No one wakes up in the morning thinking that they will buy something, rather they go through a research and evaluation process before deciding whether or not to commit to a sales call.
The buyer’s journey is the process that customers go through when they decide to purchase a product or service. Because consumers are better informed and have more power than ever before, it is important to understand your buyer persona and their journey so you can create content that will help them along the way while positioning you as an expert in your field.
Understanding the Buyer’s Journey in Marketing
The vast majority of people start their shopping journey in what’s called the “unaware stage.” These are people who fit the demographic profile of your ideal customer (a.k.a. your buyer persona), but they don’t yet know about your product or that they need it.
There is an event that changes their situation or pain that needs to be solved that starts their buyer’s journey.
An individual who wants to improve their fitness level may not immediately decide to join a gym. They may use the internet to learn more and make decisions as they progress through the buyer’s journey. Our job is to assist them in that decision-making process.
Awareness Stage
In the awareness stage, the buyer is experiencing a problem and their goal is to alleviate it. They may be looking for informational resources to more clearly understand, frame, and give a name to their problem.
When someone is in the awareness stage of their buyer’s journey, they are still trying to figure out what their problem is and are not thinking about finding a solution. Content marketers should try to show up in search engine results for these people so that they can start to establish trust with them.
Consideration Stage
The buyer is considering potential solutions to their problem and is committed to researching all of the available approaches.
An example of a search inquiry a prospect would make at the consideration stage is: “What are the pros and cons of going to a gym or hiring a personal trainer?” In the consideration stage, the prospect is not yet ready to buy, but they are deciding on the potential solution for them. Your goal will be to consider your indirect competitors and educate them on the pros and cons.
Decision Stage
The buyer has decided on their strategy, method, or approach and is now looking for available vendors. They will make a list of their options and eventually decide on one.
A prospect at the decision stage is more likely to make a search inquiry like “Planet Fitness vs. Gold’s Gym” because they are more ready to spend money. They are more likely to go with a provider that they like, know, and trust if that provider can meet their needs.
Why Creating Content for the Buyer’s Journey Is Important
By aligning your content with the buyer’s needs at each stage, your brand will be better equipped to guide prospects through their journey to becoming customers. In order to be successful in marketing, you must understand your audience and what they are looking for. Research your target market and create a content strategy that aligns with the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
If you’re not aware of who your target audience is, you run the risk of creating content that doesn’t appeal to them. This can result in losing potential customers.
Content marketing is important for engaging customers at different stages of their journey. To be effective, consider the stage they are at and use the best channels to reach them.
It can be tough to figure out what kind of content to make, and when to release it, if you want it to be successful.
To start building a content strategy, you need to figure out what types of content you’ll need to produce in order to reach your audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Creating Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
When you have an understanding of your buyer persona and the steps they take to make a purchase, you can start creating content that is tailored to them at different stages, and for different channels.
Making a marketing funnel can help you match your content to the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
- Awareness Stage:Â The stage where people look for answers, resources, education, research data, opinions, and insight.
- Consideration Stage:Â The stage where people are doing heavy research on whether or not your product or service is a good fit for them.
- Decision Stage:Â The stage where people figure out exactly what it would take to become a customer.
The buyer’s journey for a product or service varies depending on the industry, business model, product, pricing, and audience. For example, B2C customers may spend less time in the middle of the buyer’s journey than B2B customers. This is because a purchase of a $50 pair of sneakers requires less explanation than a $10,000 business software investment.
How to Effectively Reach and Convert Customers at Any Stage
The following are some examples of goals, audience definitions, and metrics for each funnel step. It is recommended that you use these as a guide when creating your own goals, audiences, and metrics.
Funnel Step 1: awareness
Goal: ad recall and brand lift
We want to feel like we know the brand, trust the brand, and see the brand as a match for our individual needs and values before we commit or buy something from the brand.
We should start by trying to capture the attention of everyone who could become our customers or influence the purchase decision.
The messaging at this stage should be something that will catch the user’s attention and make them remember your name. It could be a problem statement and the solution you offer, or it could be about the values your brand represents. The goal is to make a lasting impression on the user.
Video ads are a more effective format than static image ads for ads that are designed to raise awareness.
Video is a great way to capture a user’s attention because it is more dynamic and engaging than just pictures.
Retargeting audiences who have watched 50% or more of your video ads opens up new opportunities for your next funnel steps. This clearly demonstrates an interest in your brand or products.
