Your team has a backlog of features to implement, and you’re the product owner. The issue is that your team is overworked, and no one knows where to begin or how to prioritize duties.

This is where a user story map template might be beneficial!

What is User Story Mapping and How Does it Work?

A user story map visually represents a user’s journey through a product. It aids product teams in better understanding customers, identifying journey friction points, and prioritizing what would improve the user experience.

It allows you to organize user stories into a usable model for understanding a system’s functionality, finding holes and omissions in your backlog, and planning holistic releases that value users.

A user story is a brief and straightforward description of a feature from the end user’s point of view. “As a user, I can add products to my wish list that I’m not ready to buy yet,” for example.

It forces product teams to design with the end user in mind. A user narrative map goes one step further by displaying a user’s stages to completing a task.

How a User Story Map is Useful

All of the activities in the user-story map are captured as short words that represent an actual user task. As a result, the first part of the user-story structure discusses what the user wants to do with the product.

In the second half of the talk, the story is expanded to incorporate the important benefits. But, again, it is focused on the user and their wants; this mapping style is known as user story mapping. Consider every detail from the user’s perspective.

Later, the team expands on this simple sentence to create specific user stories discussed, with acceptance criteria added and then added to the product/sprint backlog for completion during each sprint as needed.

As we can see, the goal of user stories is to start a conversation about how to solve user problems from the perspective of the consumer who will be using the product.

How Do You Make A User Story Map?

Here are the steps to follow to make a user story map:

Create The Framework

You’ll want to reduce the plot’s scope before you start planning it out. If you don’t, you’ll rapidly become overwhelmed and unable to begin. 

So here are some questions to think about:

• What issues are we attempting to resolve?
• How does this feature contribute to the overall value of the product?
• Who is the target audience segment or customer persona for which we are creating? (If applicable)

Make A Diagram Of The Story’s Activities And Steps

Create a general roadmap for how the user will access and use this feature in this step. Those are your primary pursuits.

This section aims to explain the significant steps that must be taken to move from point A to point B. The steps are then laid out in front of you. So let’s take a look at them.

• Enter a search term in the search bar and go to the results page
• Look through the search results for specific information
• Use the pricing filtering tool to limit your alternatives
• Re-examine the search results page with the new options
• Choose an item and add it to your cart
• Complete the transaction

As you can see, story mapping necessitates a transition from macro to micro. You’ll most likely plan out these elements with the help of your participants.

Tasks Should Be Grouped And Defined

This is where the cooperation begins after you’ve mapped out the significant details. Again, you should emphasize the important steps involved in each activity under each stage.

You can rank features by priority by including must-have, could-have, and should-have options on your map. Here’s what you should think about!

• Are there smaller tasks your end user could perform in the middle of one of these tasks?
• Is there anything that could hinder their progress at this point? For example, what are the chances that they’ll get stranded somewhere?
• Is there any other way for the user to go around this page?

This will necessitate a joint effort from your various teams to determine what is reasonable and achievable.

Key Takeaways

• As teams and clients better understand the technology and the project progresses, requirements will alter. 
• Expect the project teams to plan for a static requirements list and then deliver working software months later. 
• Consider constructing a user story map template if your product team can’t decide where to start on a new or current project. It might take some time away from the construction process, but it will pay dividends in the long run.

The post User Story Maps Can Help Make You, Your Team, and Customers Happier appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s a huge mistake.

And yet, I see it happen all the time.

A marketer or business owner gets so focused on WHAT they’re selling that they forget to think about WHO they’re selling it to.

This is the kiss of death for a marketing campaign, and sometimes even an entire business.

You could have the greatest product on earth, but if you’re trying to sell it to the wrong person—you’re never going to hit your sales numbers.

That’s why understanding your customer avatar (AKA buyer persona) is so important.

That’s also why we created the Customer Avatar Worksheet (that you can download for FREE), to help you document everything about your customer avatar.

Before you can sell anything effectively, you need to understand…

• WHO your ideal customer is
• WHERE they’re hanging out online
• WHAT their challenges are

But how do you actually do all that?

