What Is Customer Journey Mapping?

In a true marketing sense, customer journey mapping involves visually “mapping” every interaction a customer has with an organization. The goal is to identify the most important touch points, analyze interactions, and identify ways to improve those interactions to positively impact the customer journey. For our K-12 clients, the value for you is in reimagining your relationship with parents and students, and creating a better experience for them through improved enrollment, marketing, and retention efforts.

Determine Audiences

First, you’ll need to identify the most important part of the customer journey: who your audience is. This takes time, but will set the foundation for the rest of this process.

For you, a few starting points are likely parents, community members, and students – but consider going even deeper. For example, will you talk to new families differently than you speak to current families who have been through the enrollment process before?

Identify Touchpoints

Think about the first moment a parent learns about your school. Is it online? In person? Both? Once they’ve heard about your school, where are they likely to go next? Put yourself in the shoes of your parents – what are their goals and pain points while working with your school?

Consider each potential touchpoint – from your website and online presence to school tours and in-person interactions. Which points in their journey are most valuable to your customers?

Want to go the extra mile? Talk to the parents you work with. Ask them about their experience with your school and find out how you can improve. If you’ve already done this, pull these records before you get started – they’ll be incredibly helpful.

Establish a Content Inventory

What kind of content do your parents receive at each step? Which channels are you using, and which are performing the best?

If your school has a social media page, for example, make sure it’s being used in a way that supports the goals of your audiences. Consider things like flyers, school emails, online content – even application and enrollment documents.

Map the Journey Out

Go back to the very first touchpoints – where do potential families hear about your school? As they’re learning about your school (in the awareness stage), determine which pieces of content would help bring their attention to your institution.

While they’re researching your school and comparing it with others, help them make their decision with thoughtful content that demonstrates your understanding of their pain points and your school’s ability to address them.

Once they decide to apply to your school, make sure that the content you’re providing them makes the process easy for them. Finally, once they’re an official member of your school’s family, continue to seek feedback and use things like emails, newsletters, and social media to reinforce, maintain, and improve that relationship.

Revisit, Review, Revise

Your customer journey map should be a living document – get together with your team regularly to review how each piece is working and how they can be improved. Talk to teachers, parents, students, staff – are they all getting the information and resources they need? If so, your journey map is doing its job well.