It’s the beginning of a new year, which is always the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past and make grand plans for the future. (And just in case you’re wondering, that’s exactly what we’re doing here at Kerry Bodine & Co.) As part of that effort, I recently took a look back at our most popular posts of 2018 — and I wanted to share them with you here. I hope they inspire your work for 2019 and beyond!

So without further ado, let’s begin the countdown…

Number 10: The Customer Journey DOES NOT EQUAL The Customer Lifecycle

https://kerrybodine.com/the-customer-journey-does-not-equal-the-customer-lifecycle/

A customer journey is related to, but is not the same thing as, a customer lifecycle. The two main differences: 1) Customer journeys align with your customers’ goals or tasks — lifecycles don’t. After all, no prospective customer wakes up and decides they want to develop “awareness” of your company. 2) Customer journeys have a defined beginning and an end — lifecycles, as indicated by their circular representations, don’t. Read this post to understand why you need to set lifecycle diagrams aside when journey mapping.

Number 9: How To Map All The Variations In Your Customers’ Journeys

https://kerrybodine.com/how-to-map-all-the-variations-in-your-customers-journeys/

The title of this post is actually a trick. If you tried to map each and every variation of customer interactions, you’d start by plotting one action (like seeing an ad). That would branch out to any number of next actions (like visiting a website or going into a retail store), and each of those actions would, in turn, branch out again, and again, and again… The result is what I like to call a Crazy Tree Branching Diagram — NOT a journey map that tells a cohesive story. This post helps you prioritize the most important variations to include in your maps.

Number 8: Why Journey Maps?

https://kerrybodine.com/why-journey-maps/

Journey maps have become one of the most popular tools for understanding and improving customer experiences. But why are journey maps so popular? And why should you invest in developing them? This post outlines the reasons that the underlying framework of the journey is mission critical for your organization.

Number 7: Why You Need To Measure Journeys—Not Just Touchpoints

https://kerrybodine.com/why-you-need-to-measure-journeys-not-just-touchpoints/

It’s taken some time for organizations to evolve from simply creating journey maps to actively using the journey as a framework for how they do business. Journey analytics is one step in the right direction. What is journey analytics? It’s the measurement and analysis of key customer journeys—not just individual touchpoints. The data I cite in this post will help you make the case for realigning your organization’s measurement strategy around journeys.

Number 6: Do Customer Journeys Drive Your Content Strategy?

https://kerrybodine.com/do-customer-journeys-drive-your-content-strategy/

I often get questions about the different ways organizations can use journey maps. This post provides inspiration of how to take a journey-centric approach to your content strategy by showcasing an example from The Exploratorium, a science museum based in my hometown of San Francisco.

Number 5: The 9 Stages Of The Archetypal Customer Journey

https://kerrybodine.com/the-9-stages-of-the-customer-journey/

Every single possible customer interaction fits neatly into one of nine stages, which collectively make up what we here at Kerry Bodine & Co. call the Archetypal Customer Journey. This post will help you understand these stages—and think about which ones you want to focus on for your own journey mapping initiatives.

Number 4: 5 Steps To Mapping The Customer Journey

https://kerrybodine.com/5-steps-to-mapping-the-customer-journey/

Over the past several years, we’ve refined our approach to journey mapping. We started out with 10 steps, then realized that there were benefits in simplifying our model. So we’ve folded those 10 steps into the five you’ll find in this post. Consider this your high-level roadmap for developing journey maps and using them to drive action.

Number 3: The Always Up-To-Date Guide To CX Events

https://kerrybodine.com/events/

The only non-journey post on our top 10 list, this post has been so popular over the past several years that we’ve permanently redirected it to a dynamic event listing. It’s not much to look at now — but keep your eye on this page in the upcoming months, as we’ve got some major upgrades in store. And be sure to sign up for our dedicated event newsletter to stay abreast of the CX events you can’t miss!

Number 2: The 4 Types of Customer Journey Maps

https://kerrybodine.com/the-4-types-of-customer-journey-maps/

I wrote this post back in 2014, yet it remains one of our top blogs post year after year. Read this post to understand (yup, you guessed it) the 4 types of journey maps and which business objectives each type is best suited to help your organization accomplish.

Number 1: How To Use Our FREE Journey Mapping Template

https://kerrybodine.com/free-journey-mapping-template/

The number one page on our site gives you access to our free journey mapping template. So it’s no big surprise that our post on how to use said template is also our top blog post of 2018. Read this post to get the most out of modifying our template for your own journey mapping efforts.

***

What do you want us to write about in 2019? Let us know below!