Don’t worry—I’ll dig into the details later on in this post. First, I want to make sure you understand why customer avatars are so important, and why I refer to them as the “Swiss army knife” of marketing.

The Swiss Army Knife of Marketing

Digital marketing is composed of a lot of different disciplines.

There’s content marketing, email marketing, paid traffic, product creation, social media, copywriting, analytics… the list goes on.

Each of those disciplines has its own unique set of skills to master.

But knowing how to identify your customer avatar is one of the few skills that applies to every marketing discipline. That’s what makes it the Swiss army knife—you can use it in every single marketing discipline.

For example…

• Content Marketing: Knowing your avatar helps you decide what blog posts, videos, podcasts, Lead Magnets, etc. you should create to attract more leads and customers
• Paid Traffic: Knowing your avatar helps you discover which ad platforms you should buy traffic from—and what targeting options you should use
• Product Creation: Knowing your avatar will help you create a product that your customer NEEDS
• Copywriting: Knowing your avatar helps you describe your offers in a way that speaks to your avatar’s problems and compels them to want to buy
• Email Marketing: Knowing your avatar helps you get more open rates and better conversion rates on your emails…and can even be used to segment specific email marketing campaigns to different avatars

Any part of the marketing and sales process that “touches” the customer (which is pretty much EVERYTHING) will improve when you get clear on your customer avatar.

Get the Digital Marketing Blueprint…

With a Customer Value Journey that strategically builds a relationship with new prospects and converts them into loyal, repeat customers. Click here

When you get clear on the characteristics of the person who is going to buy your products and services, it’s a lot easier to find and present them with a message that moves them to action.

Let’s look at one of our customer avatars as an example.

Customer Avatar Example: Meet Agency Eric

One of our products here at DigitalMarketer is our Certification Classes. These trainings include exams, certificates, and badges—plus, we also give you third-party credibility you can put on your website, on LinkedIn, on a resume, and so on.

So who would make a good customer for this product? We defined 4 distinct buyer personas:

• The Marketing Freelancer: Interested in trainings and certifications to distinguish herself from competing freelancers
• The Marketing Agency Owner: Interested in trainings and certifications to sharpen the marketing skills of her employees, so her agency can provide more/better services to clients
• The Employee: Interested in trainings and certifications to distinguish himself at work or to secure a new job or promotion within his existing company
• The Business Owner: Interested in trainings and certifications to sharpen her own marketing skills and the skills of her internal marketing team members

As a result, 4 new “Customer Avatars” were born. Here’s one of them, “The Marketing Agency Owner”—we call him Agency Eric.

Let’s walk through this Customer Avatar Worksheet, step by step.

Customer Avatars: What to Include

There are 5 major components to a customer avatar:

• Goals and Values
• Sources of Information
• Demographic Information
• Challenges and Pain Points
• Objections and Roles

In some cases, you’ll need to survey and actually talk with your existing customers to figure out who your customer avatar is and what they need from you.

In other cases, you’ll already be intimately familiar with the characteristics of your ideal customer.

In any case, move forward.

Don’t wait for surveys or interviews to be conducted to create your first draft of an avatar.

Make assumptions where you have no data or feedback, and put it on your shortlist of to-dos to complete your research when you can.

In the meantime, you’ll benefit from having an avatar already built—even if you have to go back and verify a few of the assumptions you made.

Now, let’s look at each section of the Customer Avatar Worksheet.

Goals and Values

The best way to get started is to think about the goals and values that are important to your ideal customer.

Here’s what we came up with for Agency Eric:

Make a note of the goals and values that are relevant to the products and services you offer. You’ll use this information to help guide…

• Product creation
• Copywriting
• Content marketing
• Email marketing

For example, we know Agency Eric is interested in “increasing the capabilities of his team.”

We could draft an email to this avatar promoting our Content Marketing certification with the subject line:

Let us train your team in content marketing

That should get Agency Eric’s attention.

