Did you know that one of your best marketing tools to create engaging content is understanding the steps your customer’s make to hit that Buy Here button?
These steps are called the Customer Buyer’s Journey and these marketing messages are your roadmap to create purchasing touchpoints. It gives you the path to create the content to move your customers from just researching their problems to actually clicking and making a purchase.
At its core, the customer buyer’s journey is the path that your potential customers take from the moment they realize they have a problem to the moment that they decide to buy from your business.
And the touchpoints – the content you’re sharing – are the places and spaces in their journey where your business is able to talk to them directly. You’ll be able to tell them about why your business is their solution and why they want to buy your products or services.
It helps your business connect with them before you make the sale and these touchpoints will keep them as loyal customers after they hit that payment button.
It helps your marketing messages to be very customer focused on what they need and the solutions they’re looking for rather than your social posts saying “I’m the best business here, you need to buy from me.”
When touchpoints are created using the Customer Buyer’s Journey, you build up trust along their journey because you can show them why your business is the solution to their problem with the answers they are currently looking for.
Total Customer Experience
Understanding these touchpoints helps you develop content that will take your customers through the different buyer’s journey stages of Awareness, Consideration and Decision.
It helps to answer how you’re going to take them from the beginning of their awareness. How your marketing messages can get your business in front of them as an option in the consideration stage. And then how you can personalize your content to be effective to close the deal.
And the thing I want to stress about this process is that the path to purchase is not the linear funnel model that we’ve all been taught. That great big funnel up at the top – and there’s all this stuff at the top! – and then there’s a middle area and the very, very bottom is the purchase.
The way that people make purchases these days is very different from a linear funnel model. It has everything to do with the thing that we carry in our pockets, that we keep on our desks and the thing that we sleep next to it at night.
It has everything to do with the fact that we can just pick up our phone and do as much research as we need. We can ask questions, we can google things, we can go on Facebook and ask for recommendations. There’s so many ways that we can go through this customer buyer’s process.
As customers interact with a business, we see that there’s a lot more pieces and parts that we need to be looking at when we move people through the buyer’s journey. There are more ways that potential customers can become aware that they even have an option to solve their challenges and how they see our business as the solution to the problem that they’re looking for.
It’s really a whole customer experience.
And when we think about the customer buyer’s journey, it’s not just about how we can get them into the top of the funnel. It’s about how we can deliver an overall exceptional customer experience from the start to the finish.
The Three Stages of the Customer Buyer’s Journey
The first stage is Awareness. This is where the customer first becomes aware of their problem or something they have a need for.
And immediately the first thing they do is they pick up their phone and they start typing things into Google looking for a solution for x, y, and z.
Your job with your content marketing is to find a way to catch their attention and understand what they are thinking, what they’re saying, what they’re doing and what’s their pain for not taking action. And then taking that information and creating valuable content that addresses their pain points.
Because this awareness is where the journey begins.
Your role at this stage is just to find ways to capture their attention. This is the space to offer them valuable content that addresses those pain points.
It’s really important to understand that in the awareness stage, you’re providing content with loads of value, but it’s not the content that offers any kind of financial commitment up front.
Awareness Stage Content Ideas:
• Blog posts
• Checklists and other downloadable lead magnets
• Ebooks
• Videos
• Webinars
• Social media posts
Awareness is not the point where you try to get them to buy something for you. You’re just asking them to take action, like read a blog post, watch a video or download a checklist. Something that’s not going to cost them anything to take the action, but the action is going to be so spot on and understands what their pain points are that they walk away from it thinking this business is talking to me.
This business is telling me this is your problem. This is where you’re suffering. Here’s your answer. That’s what the awareness stage is all about.
Then we move on to the consideration stage. In the consideration stage, your potential customer is aware of your business and is receiving amazing, valuable and remarkable content from you because they are actively researching their solutions.
They are exploring all of their different options. They’re reading reviews. They’re looking for advice. And this is the moment where you want them to get more in depth content and keep them connected to your business as their solution.
If they’ve come to your website and they’ve read your blog post, you want them to take the next step. And the content for the consideration stage is taking the next step like to get on your email list, sign up for a video training series or sign up for a free workshop.
Your content is focused on what the next step is and to move them past doing more research and googling stuff. Because at this part of the consideration stage, you want to be ‘considered’ as a solution to their problem.
The difference between the awareness and the consideration stage is that now you’ve moved into the stage where you’re selling something. You’re selling a program, you’re selling a DIY product or a tangible product that they can hold in their hands.
Now is the time when they have come to this place where your potential customer is ready to choose their solution and they want to make the decision to take action.
At this point they start looking at purchasing and looking at things like price, what comes with the program and ensuring that this is the best product or service for them.
Your content strategy moves into positioning your business as the go-to expert that they can trust with their purchase. Your content will give your business credibility and increase their engagement with your business.
Consideration Stage Content Ideas
• Comparison guides
• Downloadable resources { templates, ready-made charts }
• Case studies
• Ebook guides
• How-to training videos
The decision stage is the last step of the customer’s path of purchase. This is the place where you want to give them a final push to click on that Buy Here button.
Your decision stage content is not about blog posts. It’s not about free downloads. It’s more about that moment when we can get them to make the final decision.
It’s about looking for ways to maximize your email sequence. What can you do in your email sequence to include time limited exclusive offers? Can you share client testimonials or success case studies?
You want them to engage with your decision stage content and to see themselves in it. And you want to make sure that you are telling them that this is how the purchase works.
In this stage, you have this opportunity to sell to them because you have been through the whole customer journey together. You walked them through the awareness content. You reached the point where they’ve taken action in the consideration stage.
And now this content that you are creating is all about making the sale. When we think about it from the buyer’s journey, we have now earned their trust.
Their trust is the ultimate currency because when you align your content with their journey, you can create a persuasive experience for your potential customers.
Decision Stage Content Ideas:
• Shoppable social media posts
• Shoppable website content
• Live demos
• Free trial offers and coupons
• Email marketing content
When you use the steps in the customer buyer’s journey, you’ll be in a place where you can deliver remarkable content that they will need at each one of these stages to nurture them along the way. The content that you develop guides your customers through each of the stages, increases engagement in your social media posts and elevates your chances of converting those leads into loyal customers.
Want dig deeper into this process and learn how to create your Customer Buyer’s Journey?
Get The Path to Purchase: How to use the Customer Buyer’s Journey
The Path to Purchase is the content development tool that will help you stop feeling stuck when it comes to creating content that actually converts.
If the whole customer buyer’s journey sounds like a cryptic map you can’t decipher, I’ve created this 3-step program to help you create compelling content for every stage of the customer buyer’s journey – from Awareness to Consideration to Decision.
When you start moving through this process by watching the exclusive training workshop and answer the questions in the workbooks, you’ll see your marketing content come to life.
You’ll uncover phrases and keywords that will resonate to make more sales. You’ll be able to develop your marketing content based on what people are thinking, what people are feeling, what people are saying, along with the keywords they are using for online searches.
Your journey to move your community into loyal customers begins with a single click to get access to the Path to Purchase.
