Post 2: Journey Mapping

As we discussed in class, one useful way we can develop empathy and a deep understanding of our customers is through creating a persona. If we can use this persona to establish this deep connection with our consumers, we can design great products, services, and processes that meet their needs very effectively.  One tool we can use to create this persona that really connects with our consumers is journey mapping, which “allows us to understand what happens to people as they navigate a particular context in which we are particularly interested” and is a technique to develop greater empathy through understanding deeper motivations and experiences.

To explore how to use a journey map effectively, I decided to interview my friend Cathy about her journey of choosing her major in school. Cathy is currently a fourth-year student in the McCombs School of Business. She is from Dallas, Texas and had several different influences on her decision regarding her major, so I thought it would be interesting to explore her story.

Cathy’s first thoughts about her college major came before college even started. Growing up, and particularly in high school, she thought she might want to pursue an area of study in a marketing or advertising field. This is partially because in high school she was a Vice President in student council, a position where she enjoyed working with students, faculty, and other parties and therefore discovered that she loved working with people. She also has many family members and family friends working in advertising, and from in speaking with them it looked like an interesting career, so her student council experience, family, and family friends were her primary influences at this point in time. She started primarily looking into a Communications degree; however, at this point in time, she was only 50% confident in her decision to be a Communication major.

This makes sense, because she changed her mind before college. She is very close with her parents, always taking their opinions to heart, and they were her primary influencers at this stage. They realized that the economy was in a bad place at the time (2009 and 2010) and encouraged her to look into a business degree, which they thought might be more practical for finding a job in the future. She applied and was accepted to McCombs, which is a very well respected business school, so she decided to become a business major with a communications minor. However, at this point she still had not started college and did not know much about any of the possible major choices, so she was still only 70% confident in her primary and secondary choice of major.

When she came to college, Cathy was exposed to possible majors and because of her interests she thought she wanted to major in Marketing, with her secondary choice being Advertising. In her first semester, she did not take any business classes because she needed to fulfill some core requirements first, but she met with her advisor and saw her degree plan. This showed her that it was relatively simple to partner her planned primary Marketing and secondary Advertising degrees. The meeting further reinforced her decision, and she became 80% confident in her degree plan.

After her second semester of school, she went on the CIBER Marketing Study Abroad program in Paris. Abroad, she took her first Marketing classes, and she loved them. In addition, being in Paris, seeing all the beautiful architecture of the historic buildings and cathedrals, and meeting many intriguing travelers with unique stories sparked her interest in learning about new places, people, and cultures. She thought she might want to work in a global marketing career. Her confidence level increased to 85%.

In her third semester, she took the beginning class “Principles of Marketing”, but also took an “Introduction to Advertising; Integrated Brand Communication” class, which she loved. She started doubting her choice in marketing and instead thinking about how much she enjoyed advertising. Even though her parents may not believe that it is a practical career choice, she thought that it may be the right choice for her. Her classes influenced her opinion at this time, and she became only 70% confident that her primary choice of major was Marketing and her secondary choice was Advertising and started thinking she may want to switch these.

During her fourth semester and the following summer, Cathy started looking for internships in the marketing realm to satisfy her course requirement. She accepted a marketing internship position with a technology startup firm focusing on developing phone applications for children. In this position, she worked on building the company’s brand and image as well as developing its social media strategy. She quickly discovered that she did not enjoy her job or working in the technology industry, a realization that pushed her a little more towards advertising, where she may get to work with clients in multiple industries, and she became only 50% confident that she wanted to major in Marketing.

However, during her fifth and sixth semesters, she took marketing electives that she loved. Her international business class reminded her of how much she enjoyed learning about people in other cultures, and her electives focused on developing her ability to learn about customers’ decision making, thought processes, and motivations. Cathy remembered how much she enjoyed working with people and the resurfacing of these memories and discoveries helped her to be 100% confident that she wanted to be a Marketing major with an Advertising minor.

The summer after her sixth semester (last summer), Cathy studied abroad in the historic and beautiful city of Florence, Italy. Her 100% confidence level was only reinforced by the humanities and culture classes she took for a month overseas. Now, as she recruits for full-time Marketing positions for after graduation, she can choose which positions to apply for based on her absolute certainty that she wants to be able to use her marketing degree and work with as many different kinds of people and cultures as possible. She is looking for positions that will allow her to apply these interests, ideally travel as much as possible, and use her Advertising knowledge as well. Even though she doesn’t want to only work in Advertising, she does believe it would be interesting to use her knowledge and work on the client side of marketing and work with Advertising agencies too.

Overall, Cathy’s journey of choosing a major had some indecisive points. However, she used her understanding of her personality and her influences and motivations in order to make the choice that was best for her. Successful marketers are able to do this as well. They can use tools like journey mapping and the creation of personas to unlock the true motivations, influences, opinions, and feelings of their customers. Once they create that deep connection they can make decisions about their correct course of action. This course of action includes not only designing products, services, and processes that customers love, but also designing products, services, and processes for consumers that are currently navigating the context they’re researching in coordination with their business plans. Below is a physical representation of Cathy's journey.