The Buyer's Journey: How to Create Content for Every Stage
As a business it’s essential to create content for every stage of the buyer’s journey to sell your products and services. This is because in today’s digital age buyers want helpful online content before making a purchase. Through content creation you build trust and credibility with your customers. Read on to find out how to create the right content for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
The Importance of Content Marketing for Business
Before you even create a single piece of content for your business you must understand content marketing and the role it plays in growing and expanding a business in today’s digital landscape.
Simply put content marketing is an indirect form of marketing that involves creating and distributing valuable and engaging content to a clearly defined target audience.
When your audience searches for answers online, your content ideally provides the answers or at least offers them a good perspective. More and more businesses (both B2B and B2C) all over the world understand the importance of content marketing and what it can do to help grow their business.
Fact: In today’s world content marketing is no longer a nice to have but a must to have! As a business it should be part of your overall business strategy and business plan.
Understanding The Buyer’s Journey for Your Business
Now that you hopefully understand the importance of content marketing you need to have a content plan in place for your brand. This will help you get clear on the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is a phrase coined by marketers to simply describe the series of steps that a potential customer (prospect or lead) goes through before deciding to purchase a product or service.
Without you even realizing it you go through this journey many times in your lifetime. Just think of the last time you purchased a product or service. There were stages leading up to your decision of buying that product or service.
You’ll find that there are a few variations of the buyer’s journey as its not an exact science and so every marketer will put their spin to it. But for the sake of simplicity and clarity WORD EMPIRE® has narrowed it down to the following four main stages:
- Awareness Stage
- Consideration Stage
- Decision Stage
- Retention stage
Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Below, we have listed the types of content required for each of the four stages of the buyer’s journey. This content will elevate and take your content marketing to the next level. Keep in mind that some of the content used in one stage can be used in another stage. But it’s done in a very specific and tailored way.
The Awareness Stage and Content Creation
The first stage of the buyer’s journey is all about getting people, the right people of course (your target audience) to see and read your content. At this stage your potential buyers are becoming aware that they have a problem (‘pain point’ in marketer’s language) and so need help. They are researching and gathering information before they decide as to whether to buy your product or service. This is where you need to be a master in grabbing their attention so they are aware that you exist and can be of help to them. You do this by providing them with highly valuable and highly targeted content like:
- Blog posts: are educational and informative and in the digital era are often the first go to places for audiences to seek more information about a particular issue/topic.
- Social media posts: are easily digestible forms of content which audiences like to go to for information.
- Infographics: currently these visual forms of content are proving to be highly effective at presenting valuable information to audiences.
- Video: is proving to be just as valuable if not more valuable in some cases than written content. Many content marketers in fact rate video as one of the most effective forms of content marketing. Showcase your product or service in a video.
Please keep in mind that ideally you want to be offering these types of content for FREE during the awareness stage. After all, you’d be hard pressed to find people at this stage wanting to pay you for information when they can just as easily go somewhere else to get it.
Not to mention they don’t even have a relationship with you. There is no brand loyalty and trust at this stage. Remember it should all be about assisting them with their research and information gathering. Asking for money upfront is an instant put off and can taint your brand. Leave the finances to a later stage – decision stage.
The Consideration Stage and Content Creation
As the name implies, at this stage your audience is ‘considering’ all their options including you to make the best decision. They have done their research and gathered all the information they require. By now they also have a much better understanding of their problem or need. You’ve captured their attention with your content and brand and now they just need to decide who they will do business with. You must now convince your potential buyer that you’re the one they should do business with. To do this you create content like:
- eBooks and white papers: these add a layer of professionalism and expertise to your brand and hence credibility and authority for your prospective buyers.
- Case studies: add an extra layer of social proof by demonstrating the benefits of working with you and also offer a good comparison between you and your competitors to help you stand out.
- Testimonials and reviews: these are all social proof which turbo-charge your credibility, expertise, and overall professionalism.
- Webinars, live streaming and live events: are excellent to showcase your expertise and also provide a more intimate way of engaging with your audience.
The Decision Stage and Content Creation
If you’ve done the previous two stages right, then this stage is the ‘selling point’. Its where your buyer is ready to spend money on your product or service. They’ve decided that you’re the one they want to do business with. You need to give them a final nudge through your content to ensure they will come all the way with you.
That is, they don’t change their mind at the last minute and go to your competitor. Please keep in mind that you need to be patient these days with your prospective buyer as there’s just so much competition out there.
As a result, your prospective buyer will go through three out of sometimes even five stages before they even start thinking about buying. These days consumers are pickier and invest more time in doing research and weighing up their options. However, don’t be deterred. Just focus on delivering great content. At this stage create content like:
- Free trials, demos, and consultations: everyone loves a FREE giveaway or a great offer that adds value and saves them money. So, creating content around these is highly viable.
- Sales content: get on the phone, online or even meet in person over a coffee and show your prospective buyer how your product or service is the solution they have been waiting for.
- Sales presentation: if done right this can lock in the sale. Consider presenting a compelling and persuasive sales presentation in the form of a slideshow or even deck of cards if meeting in person.
- Traditional marketing: despite the digital age, creating content like printed brochures and booklets that can be handed out is still viable and gives that extra nudge in convincing a buyer to do business with you.
The Retention Stage and Content Creation
This is all about building long-term relationships with your buyer. You don’t want them as a once off customer, rather you want to retain them and get repeat business. So, you must invest some time and show up for them and make them feel that they are a valuable and important part of your community. You do this through creating content like:
Email marketing: email campaigns and newsletters that keep the conversation going and add further value to your buyers. Make sure to always add some type of value.
Social media updates: you need to have a consistent social media management strategy which keeps your buyers in the loop about news and events.
Live streaming and videos: they require a reasonable investment of time but are a great way of getting buyer’s attention due to both their visual appeal and their high interactivity.
Blog posts: publish a new blog post at least once a week to stay up to date and in touch.
Podcasts: have surged in popularity in recent times as they are a great way to create a voice for your brand that your buyers can tune in to.
So, there you have it - the buyers’ journey and creating content at every stage. Remember it’s a step-by-step process so must be followed in the correct order to get best results. You can’t take short cuts and just skip a step or two.
To discuss your content needs and getting a content plan in place for your business that will grow and expand it Book a Time Now With WORD EMPIRE®, the content experts.