Abstract
The relevance of evaluating the criteria that determine customer demand explains the desire of sellers to find objective strategies to increase sales and brand experience management tools. The customer journey concept, developed under the influence of promotional initiatives, is the basis of many marketing decisions, and this work is aimed at assessing the current academic findings regarding this concept and its characteristics. As the sources involved, credible peer-reviewed articles are engaged to provide a solid rationale. Among the topics covered in the work, one can highlight the role of technology in shaping customer demand, the value of the omnichannel strategy, the importance of feedback systems, and other factors that occur across the customer journey. The findings provide a background for identifying future topics that deserve attention as critical research objectives that can complement the existing base of marketing activities.
Background
Finding the factors that drive customer interest and sales is a traditional marketing challenge that marketers and product distributors have been solving for decades. Individual approaches, collective retention practices, and other methods are promoted depending on product criteria, target audience characteristics, and other parameters that determine demand. Due to the development of marketing theories and algorithms for product promotion, the idea of ​​the customer journey has developed and become a general term that determines the perception of specific goods by buyers. According to Micheaux and Bosio (2019), historically, the customer journey has taken on the meaning of “a sequence of a customer’s direct and indirect contacts with a product, service or brand” (p. 130). In other words, the term reflects how the related criteria used to promote products determine the degree of consumer engagement and demand. In this regard, a number of concepts have become important as incentives influencing the buying intentions of customers. Among them, one should highlight brand experience and promotion as the criteria that determine how successful the promotion of goods or services is in a specific market based on the unique characteristics of the target audience.
Therefore, the topic chosen for the analysis relates to managing brand experience and promotion as the critical factors to take into account across the customer journey. Prentice et al. (2019) define brand experience as a set of functional values that determine customer acceptance and reflect how willing the target audience is to purchase a particular product or service based solely on loyalty. The methods to stimulate purchasing intentions and enhance brand loyalty are valuable marketing initiatives needed to engage effectively with customers and identify specific trends that drive demand. In the current academic literature, there are many findings regarding these types of marketing programs, including empirical evidence and systematic reviews. The topic of managing modern customer retention approaches carries relevance in the context of intense competition and a wide variety of technology solutions, which some marketers, nevertheless, fear.
The optimization of market conditions for promoting goods and services is a natural process because, with the growth of sales channels, more advanced principles of engaging and retaining customers become relevant tools that determine the success of promotion. In addition, unique customer preferences should be considered, which, as Gao et al. (2020) state, requires integrating distinctive selling strategies within a limited number of markets. As a result, to influence the customer journey, relationships with target clients are built through various approaches to retaining and building positive brand images.
In an effort to gain customers’ trust and sell products or services at a favorable price, marketers use different methods of promotion. However, despite their distinctive approaches, they all aim to address the same objective – meeting clients’ needs to the fullest. The characteristics of the customer journey help them perform this by creating a background for market interventions. In addition, the differences in these tactical strategies determine the nature of interaction and the productivity of communication, which directly affect the sustainability and pace of sales.
To analyze how specific sales outcomes are accomplished, the features of the customer journey have been assessed based on the criteria of brand experience and promotion from the perspective of the customer journey and its characteristics. The information from credible peer-reviewed articles has been evaluated to synthesize the findings and identify specific trends in brand experience and promotion. The main focus is on the analysis of marketing promotion and brand experience management as relevant initiatives aimed at addressing consumer needs. Future research areas will be suggested based on the collected data, and the findings have a practical value since they demonstrate crucial factors and criteria to take into account while selling goods or services and building interactions with target clients.
Current Research
The factors that determine the characteristics of the customer journey and the dynamics of sales are often found in the modern academic literature because the focus on consumer interests is one of the main ones in marketing. In the resources involved, the focus is on approaches to brand experience and promotion management. However, some articles, such as those by Berman and Thelen (2018) and Gao et al. (2020), consider the omnichannel and multichannel strategies, respectively, by paying attention to the differences and advantages of each approach. Berman and Thelen (2018) argue an omnichannel strategy has a number of advantages and can help manage customer demand effectively. This practice is judged to be more conducive to managing a marketing program. However, the authors mention barriers to the productive implementation of such an approach, particularly the fear of technological innovation (Berman & Thelen, 2018). As a result, one can assume innovation in the marketing process plays an important role, and to address the nuances of the customer journey, optimization solutions should be implemented, thereby increasing interest in specific goods or services and giving the target audience an opportunity to assess sellers’ efforts.