Sources of Information

This section of the Customer Avatar Worksheet is critical to determining the “where” of your customer avatar.

• Where do they hang out (both online and in person)?
• What materials do they read?
• What gurus do they follow?

This information can help you determine the best places to advertise online to your avatar.

To fill this section out, use the “but no one else would” trick. You’ll complete sentences like these:

• My ideal customer would read [BOOK], but no one else would.
• My ideal customer would subscribe to [MAGAZINE], but no one else would.
• My ideal customer would attend [CONFERENCE], but no one else would.

Getting the picture?

The idea is to find the niche books, magazines, blogs, conferences, gurus, etc. that ONLY your ideal customer would be attracted to.

For example, if you are in the golf products market—you wouldn’t want to assign Tiger Woods as a guru. Tiger is someone golfers are familiar with… however, so is everyone else.

Instead, choose a more niche golfer like Rory McElroy. The average non-golfer won’t know who he is—but your customer avatar will.

When buying traffic from ad platforms like Facebook, you’ll often be able to better target your audience by focusing on these niche interests—while excluding less-than-ideal prospects.

Demographic Information

Applying demographic information can really help bring your customer avatar to life.

Of course, this section includes all the usual facts—like the person’s age, gender, marital status, income, job title, and so on.

We find that filling in a “Quote” field is one of our favorite parts of this section. Giving your avatar a quote can be particularly helpful to get inside the head of your customer.

Don’t forget to download your Customer Avatar Worksheet for FREE.

This section can also be useful when choosing targeting options in ad platforms, like Facebook. In our case, we might want to narrow our targeting to include people with a college degree or people who earn at least $150,000/year.

Demographics can also help when you’re writing content, emails, or sales copy. Try this: pretend your avatar is sitting across the table from you. Write the words that you would say to them in a normal conversation.

You’ll find that demographic information like age, gender, and location will give your persona a look and feel that helps you talk to them more persuasively.

Challenges and Pain Points

Next, think about the problems, challenges, and pain points in your customer avatar’s life.

This information can help you in several ways.

For one thing, it can help spur ideas for new products or services that can help solve your avatar’s problems.

It can also help you write copy and ad creative that speaks to their pain points, compelling them to take action.

For example, when selling certifications to Agency Eric, we want to hit on pain points such as…

Are you tired of losing proposals simply because you don’t offer content marketing to your clients? Certify your team with DigitalMarketer’s Content Marketing Mastery Course and Certification to help retain your clients while charging higher prices.

Or…

Do you feel like your agency is constantly struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving digital marketing scene? Sign up for DigitalMarketer HQ to automate the training process and keep your team up-to-date on the latest marketing strategies.

Copy like this will get a response from Agency Eric because it talks directly about the challenges he’s facing in his business.

Objections and Role in the Purchase Process

Finally, think about the reasons why your customer avatar might choose NOT to buy your product or service. These are called “objections” and they must be addressed in your marketing.

For example, if we know Agency Eric is concerned with the amount of time his team members will be “out of pocket” to receive the certification, we might send an email with a subject line like…

Content Marketing Certified (in one business day)

The phrase “in one business day” helps to overcome his objection, by reassuring Agency Eric that his team will only need one day to finish the certification.

You’ll also need to determine your avatar’s role in the purchasing process.

• Are they the primary decision maker?
• Are they a decision influencer?

If your avatar is NOT the primary decision maker, you’ll need to come up with a strategy to appeal to whoever that person is.

Understanding your ideal customer’s decision-making process is paramount to the success of your marketing and sales campaigns.

Build Multiple Avatars

Start by building a single avatar—but don’t stop there. Your business almost certainly has more than one ideal buyer.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll start churning out multiple avatars representing the different segments of your market.

Any lucrative market segment with a distinct set of goals, information sources, pain points, etc. is deserving of a customer avatar.

Don’t forget to download your Customer Avatar Worksheet for FREE.

The post The Customer Avatar Worksheet: Finally, Get Clear on WHO You Are Selling To! appeared first on DigitalMarketer.