A Different Kind of Customer Journey

All Companies are Mission-Driven

Put aside your romantic notions of what you think mission-driven means. Instead, think about how you align

1. A goal with a timeline,
2. Your tribe (the customers and consumers who will buy from you), and
3. Your company’s purpose (the reason you’re in business beyond making money).

It’s easy to create a focused mission that will guide your actions when you follow this model:

• We will (accomplish/achieve) [ measurable goal ]
• By [ future date ]
• Because [ who it’s for, and what it’s for. ]

A mission-driven design philosophy calls buyers to action (your tribe) and engages them as ambassadors. Mission-driven companies also attract and motivate people who want to accomplish the same thing! The mission is your company’s path to achieving a goal and creating value by profitably solving problems for people, society, and the planet.

“The purpose of business is not to create profit. The purpose of business is to create profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet. Not to profit by creating problems for people and planet.”

Colin Mayer CBE, Co-EditorEmeritus Professor
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Mission-driven design is intentional. It’s about making conscious decisions about how and what to communicate with your audience because you understand what motivates them based on research and insight.

Practically speaking, branding and marketing professionals must avoid the appeal of social media’s shiny object syndrome and know your tribe’s preferences, behaviors, and beliefs. You will waste your marketing budget if you don’t know who they are and where they hang out.

Extraordinary strategy aligns design choices, channels, and touchpoints to deliver your message to the right people at the right time.

It’s an opportunity to raise your voice in a noisy culture and competitive marketplace.

Extraordinary strategists understand there’s more to creating a long-term plan to outlast your competition than a few transactions makes funnels that create short-term revenue.

The Customer Journey

The idea that the customer journey and experience are relevant gained traction in the mid-’80s. The Customer journey’s distant cousin, the sales funnel, is a shallow and transactional substitute.

Typical marketing forces consumers through a sales funnel (sounds painful, doesn’t it?

A mission-driven design perspective is a journey with your tribe through four stages of an engagement continuum: Attract, Inform, Inspire, and Engage.

A value funnel will help you create customers who build a brand that sustains your company.

Extraordinary strategy aligns mission-aligned design and marketing communications with the company’s purpose and vision— why it exists and the desired future it wants to achieve. It encompasses every touchpoint: category design, positioning, differentiation, strategy, design, marketing, communications, media, customer service, and customer experience.

People are your brand’s most crucial touchpoint and the object of every touchpoint. Marketing nurtures relationships, and it doesn’t replace relationships.

Your company will grow as it understands its customers’ goals and motivations and activates its purpose, character, and culture to focus solely on the category in which you compete, its customers, and the problems they want to solve.

Sales funnels are acceptable if your goal is short-term revenue. They’re purely transactional and often leave the consumer with regret for making purchases or agreeing to something they don’t want to commit to for a long time.

Brand building is collaborative and complementary, where the brand ambassador (your company) and the brand owner (the consumer) walk together.

You shouldn’t be playing the short game. To think strategically, consider what you must do to create the conditions for long-term growth. Are you going to lure people into funnels or show up in the marketplace where people are looking for solutions to problems and ways to achieve goals?

Are you willing to walk the path that creates long-term, sustainable growth?