Not everyone who visits your website or sits in your database is ready to donate, become a member, buy or take the other actions that you want them to do. Your user personas should take this into account, incorporating a theory of what they need to experience in order to take action. You can consider the steps people take from first landing on your website to ultimately taking that action as a journey.
This is the fourth in a series of eight posts inspired by our eBook The Complete Cause Driven Website. Links to the other posts will be included at the bottom of the page as they’re published. You can download the book for free and it’s full of many more useful insights in creating a highly effective website for a cause.
In fact, we often think of the customer journey with a wider perspective. It starts when people first encounter your organisation and continues through the relationship. User journeys can span different channels. Perhaps they find you on social media, sign up to your mailing list and after a while they’re inspired to take that action.
You can visualise this with a user journey map, a graphic tool that clearly describes each step in the journey. User journeys are really helpful when creating a cause website or in making your current website more effective. The map can include more than just the channels and actions in the journey. You might find it insightful to map the emotions of the customer at each step or their level of affinity with you.
User journey maps can be a powerful tool for making things easier, faster and more impactful for your users as well as more effective for your organisation. Consider mapping the customer journey that people currently take in order to identify any problems, frustrations or inefficiencies. Then create a new journey that will address all these issues and makes changes to your cause website and other channels to make this journey a reality. It’s a win-win; good for you and good for your users.
The Complete Cause Driven Website blog series
- INTRODUCTION – The Pyramid Approach
- BRAND – Know yourself and powerfully communicate your purpose and values
- STRATEGY – Align your website with your business goals, approach your site with a long term plan
- EXPERIENCE – Understand what your community want and help them achieve it
- CONTENT – Communicate effectively with all your audiences
- INTERFACE – Build a site that encourages action
- IMPROVEMENT – Regularly make your site more efficient and effective
- PLATFORM – Ensure that your website has a foundation for success