At the same time, while the omnichannel approach is valuable and convenient, other relevant practices can stimulate sales sustainability by influencing customer preferences. Gao et al. (2020) draw attention to the mechanism of integrating a number of aspects within one marketing program and note the convenience of such a scheme in the context of dynamic demand. In other words, if goods or services are sold successfully and do not require significant investments to popularize in the market, different promotion tools can be utilized. This conclusion correlates with the aforementioned idea that brand experience is a crucial criterion that largely determines consumer preferences and indicators of market interest in a particular product (Prentice et al., 2019). However, this applies to a limited range of products because, in the context of a diversification strategy, according to Riganelli et al. (2018), sales markets are dynamic and offer different products, which reduces the impact of brand experience due to the lack of customer recognition. Thus, multichannel promotion can be relevant but only in the context of an environment where products are well known to consumers and have a stable demand.
Based on the findings, one can conclude the omnichannel strategy is better suited for sustainable marketing work than the multichannel one. The value of technological innovations is high due to the digitalization trend and the massive transition to online shopping (Berman & Thelen, 2018). Having stable access to different shopping channels, customers are not ready to go the hard way to purchase a specific product or service. This indicates the customer journey as a phenomenon has been transformed in recent years, which is largely due to the digitalization trend. The faster and more conveniently goods are bought, the more likely customers are retained since convenience plays an essential role in determining consumer preferences and may be the decisive factor determining the dynamics of sales (Berman & Thelen, 2018). Consequently, many marketers are striving to transform the traditional mechanisms of influencing client decisions by implementing modern solutions based on introducing virtual sites and other platforms, thereby strengthening brand awareness and increasing customer loyalty. In such conditions, the concept of the customer journey is revealed in a new way with the introduction of updated buyer-seller interactions and enhanced purchasing opportunities.
At the same time, even while taking into account the value of the omnichannel approach, in some cases, this method of market work may be inferior to the multichannel practice. Gao et al. (2020) offer valuable conditions that need to be met to effectively manage brand experience and promotion by applying the multichannel strategy. The researchers mention customer, firm, and industry characteristics and argue in the case of a competent assessment of these factors and a combination of knowledge, this may contribute to gaining a wealth of insight into the prospects for desired interventions (Gao et al., 2020). According to Banerjee and Bhardwaj (2019), special marketing designs aimed to adapt the multichannel approach to a specific promotion strategy can be effective in addressing the set promotion tasks even in the absence of innovative tools. For the market as a whole, this means, despite a weak technology base, sellers can generate sustainable sales if the customer engagement mechanism is well established. This proves the customer journey is a two-way relationship rather than an individual practice, and the influence of different criteria, including promotion tactics, can be decisive.
Given the nature of marketing activities, empirical evidence forms an important basis for analyzing customer preferences and motivators. From this perspective, the study by Kuehnl et al. (2019) offers much information based on real-life reviews on the aspects of brand attitude and customer loyalty. The authors argue building a sustainable customer journey design, along with proper brand experience management, helps address the task of client engagement (Kuehnl et al., 2019). This means to promote a product or service successfully, marketers should pay attention to the unique characteristics of the target audience, for instance, age, geographic location, gender, and some other factors. By tailoring a promotion strategy to specific customers, sellers can increase demand without significant efforts. A client journey design can take different forms of expression, which expands the scope for intervention. One of the main tasks is choosing the necessary strategy, and in this case, the aforementioned technological innovations may be relevant. For example, involving artificial intelligence can help design and implement appropriate promotion algorithms that can address clients’ preferences (Kuehnl et al., 2019). In these circumstances, sales can increase even without additional marketing incentives and customer retaining mechanisms.
The more reliable the sales channels, the greater the chances of retaining customers through a sustainable exchange of experience among them. Grewal and Roggeveen (2020) assess the value of feedback systems and argue considering these mechanisms is extremely important to get an adequate and objective view of current marketing approaches from the target audience. As Zha et al. (2020) remark, robustness control includes different criteria to analyze and circumstances to take into account. Customer feedback, in this case, is a criterion that allows identifying potential gaps in promotion programs and finding those characteristics of the customer journey that explain the corresponding preferences and values. For instance, if buyers are dissatisfied with certain characteristics of goods or services, the seller can address this aspect timely, thereby avoiding the loss of a significant share of the target audience. Moreover, in the case of successful promotion, customer reviews can be an additional advertising tool to spread positive information about products or services and attract new buyers who trust the majority. Therefore, the adequacy of marketing strategies and their sustainability can be assessed in terms of the ability to promote reliable feedback systems.
