Create Content for Buyers Journey

Before a purchase is made, a path to the purchase is followed.

This path includes:

Research
Evaluation

This is known as the buyer’s journey.

These days consumers have more information, so it’s important to understand your buyer persona and their journey.

Doing so will help you can create content that helps:

Potential consumers along the buyer’s path
Positions your business as an authority in your space

Buyer’s Journey in Marketing

A potential customer’s journey begins when they are unaware, unless it’s an impulse buy.

Your ideal client is unaware of your product or service and their need for it.

But certain events can change their situation or they come across a problem they need to solve.

This is the start of their buyer’s journey.

They won’t decide to buy something straight away.

Instead they will want to learn more to help with making decisions as they go through their buyer’s journey.

And it’s your job to help them make those decisions.

Awareness

At this point, potential buyers have a problem that needs solving.

So, they look for information to better understand their problem.

Not reaching the point of thinking about solutions or help just yet.

Your goal is to:

Show up in search engine results
Establish your authority
Gain the future buyer’s trust

Consideration

At this point, potential buyers know their problem and want to research all the ways they can solve it.

They aren’t ready to buy anything just yet but instead are deciding on potential solutions.

Your goal is to:

Educate all available solutions
Provide all types of information like the pros and cons

Decision

At this point, potential buyers have decided on the solution they want for their problem.

Now they want to find available sources that can help solve this problem.

They’re ready spend and will go with a provider that they:

Like
Know
Trust

And if you have done your job well so far, it will increase the chances of potential buyers choosing you.

Why Content for the Buyer’s Journey Is Important

In marketing, it’s important to understand your audience:

The way the think
The answers they want
How they find solutions to their problems

For that, you need a content strategy for every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Failing to understand your audience creates a gap between your business and potential customers.

For example, creating content your readers don’t want causes you to lose your audience.

Instead you will have to think about:

Which part of the journey potential buyers are at
how to engage with them there
The best platform to engage with them on

This has been made a lot easier due to the internet.

This is why content should play a major role in your marketing strategy.

Content for The Buyer’s Journey

After you know your buyer persona and the buyer journey:

Create content for different points of the buyer journey
Customise content depending your audience’s channel

The buyer journey for your personas will depend on your:

Industry
Business model
Product
Pricing
Audience

For example, B2C customers spend little time in the middle of the buyer’s journey.

But B2B customers need nurturing, engagement and relationship development before a purchase.

Buyer’s Journey Content Ideas

Audiences differ based on:

Industry
Intent

Therefore research on personas is important.

So, it better to understand how audiences go through stages of:

Awareness
Evaluation

Because this helps create effective content that helps audiences make purchases.

Starting from the start of the buyer’s journey:

At the awareness stage, a buyer is trying to solve a problem.

They’re looking for educational content to find a solution, like:

Blog posts
Social content
Ebooks

These audiences will consume your content but might not buy from you.

But if your content is helpful then potential buyers will move further along.

And the best way to promote content for awareness includes:

Blogging
Search Engine Marketing
Social Media Marketing

Content for Awareness

Blog Post
Social Media Post
Whitepaper
Checklist
How-To Video
Tools
Ebook or Tips
Webinar

Blog Post

A blog post is ideal for the awareness stage.

It can be used to address the audience’s problems or topics that interest them.

By posting it to your website, you create an asset that:

Google can crawl and rank
Search engine users can discover

Blog content can also be promoted on other online channels.

Social Media Post

You can use social media to create and promote content.

Social media posts are short form with videos very popular.

For example, SlideShare formats are popular on LinkedIn, so create content in short-form take-aways.

Whitepaper

A whitepaper is a topic report or guide.

Used as downloadables for readers who want more details on a specific topic.

Whitepapers are valuable because they provide information not available anywhere else.

Checklist

Step by step tasks should provide a blueprint on what to do to achieve the end goal.

For example, an infographic checklist for readers, giving steps that need to be taken.

The graphic makes instructions or tips easier to follow.

How-To Video

The best way to solve a problem is from learning a new skill.

This helps the audience become informed:

About the problem
How to solve it

This is done using instructional videos.

For example, videos teaching viewers about skills, broken down in easy-to-understand language and visuals.

Tools

Tools are pieces of content created to help readers towards a purchase.

For example, a financial blog would create content on financial topics like budgeting.

And developing a calculator tool would help users with their own budgeting.

Ebook or Tips

Ebooks and tips are other types of downloadable content.

They are:

Shorter
Actionable

For example, if you are promoting a product or tool, a blog post about how to use it would be useful.

In that blog post, you could include tips and tricks or an ebook on different ways to use it.

Webinar

A webinar is a web seminar giving information on video.

It can either be:

Prerecorded
Streamed live

Both have advantages like interaction with audiences for live streaming webinars.

And even pre recording different types of webinars for different types of audiences like:

More visual content
More auditory content

The next stage of the buyer’s journey:

The move to the consideration stage, means you’ve got the audience’s attention.

They have a problem that has to be solved and are trying to find the best solution.

Potential buyers at this stage will even weigh up their options for a potential purchase in the future.

Between your audience and your business, this is the stage that you:

Nurture leads
Build relationships
Establish trust

The best channels for consideration includes:

Website or Blogging
Search Engine Marketing
Email Marketing
Social Media

Content for Consideration

Product Comparison Guide
Case Study

Product Comparison Guides

At this stage, the buyer is finding solutions to their problem.

So, product comparisons can help them decide.

For example, to help users choose between products, write a product comparison with:

Pros and cons
Use cases

Case Study

A case study is used in consideration and decision stages by proving to readers the solution works with achieved results.

Using a buyers emotion and logic about the solution with:

Detailed information
Quantitative data

For example, stories about clients and their problems with details of how they solved them.

Now onto the decision stage:

At the end of the buyer’s journey, prospects narrow down to specific choices.

And you want to give them customer experience to win them over.

This means:

Handling objections
Removing hesitation
Positioning yourself ahead of competition

The best place for decision content includes:

Website
Email Marketing
Live Chat and Chatbots for Service

Content for Decision

Free Trial or Live Demo
Consultation Offer
Coupon

Free Trial

The best way to know if you want a product is to try it out.

After the prospect has decided this is the product or service they want.

What’s left is to:

Handle objections
Close the deal

For example, Saas products offer a free option with limits and from the free trial clients can pay for less limitations.

Consultation

A consultation gives a service for an opportunity to close the sale.

Consultations help reduce the fear of talking about the sale by giving away strategies or advice for their time.

Doing so increases the chances of conversion.

Coupon

A coupon uses the fear of missing out (FOMO).

Reducing the price with a coupon handles any price objection and tells prospects they’re missing out by not using the coupon.

This provides the final push to win the prospect’s business.

Note: For decision content, create content for existing customers.

A few examples of this includes:

FAQ
Knowledge base content about customer experiences
Coupons for upselling
More educational content understanding topics better

Conclusion

Every business’s buyer’s journey is unique and different from one business to another.

Before creating the buyer’s journey:

Understand your audience
Build a content strategy for each part of their journey

Doing this will help:

Build better customer relationships
Increase overall conversions

Now it’s your turn.

Tell me how this article helped with building your buyer’s journey?

How do you go about yourself?

And if there’s any extra tips you would add?

Let me know in the comment section below.