The Reality (Onboarding) ADORE Milestone™ is your future customer’s first real taste of how your offering will make their life better. If you are selling a SaaS product, this is the onboarding process and pathway to a first “win.” If you are selling shoes or bicycles, this is the unboxing and first “wow” that comes with using your product. The Onboarding is typically the moment that is most worth investing in, as it leads to the biggest return on investments (ROI) on your marketing spend. Typically, measures of success at this milestone are metrics related to after signon retention and churn rates. After signon customer enquiries and task success rates can also be a proxy for measuring effectiveness at the Onboarding. If you succeed at this milestone, the next step is a foregone conclusion.

The Moment of Truth ADORE Milestone™ is the maintenance phase of the relationship between your buyer and your brand. Even if your product or service is spectacular, and there is no one else like you, your buyer will still need occasional reminders of exactly how it is that you make their life better. Putting these systems in place in an authentic way will lengthen the average lifetime value of your average customer. The next and final step is to leverage the great work that you have done in building strong relationships with your buyers, and using the momentum to drive recommended traffic to your website.

The Commitment ADORE Milestone™ is a critical moment in the relationship arc between your site visitor and your brand, as it represents a moment of active commitment. When your site visitor Signs-up to a newsletter, free trial, or a gated piece of content, they are indicating that they are ready for the next phase in their relationship with your brand. Giving up an e-mail, a phone number, or investing time in considering a free trial are all strong indicators that your site visitor is engaged and interested. The important metric to track at this milestone is the ratio of site visitors to sign-ups. Once your potential customer has completed this milestone, you will need to shift focus to ensure that you can deliver a quick win or two in the moments right after a commitment is made.

The First Date ADORE Milestone™ represents the engagement between your site visitor and the unfolding of your brand story. In a digital world, three minutes is a long time, and an indicator that the site visitor who landed on your website is interested in your brand. The “three minutes” may consist of multiple visits to your website, and depending on sector, may actually be longer than three minutes (for example, complex machinery or engineering services). The important metrics to track at this milestone are average time on site, average return visits, and average number of page views. These will give you an indication of whether you are effectively telling your brand story in an engaging way. The next step will be to ask the site visitor for a sign of their commitment by nudging them toward a commitment.

The First Impression ADORE Milestone™ is the first impression that your website creates for a new site visitor. In these first few seconds, your newly landed site visitor will do a subconscious assessment of a multitude of variables, including colors, fonts, branding, general aesthetic, value proposition, and the overall vibe to determine whether your website “feels right.” Failing to capture a site visitor’s attention at this stage reduces your chances of converting the site visitor into a customer to almost zero, rendering this portion of your marketing budget totally ineffective. High bounce rates and low average times on site are good indicators that your First Impression milestone may need some work.

The Arrival ADORE Milestone™ is the moment that a new site visitor lands on your website. It is the point of arrival, or the inception point of the relationship between the new site visitor and your brand. The chapter considered the mechanics and economics of search engine optimization (SEO) and explored alternate strategies to drive traffic to your website.