Understanding the Buyers Journey
Content is key for any type of business whether using traditional or new media to publish this and with different platforms and technologies evolving today we are able to make and create our content which can then be used to reach a much wider audience and engage with them. However, creating content is not good enough if you do not take into consideration the Buyer’s Journey. The Buyer’s Journey is made up of 3 stages – Awareness Stage, Consideration Stage, and Decision stage.
The Buyer’s Journey is important for making a marketing strategy because you would need to figure out what your audience craves and the problems that they are having because you want them to buy your product or services. Marketers need to understand what their buyers are doing so that they are able to move them from one stage to the other.
The first stage is the Awareness Stage where you want to be the source that potential buyers want to come to. In order for them to come to your site, you would need to think of an SEO marketing strategy as this is how they would get to your sites through your keywords and bring your site right in front of them to check out. For marketers, you would need to go and research the best keywords or phrases that fit best with your company or product that a buyer would search on search engines.
At this point, you would want to give them as much information as you can about the service they are looking for to fix their problem or help them in growing their business. Some content techniques that you can do for this are:
Education content in blog posts
eGuides and eBooks
White papers
Next is the Consideration Stage where the buyers are now more interested in what you are providing that they want to learn more and you do this by providing them with:
Videos
Expert guides
Podcasts
Even though you are creating content about your services you do not what to tell your buyer’s everything not until they have made that decision in becoming your client.
It is key that the research and content that you are providing them is reverent and betters your competitors as your buyers are doing their own research, to see which is the best service or product that would suit them. One way that they would be researching is by calling sales reps, at this point what you can do as a marketer or business to collect the data and more that the buyer has left because you are able to put them into a persona where you are then able to have a conversation with them individually.
Finally, we have the Decision Stage. Your buyers are now ready to purchase your service or product. It is about putting your best foot forward with the Call-To-Action on your landing page that grabs the buyer’s attention with a:
Sign up form
Login
Download content
Once they have done this you have the chance to contact them and be brand-specific with your content. You can start to show positive experiences that other prospectors have had with your product or service, this can be shown through case studies and testimonials.
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Throughout the content that you are creating, you need to make sure that they are educational to the buyers as well as neutering them through every stage of the buyer’s journey as you want to know more about them as well as get them to buy the product or service. Once they have gone through the whole Buyer’s Journey you would start again and in the decision stage for the buyers, let them and prospects drive others to your site through word-of-mouth marketing.