Communication Map and CJM: Choosing the Right Approach for Your Business
In modern business, a key aspect of success lies in establishing effective communication with customers and understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors.
Two marketing tools are designed to assist with this — Communication Map and Customer Journey Map. These approaches simplify the analysis of customer interactions and help build more effective marketing strategies.
This article will explore what CM and CJM are, how they differ, their roles in your business’s success, and which approach is best to use.
What is a Communication Map?
A Communication Map is a visual representation of all the communication channels between a customer and a company. By using a Communication Map, businesses can understand how and through which means users receive information about the products or services offered.
Key Elements of a Communication Map
Communication Channels: These include social media, email, phone calls, the company’s official website, offline advertisements, and other means of communication. Each channel is assigned a specific element on the map.
Customer Contact: Specific instances when a customer interacts with your company. Examples include subscribing to a newsletter, viewing an advertisement, or contacting customer support.
Messages: These are critical components that represent how and what ideas, offers, and information the company conveys to its customers.
Each message must address the needs of the target audience, align with the corporate style, and be adapted to specific communication channels.
Goals: Every interaction element should have clear objectives, whether it’s increasing brand awareness or improving conversion rates.
Why do you need a Communication Map?
Effectiveness analysis: It provides insights into which channels perform well and which need improvement. Having a clear map allows for easy monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of various channels and messages. This facilitates prompt adjustments to the strategy.
Budget optimization: Understanding which communication channels generate the most response helps allocate the budget more effectively.
Improved customer experience: A communication map identifies key touchpoints with the customer and shows the best ways to engage with specific users. This allows for a focus on customer needs and expectations, ensuring a personalized approach for each individual.
Coordination of Communication Efforts: The Communication Map integrates various campaigns and actions so they work together rather than in isolation. This ensures that all elements of communication — from social media to email sequences — support a unified strategy and goal.
What Is a CJM?
A Customer Journey Map (CJM) is a tool that visually represents the entire customer journey with your brand—from the first interaction to the purchase and all subsequent actions. The journey map provides insights into how customers perceive each interaction with your business at various stages.
Example of CJM. Source: Oberlo
Key Stages of CJM in Marketing
- Awareness. The customer first learns about your product. It’s important to consider the sources of information that helped them come to this decision.
- Consideration. The buyer evaluates and compares options. At this stage, the CJM map reveals how the search for information happens and what emotions the person experiences during the process.
- Purchase. This includes all actions related to purchasing the product. Here, it’s important to analyze whether the process is easy and intuitive.
- Post-purchase service. After the purchase, it’s crucial to understand how the customer reacts to your product or service, as well as how their interaction with customer support unfolds.
- Loyalty stage. This involves the continued communication with your brand after the purchase. It may include repeat sales, recommendations, and feedback.
Why is a customer journey map needed?
Understanding needs. The CJM path provides a detailed analysis of how the customer perceives your brand and what emotions they experience at each stage of the journey.
Optimizing user experience. Identifying weak points improves interaction and customer satisfaction.
Strategic planning. Analyzing the full journey helps in creating effective marketing strategies.
CJM elements
We talked about how to build a cjm map in detail in the article «Customer Journey Map: How to Create One and Why It's Needed».
How are these approaches related?
Despite differences in their analytical methods, the Communication Map and CJM complement each other perfectly. The Communication Map focuses on analyzing channels and messages, while the Customer Journey Map emphasizes the customer's experience throughout their interaction with the brand. By applying both tools, companies can enhance service quality.
Similarities:
Purpose. Both tools aim to help businesses better understand their audience, tailor their offerings and services, and improve communication with customers. These methods identify pain points and uncover new opportunities for improvement.
Customer-centricity. Both approaches place the customer at the center of attention, focusing on their needs, expectations, and experiences.
Visualization. Both the Communication Map and the Customer Journey Map are presented visually, making it easier to interpret data and results.
Study of interactions. Both tools analyze the relationship between the customer and the brand, examining communication channels and the stages of the purchase process.
Differences:
| Criterion | Communication Map | Customer Journey Map |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Provides information about how data is transmitted and how communication is accomplished. Includes channels, messages and modes of interaction. | Focuses on a person's experience as they interact with a product or service from start to finish. Analyzes the entire chain of contact with the brand and the customer's emotions at each stage. |
| Structure | Usually presented in the form of diagrams showing how and through which channels communication takes place: email, phone calls, social media, etc. Describes information relating to key points of interaction. | The analysis covers various stages, from first awareness of a problem to service after the first purchase. Elements such as the motivation, emotions and needs of the customer at each stage of the journey can also be mapped. |
| Application | More often used in marketing and copywriting strategies, when it is necessary to understand in what format and with what content to convey messages to the target audience. | Used to improve customer-company interactions, identifying problem areas and suggesting how to improve them. |
| Measurable indicators | Satisfaction metrics (e.g., NPS, CSAT) may be included, as the focus is on the emotional state of the individual. | Includes more specific metrics of communication effectiveness (e.g., email open rates, conversions by channel). |
Analyzing the similarities and differences between these approaches, it becomes clear that the Communication Map and CJM are complementary tools. They help companies optimize their operations by gaining a deeper understanding of their audience and creating a positive customer experience at every stage of their "journey."
The use of these approaches significantly enhances the quality of service and customer satisfaction.
Communication Map and CJM:
Complement each other. A Communication Map provides more detailed information about the channels used to interact with customers at each stage of the CJM. This enables the development of more effective communication strategies by taking into account customer needs and desires.
Touchpoint analysis. Both tools help identify key touchpoints. However, the Communication Map places greater emphasis on the channels and includes business communication management, while the Customer Journey Map focuses on the overall customer experience.
Enhancing customer experience. The combined use of both maps offers a more holistic understanding of the customer journey, which in turn allows companies to adapt their strategies both in communication and user experience.
Altcraft Platform for Building Communications
In Altcraft CDP, communication logic can be built using scenarios — programs designed to automate marketing processes.
With these, you can manage customer loyalty, send abandoned cart reminders, create welcome sequences, run retargeting and reactivation campaigns, send payment reminders, and more. Building scenarios in the Altcraft Platform helps craft a more effective marketing strategy and enables in-depth analysis of customer interactions with the company.
Imagine a potential customer is interested in your product and has already added it to their cart. Using a scenario, you can increase the likelihood of order completion by reminding them about the product after a certain period. Additionally, the scenario allows for the automatic generation of a promo code and sending a personalized offer.
Example of an abandoned cart scenario
You can boost your customers' engagement using Altcraft, for example, through a loyalty program. Implementing such a tool helps retain customers, build trust in the brand, increase satisfaction, and encourage repeat purchases.
The main goals of these programs are to expand the customer base, raise the average order value, and reduce customer churn.
To implement this in the platform, set up a scenario that, with each purchase, evaluates loyalty based on order data, RFM metrics (average order value), or already accumulated bonus points.
Example of a customer loyalty management scenario
With Altcraft CDP, you can implement these and many other scenarios. The platform allows you to trigger them under various conditions:
- Individually for each client when a specific event occurs (abandoned cart, viewed product, registered goal on the website, and more).
- On a set schedule for a selected audience.
The panel displaying scenario progress for clients is located at the bottom of the editor. Detailed campaign statistics used in the workflow can be accessed through the channel report. This section is directly accessible from the editor.
Summary
The use of Communication Map and CJM is an essential step toward building an effective customer interaction strategy. These approaches are successfully implemented in Altcraft Platform through automation scenarios.
These tools not only enhance the understanding of your customers' needs but also improve the overall efficiency of business processes. Ultimately, the better you know your customers, the more successful your business will be.
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