Your content marketing pieces – whether articles, blogs, social media posts or e-newsletters – are designed to guide your customer through the buyer’s journey. So, how can you make sure the content you create helps your customer get from awareness to conversion? One strategy is to make specific content for each stage of the journey to ensure your business attracts and captures the interest (and dollars) of your target market.
The Buyer’s Journey Explained
The buyer’s journey is built around three stages of customer decision making:
· Awareness stage – The buyer discovers (becomes aware) that they have a problem or pain point.
· Consideration stage – The buyer starts to do research on how to solve their problem and considers their options.
· Decision stage – The buyer reviews their options and decides on how to solve their problem. This usually involves the purchase (conversion) of a product or service.
Content for Each Stage
To move your target audience smoothly from awareness to conversion, the content will need to have specific goals in mind and be customized for each stage. Here are some suggestions on how to develop content for each stage.
Awareness: To create awareness that sticks, develop a consistent message and branding throughout all of your marketing channels so your audience can recognize and remember your brand. At this part of the funnel, content should be light and high-level. This can include:
· Advertising to help your brand reach people that might not know about you yet. Social media advertising and marketing provide highly targeted lead generation opportunities.
· User-generated content (UGC) is an authentic way to capture your customer’s attention.
Consideration: As your consumers become savvier during this process, creating content that shows your thought leadership and knowledge in the industry can help build trust.
· Consider developing articles, blogs and white papers that educate your customer on their specific pain point and how your brand can solve the problem. Answer their questions.
· Customer service interactions are content too! Be mindful of how your brand interacts with current customers on social media, in person and on the phone. Make sure your customer service is top-notch so that potential customers can see that you care about them.
Decision: If consumers have made it this far, it is important to lead them to the next step.
· Develop content that asks people to purchase; there should be a very clear call to action (CTA).
· Establish urgency by creating value. You have their attention, so make it worth their while with special offers or insider information.
· Customer service is doubly important once the decision to purchase has been made. The idea is to attract customers that will become brand promoters, and the final piece is clear communication when it comes to delivery, billing and return policies. Show how you will support your customer once they close the deal.
Converting With Content
Your content should help move your customer from awareness through conversion. Each stage of the buyer’s journey requires a different type of content which will show your audience that your product or service is the best option for solving their problem. Putting the right content in the right place, at the right time can help them move from awareness to consideration and then finally to decision.
Want to learn more about how our PR agency can help you craft content that moves your customer through the buyer’s journey? Give us a call to connect with one of our content specialists!