The Customer Value Journey, the patented formula we use at Cirius Marketing, is proven to create better customer experiences.

By creating awareness, getting customers to engage with content that educates & builds authority & leading them to take a desired action, businesses can take strangers to their brand & turn them into total evangelists for it.

It’s a model that can transform not only your business by creating more sales & growth, but also transform your customers by solving very real problems that are holding them back in their day-to-day lives.

But in some cases, the Customer Value Journey can lead to the promotion of products that don’t just make life easier.

It can help create products that literally save lives.

And that is the mission of Road iD.

Founded in 1999 by father & son team Mike & Edward Wimmer, the company empowers adventurers & gives everyday people peace of mind by selling ID bracelets & dog tags engraved with their personal information.

Whether someone is running a marathon, cycling, walking their dog or going on family trips with small children, their ID’s ensure that if there is an accident or someone gets lost, their emergency information will be in full view.

Not only that, but the ID’s are engraved with a phone number to call in the event of an emergency so that first responders can access the patient’s medical information.

Their website is filled with stories of customers who are alive today because of their Road iDs.

But those customers never would have gotten the protection they needed if Road iD’s brand was not reaching people far & wide…& their powerful marketing strategy & promotion of their mission is what helps them make a difference.

Maybe your business doesn’t provide a life-saving service…but no matter what it sells, building a strong relationship with your customers is vital. 

Road iD’s strategy, which illustrates the power of the Customer Value Journey model we use here at Cirius Marketing, provides evidence of why.

Customer Value Journey Stage 1: Awareness

The Awareness stage begins the Customer Value Journey with your customer learning that your business exists. This typically happens through a referral, by word of mouth or through online advertising such as Facebook ads that use engaging copy, eye catching photos & enticing offers.

For example, this advertisement for new colors for Road iD’s newest bracelet bands lights up your newsfeed & forces you to stop scrolling:

Similarly, this Facebook post shows how the bracelets can be personalized to fit the wearer’s interest to promote a special offer:

Through their posts & ads, the company uses Facebook to drive traffic to their website & gain the attention of users.

Customer Value Journey Stage 2: Engagement

The Engagement stage is where customers begin digging deeper into what your business is about. They visit your website, where they read a blog post, watch a video, explore your products or interact with other meaningful content.

Visiting RoadID’s website is an experience in itself. There’s a lot going on, but the website is nonetheless well organized, with a double header & footer that make different parts of the site easier to navigate & find.

The website always features its main promotion above the fold (the part of the page you see when it first loads). As you scroll down, it shows featured product products, customer testimonials & more.

The Customer Testimonials section, accessible from the footer, is the most powerful tool for building engagement. It includes dozens of powerful stories, from a dirt bike enthusiast who fell at a speed of 40 miles per hour to a woman who was unable to speak from the shock of her crash to a mother who was reunited with her child, who got lost while wearing the ID bracelet.

Using these testimonials as blog posts, RoadID builds an emotional relationship & credibility while also overcoming reader objections by showing how necessary & potentially life-saving the product can be.

Customer Value Journey Stage 3: Subscribe

The Subscribe stage is where customers provide their email address in exchange for a valuable resource. With their contact information, you now have permission to reach out to them with more offers.
Road iD entices customers to subscribe primarily through a popup that offers free shipping on your first purchase in exchange for opting in. However, they frequently offer more opportunities to subscribe through other special offers & events.

In August of 2020, to commemorate the Tour de France, they held a trivia contest. Each day, site visitors could opt in for text messages & emails to play, unlocking special discounts & prizes for correct answers. The text messages then give additional instructions on how to earn entries for the grand prize, a bicycle package valued at $10K.

The contest provides a way for people to opt in & be introduced to the brand through the rewards. However, the way it gamifies the subscribe state can figure into the Excite stage by creating enthusiasm among site visitors.

