Here are some examples:

• A landlord looking to expand his portfolio purchases a property investment consultant’s book for £8 on the consultant’s website.
• A daughter of elderly parents schedules few viewings with an agent specialising in selling retirement homes.
• A home owner takes advantage of a free consultation with a local mortgage advisor
• A home owner books an appointment with a local estate agent for a home valuation

Remember: your goal here is not to make a huge profit. It’s to get customers. To shift the relationship between you and your subscribers.

Because, as you’ll see, once someone is a customer it is much more likely that person will purchase higher-ticket, more complex products and services and do it more frequently. Remember, one of the most-costly (in time, money, resources) marketing activities your business will undertake is the acquisition of customers. The good news is that once you’ve acquired them, you don’t need to pay to acquire them again.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Generate Conversions

To improve conversions in your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Digital Advertising
• Content Marketing
• Copywriting
• Email Marketing
• Search Marketing

More About The Excite Stage

At this point your new customer has had a transaction with you. A small transaction, but a transaction nonetheless.

Now it’s essential to make sure that transaction is a good one.

The reason why is simple: if the person doesn’t get value from this transaction, they won’t move on to the next stage and purchase more expensive things from you.

So, how do you make sure your customers have a good experience?

First, we assume that whatever the prospect purchased or gave up valuable time for is outstanding. Great marketing will only increase the speed of which your business will fail if you don’t have outstanding products and services.

Second, the prospect must get value from their last transaction with you. The Excite stage of the Customer Value Journey is something you must return to again and again. Each time a customer or prospect does what you ask them to do (attend this webinar, buy this product, hire me for this service) you should engineer marketing that maximizes the chances that they will get value.

Examples of Marketing That Creates Excitement

Your goal in the Excite stage of the Customer Value Journey is to make sure your customer gets value from their transaction. Here are some examples:

• A married couple buys a Keurig (coffee maker) and uses the free coffee servings and Quick Start Guide to have an amazing cup of coffee within minutes of opening the box.
• A purchaser of a new lawn mower receives a free grass fertiliser inside the box together with the lawn mower.
• A young man reads through 3 eye-opening blog posts recommended via email by his newly hired Property Investment Coach in advance of their first session.
• An estate agent records a short video explaining the rationale behind the estimated value of the house they just valued, together with an actual written valuation

This stage is all about ensuring that your marketing is giving your customer opportunity to get value from doing business with you.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Create Excitement

To improve consumption in your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Copywriting

More About The Ascend Stage

At this point you’ve sunk time, money and resources into acquiring leads and customers and making sure they get value from doing business with you. It’s entirely possible that, until this stage, you have yet to turn a profit. In fact, if you are in a competitive market (and who isn’t?) you may be losing money on the front end of this process to acquire customers.

Buying customers on the front end is just shrewd business, but only if you are able to monetize those customers on the back end.

The Ascend stage of the Value Journey is where your customer will be ready to buy more and more often. If your business has a core offer, this is the place to make that offer. And once your customer purchases that core offer, this is the time to present them with other relevant offers.

You’ll notice that the Value Journey worksheet represents the Ascent stage as a ladder. That’s no accident. This is really a ladder that will hopefully lead to multiple purchases over time.

Examples of Marketing That Creates Ascension

Examples of ascension can include:

• A landlord finds a tenant for his flat in London through an agent and signs up for monthly maintenance and management plus rent collection with this agent
• A holiday let tenant pays extra for a weekly cleaner and concierge service
• A home owner pays for the installation of a brand new boiler and buys an annual service and maintenance package

When you execute this stage properly, your customers will thank you for these offers. Hodson’s customers that want to buy a new build property are over the moon that they won’t have to pay stamp duty.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Create Ascension

To improve ascension in your company, the digital marketing tactics you need to master or hire include:

• Email Marketing
• Copywriting
• Digital Advertising
• Content Marketing

More About The Advocate Stage

You now have a happy customer who has made several profitable purchases from you. The next stage in the Value Journey is to create marketing that allows those that are willing to advocate for your business.

An advocate is someone who speaks positively of your brand.

An advocate is what you might call a “passive promoter.” They won’t necessarily promote your business in an active way, but when asked about you, they will respond favourably.

Examples of Marketing That Generates Advocates

These final two stages (Advocate and Promote) are often thought to be outside of the control of marketing, but that simply isn’t true. You can create marketing that intentionally generates more advocates and promoters.

Here are a few examples:

• A holiday let landlord enters a contest to win a new Nest Thermostat for her property from a local holiday let agent by shooting a video review detailing how impressed she is by their service.
• Upon request, the warehouse manager at a produce supplier company writes a glowing review of the local courier service she uses to transport fruits and vegetables locally.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Generate Advocates

Getting advocates is important because it helps generate awareness, trust, and credibility with a wider audience—which helps you to get more customers and grow your business.

To get more advocates in your company, the marketing efforts you need to work on include:

• Social Media Marketing
• Email marketing
• Search Marketing

More About The Promote Stage

Promoters differ from advocates in that they are actively seeking to spread the word about your brands, products and services.

In some cases, the promoter simply had a great experience with your company and they want to share it with their friends and family. In other cases, they promote because you have created an incentive for them to do so.

And because this new audience is hearing about you from a trusted source (such as a friend or family member they already know), they are typically much more likely to become customers themselves.

Examples of Marketing That Generates Promoters

Intentionally creating more promoters is important because it creates an army of paid or unpaid salespeople spreading the word about what you sell.

Here are a few examples:

• A man who runs a podcast about property investment earns a 20% commission every time one of his listeners books to a property investing training day using his affiliate link.
• A woman attends a conference for free because she arranged for 5 of her colleagues to go as well.
• A letting agent partners with an insurance provider to resell their rent guarantee insurance policy for a commission.

Digital Marketing Disciplines That Generate Promoters

To get more promoters in your company, the marketing efforts you need to work on include:

• Email Marketing
• Copywriting

Complete Your Customer Value Journey Canvas

Now, it’s your turn. How does each stage of the Customer Value Journey look for your products and services?

Take some time to complete your first Customer Value Journey now.