Funnel Step 2: consideration
Goals: website visits and engagement
Our products are unique because they are custom-made. The user will benefit from them because they will be able to choose the design, color, and material of their product.
You want to target those who have already shown interest or recognized the need that your product or service could potentially fulfill at the consideration stage.
Retargeting people who have already shown an interest in what you are selling is a good way to reach your audience. Another way to reach your audience is to find people who are engaged in similar topics on social media platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. If they have already been engaged in similar content, they may be more likely to be interested in what your brand has to offer.
How to optimize consideration campaign performance
Track your campaign’s progress and compare it to your desired outcomes.
Here are some other tips on what to look for in the consideration stage:
- Analyze the volume and quality of the website traffic coming from your social media campaigns. In your analytics tool, pay attention to the bounce rate and time spent on site after arriving through your ads.
- Is your engagement rate up to the expected level, and what’s the quality of engagements? Remember to monitor the comments and replies you receive and perform community management.
- Have your conversion campaigns completed the learning phase and started delivering fully? If not, maybe adjust your targeting to gain more data for the platform to optimize for your goal.
- If you’re using micro-conversions as your campaign goal, are conversions coming in, or have you set the bar too high? Aiming for conversion events that are too far along the purchase flow in the consideration stage can easily lead to an unreasonably high cost per action.
Funnel Step 3: conversion
Goals: conversions, purchases, and leads
You should make it easy for them to finish their purchase by using the audience lists you have built and retargeting the users with your best direct response messaging.
Be sure to remove any final obstacles or doubts standing in the way of a potential purchase. Award recognition, customer reviews, or testimonials can act as social proof of your product’s quality. Make it easy for them to get started with your product, and consider providing a discount code as an incentive. Find what will persuade them to buy from you, and make it happen.
If you work in ecommerce, you can use Facebook and Instagram’s intelligent catalog sale ads to remind users what they left in their shopping cart, and also recommend other similar products they might like. These ads come with your branded frame and an automatically applied discount.
Be clear about what you want the user to do after they see your ad, and include a direct call-to-action that prompts them to do that specific action. A sense of urgency also often helps; there should be no room for hesitation at this point.
How to optimize conversion campaign performance
Ideally, you’d know your target ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) or cost per customer acquisition and be able to optimize the ad spend towards that value. At the very least, you want to:
- Make sure that the cost you’re paying per action is reasonable to pay for the given action, knowing the value of your products.
- Know which social media platforms perform better at driving home conversions depending on your industry and product type. Test what works best for you in each stage of the funnel. Spend a small share of your total budget on testing new channels.
Funnel Step 4: loyalty
Goals: upselling and cross-selling
Make sure to follow and listen to people’s opinions about your brand and products on social media. This will give you helpful feedback about customer satisfaction and how your brand is seen by the public. There are many social listening tools you can use for this purpose.
Customer service is important, so make sure you’re accessible and responsive on social media. Don’t miss an opportunity to turn a customer into a lifelong fan.
Some of the ways you can support the loyalty with social campaigns:
- Get people to follow you and keep delighting them with good quality organic content
- Promote exclusive sneak peeks, early access to your products, and sales to your existing customers
- Express that you want to hear from them, maybe give a little prize for leaving a review
- Recommend products that you know they might like, based on their purchase history
- Let them know when the products they liked are on sale
- Let them know about new products and features that they might be interested in
- Give them industry insights, inspiration, and tips and tricks of how to get most out of your product
If you nurture and take care of your customers, some of them will move to the next stage of the process.
Funnel Step 5: advocate
Goals: social proof and credibility
The advocate stage is for customers who are not only happy with the outcome, but also want to tell others about it.
At this point, you can collaborate with social media influencers, business professionals, or other groups to have them promote your brand to their followers and contacts.
Some of the ways to do this are:
- Collaborate with your fans and power users to create organic content
- Share the content they create and add a paid boost if possible to extend the reach
- Share positive reviews
- Partner with affiliates, offer commission and in some cases co-selling opportunities
- Offer a private group where customers can talk to each other and share their experiences and insights
Mapping Content Across All Stages of the Buying Cycle
No two businesses have the same buyer’s journey. You need to figure out what your target audience wants and produce content that helps them at every stage of their journey.
The quality of your work can improve your customer relationships and increase your conversions.
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