Customer Value Journey Stage 4: Convert

Armed with their coupon acquired in the Subscribe stage, customers at Road iD are now ready to Convert—that is, make their first purchase with the business.

For Road iD, this means using the free shipping offer to save a bit on their first ID. According to the Customer Value Journey model, this is typically where customers purchase a tripwire offer—a low-dollar offer that exists purely to convert leads into buyers.

But because their coupon now enables them to save some cash, this is a situation where the core offer can be purchased earlier in the game.

To help you navigate the selection of your ID, the site even has a quiz to help you find the perfect ID for you, walking you through a series of questions that eventually matches you with a product that fits your preferences for size, style & color.

Customer Value Journey Stage 5: Excite

The Excite stage happens when your customer gets real value from their initial purchase. At Road iD, the Excite stage is the lynchpin for getting customers pumped to get started with their ID.

They do it through an email marketing strategy that starts the moment you place an order and ends after it arrives in the mail.

First, you get engaging emails that update you on every stage in the process—from confirming your order to engraving the ID to sending it out.

The content itself immediately picks up on building the relationship that began in the Engagement stage. The biggest asset used is the brand’s witty, funny, down to earth voice. The copy is not just informing customers about what’s happening with their order—it’s teaching them about the company’s values in the process.

The emails also build excitement by preparing customers for what could otherwise end up being the hardest part of the whole process: putting the bracelet together.

If you purchase an ID with a silicone band, the band must be sized & trimmed to fit your wrist, & while the clasp is easy to use once you get the hang of it, it takes some practice.

So one of the emails includes an instructional video to show you what to do when the bracelet arrives.

This company doesn’t just confirm your order & leave you hanging. They make it clear that they are there for their customers every step of the way.

Customer Value Journey Stage 6: Ascend

The Ascend stage is where your customer not only buys your core offer, but comes back to buy more. 

Road iD has dozens of products beyond just their core offer. For example, you can purchase an ID for your pet, branded hats, bike jerseys & t-shirts & additional bands & badges for your bracelet.

However, the company also uses retargeting in an interesting way to bring back subscribers who have abandoned their carts or looked at an item without buying.

Because subscribers opt in to receive texts as well as emails, they immediately get a text message reminding them about the item they viewed or added to their cart.

Since more than 70% of customers who are reminded of an item they were interested in eventually return to complete the purchase, this strategy increases the chances of the making the sale, while doing so in a friendly, conversational manner.

Customer Value Journey Stage 7: Advocate

The Advocate stage is where customers begin to talk about you online. They write reviews, post on social media & comment in other online spaces about their experience with your business.

About a week after the customer receives their Road iD in the mail, they get an email with the subject line “How Did Road iD Do?” and an invitation to review their purchase. An email reminder to review your business can go a long way to driving people to tell others about you.

Each product page on the site also gives customers a chance to review the products for themselves.

Getting customers to write reviews helps to not just get the word out about your business, but also build social proof for your business. Nothing is more powerful than the words of real people who have purchased products & were satisfied with the results.

Which brings us to the final stop on the journey.

Customer Value Journey Stage 8: Promote

The Promote stage is where the journey ends. Customers who had never heard of your business before are now not only buying your products, but telling their friends.

Road iD makes testimonials an integral part of their journey by accepting personal stories, videos, photos & more from customers whose lives have changed because of their brand.

The company’s ultimate goal is to give peace of mind to people on the go & be free to know Road iD has their back, & by showcasing stories, they promote their mission as well as their products.

It’s ultimately these stories that create awareness of their ID’s benefits…and the Journey starts all over.

Building Your Customer Journey

Did seeing the Customer Value Journey in action make you wonder how this model might work for you? Do you have some ideas about how to create a better customer experience?

Take our Customer Adventure Score assessment & see how your current strategy matches up with the patented formula that’s helped hundreds of businesses growth.

Once you’ve got your score, you’ll get access to tons of additional resources to help you increase your score & create a better customer adventure.

Click here to check it out!