In this regard, based on the current findings, one can notice appropriate motivating practices that encourage buyers to share information about products are an essential attribute of the customer journey. In addition, some other drivers from sellers, such as discounts and promotional offers, are critical factors in increasing the sustainability of sales. Given such motivating tools, the research by Zha et al. (2020) provides valuable advice regarding control mechanisms. Coordinating the aspects that define brand experience should be promoted as a one-stop solution when planning promotional approaches. Sellers and marketers need to figure out what factors are critical for buyers and what criteria should be considered undesirable. Zha et al. (2020) mention questionnaires, online surveys, and other methods of finding out the motives of purchasing intentions. This information is valuable as the data that allows finding out how the current brand promotion strategies are justified so as not to spend extra money on useless advertising and focus on the criteria that the target audience values most. Therefore, successful motivational strategies need to be based on objective assessments rather than abstract assumptions to realize brand promotion steps successfully.
Given the functions of motivational tools to manage brand experience, the role of technology in this process is also crucial to assess. The findings by Ngarmwongnoi et al. (2020) highlight the importance of the digital environment and its impact on shopping preferences. Electronic platforms are convenient sites for placing advertising offers, and interaction with the target audience through these channels allows creating the most effective incentives, which is in line with Berman and Thelen’s (2018) ideas on the role of digitalization. Moreover, most modern buyers prefer to learn information about specific goods or services online before buying, and creating conditions for the dissemination of positive data about these products is a responsible task for sellers to ensure stable sales. Regardless of the specifics of the product and its characteristics, across the customer journey, the client wants a convenient way to study the desired item, whether it be social media or specialized feedback platforms where consumers share their buying experiences (Gao et al., 2020). Therefore, the engagement of digital channels as popular shopping tools is a reasonable solution in light of the prevailing consumer trends.
While taking into account the collected findings, one can note the historically formed concept of the customer journey has undergone changes under the influence of digitalization trends and multi-vector marketing activities. Creating conditions for successful brand experience management includes a wide range of tools and tactical solutions, which increasingly involve the online environment as the main platform for promotion. Various designs are based on feedback systems and advanced algorithms for collecting data on buying intentions to attract the attention of consumers and retain the target audience. The emergence of digital technologies has become one of the decisive factors that have determined changes in the marketing industry and entailed new styles of promoting goods and services. Therefore, based on the analyzed findings, one can conclude the customer journey is a flexible concept that responds to changes dynamically and can adapt to current offerings successfully if marketers and sellers offer favorable terms.
Future Questions
Future research on this topic may address a deeper assessment of approaches to managing appropriate marketing strategies. According to the findings by Berman and Thelen (2018), a more detailed analysis of the interaction of the omnichannel approach with a purchase funnel can be made in the context of a planning regime. A comparison between the omnichannel and multichannel strategies can be made to distinguish not only the positives mentioned by Gao et al. (2020) but also negative features. In addition, to assess the specifics of the multichannel strategy, Banerjee and Bhardwaj (2019) suggest comparing online and offline sales to ensure a more accurate prediction of whether a complex marketing program can function in different environments but with equal effectiveness.
To highlight the role of a customer journey design and its impact on the sustainability of sales, the findings by Kuehnl et al. (2019) can be taken as a background for evaluating different criteria but not just brand attitudes. Micheaux and Bosio (2019), in turn, analyze the customer journey from a more general perspective and note subsequent research should address the dynamics of this concept and identify the transformations that occur as a result of changes in marketing practices and mechanisms. Grewal and Roggeveen (2020) focus on retail sales and raise the following question: what tools for establishing feedback systems are the most effective in trading a wide range of goods? According to Prentice et al. (2019), customer engagement is not static, and in addition to reviewing brand management ways, they suggest analyzing product quality as a yardstick that determines customer retention and product promotion.
The features of brand experience can be learned in different environments since, as Zha et al. (2020) note, numerous current studies lack the discussion of emergent channels. Therefore, along with these researchers, Riganelli et al. (2018) determine the future task of finding out how important product diversification is in different areas and whether this concept can strengthen brand promotion. Finally, the analysis of the differences among each of the popular online platforms mentioned by Ngarmwongnoi et al. (2020) can allow finding the optimal marketing mechanisms for influencing purchasing decisions with an emphasis on each media resource individually.
References
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