Different Offers VS One Customer Journey: Is It the Same Customer Cost?

The answer is a flat-out "no".

I'll help you calculate it!

Some customers are not worth your efforts at this time.

But maybe it's not true for all your offers.

They might be great customers for the offer you have worked the least on, which therefore costs less.

Many people fail to differentiate the customer cost between offers, losing customers who could become good customers.

One Rule of Thumb for All

If you have one customer journey, you don't need to worry about differentiating your customers and your offers.

If you have multiple offers, you will encounter the following issues if you continue to use the methods we have discussed thus far: the majority of customers will be confronted with a value that is too high.

This high value will not represent your efforts.

You will generally have more customers with lower purchases than a business with one customer journey.

And that's ok. You spend less time on each offer.

By differentiating how much time you spend on each offer, you will understand how much of your total cost is due to each offer.

Let's follow Chris, our friendly neighbourhood course creator, as she analyses this. She has three offers.

Step # 1: Divide your Time on Each Offer

You need to understand how much time (and cost) you'll spend on each offer.

Chris starts by asking herself the following questions:

• Do I spend the same amount of time each week on each offer?

  
  

• Do I focus on one offer each week and another the following week?

  
  

• Do I follow a different but specific schedule?

  
  

• Do I have additional costs specifically for one of the offers?

Step # 2: Calculate the Percentage of Total Time Spent on Each Offer

Offers that save us time and money will attract customers who might spend less and are still good customers.

Customers that spend less on the most time-consuming offers might be bad customers.

If all offers are equal in terms of time and money spent when we consider them equal.

Chris has offers that she works on full weeks. She'll simply count the number of weeks in the year she works on each offer and be done with it.

She then uses the following formula:

[Percentage of work per offer] = [# of week worked on the specific offer] / [total amount of weeks I actually worked] * 100 %

If you work each week on all offers, you should take a couple of weeks to write down all the times in which you work on this or that offer, and for how long.

Those weeks should be "normal" weeks.

At the end of the week, simply add up the number of hours you work on each offer. Use the same formula.

[Percentage of work per offer] = [# of hours in the week worked on the specific offer] / [total amount of hours I actually worked in a week] * 100 %

Step # 3: Add the Additional Costs Specifically for the One Offer.

We're almost done.

Just one more formula to go, and then we can stop with the calculator.

Do you have additional costs specific to one offer? I'm thinking Ads, prints, rent for a specific event, and so on.

Chris has established that her first course was advertised by Google for a price. The others weren't. She then calculates the exact amount spent on Google advertising and removes it from the total cost.

It is important to note that costs specific to one offer should be considered only for that particular offer.

She then uses this formula for all her offers:

[Total Offer Cost] = [Total General Costs] * [Percentage of time spent on that offer] + [Specific Costs for the specific offer]

You and Chris now have the total costs for each offer.

Divide this figure by the number of customers you have for each offer to get the total cost per customer, as we saw in the previous issue.

Any Issues?

It is possible to encounter difficulties when calculating the correct amount of time spent on an offer.

You'll be tempted to estimate with your instinct.

Don't do it.

If you count, you'll see that the number you thought was likely wrong is actually correct. It would have completely thrown off the entire calculation. Don't make the mistake of assuming anything when it comes to numbers!

If you have additional issues, write them in the comments so our answers can help others.

Or join us at one of our events and ask us directly.