Content marketing is an essential strategy for any business looking to create lasting connections with their audience, as well as make more sales. In fact, content marketing is a key component of the flywheel marketing method—the most effective marketing strategy for small businesses.
But, what kind of content should you be creating?
In this blog, we dive into how to create content for every stage of the buyer’s journey and how doing so will ultimately make your audience more likely to do business with you.
The Buyer’s Journey
Content marketing is based on the understanding that people prefer to interact with the information they want—not what you want them to know. That’s why understanding and leveraging your content within the buyer’s journey is crucial for your content marketing strategy.
No matter how much we may want it to be, no one’s first step to solving a problem is buying your product or service. Before they can come to this final decision, potential clients go through what is known as the “buyer’s journey.”
The buyer’s journey lays out the path a potential customer takes when going through the buying and decision-making process. It has three stages:
- Awareness: Prospects become aware of a problem.
- Consideration: They research different solutions.
- Decision: They decide on a solution.
Traditional marketing methods focus on targeting those in the decision stage since those people are ready to make a purchase. However, by doing this, you are missing out on those in the other stages of the buyer’s journey and limiting your marketing’s reach.
In fact, the decision stage only makes up about 3% of people—meaning you are ignoring up to 97% of potential clients. And, that’s a lot of lost business.
While marketing to the decision stage is important, it shouldn’t be the sole focus of your content marketing plan. Instead, you need to develop content that appeals to people at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
When you strategically develop content tailored to each of these phases, you create a powerful mechanism for nurturing prospects throughout the decision-making process. By providing informative and relevant content at every stage, you not only address their specific needs but also establish your expertise and reliability.
This consistent and thoughtful approach helps build trust with potential customers, making them more likely to choose your products or services when the time comes to make a purchase. By guiding prospects along their journey with valuable content, you can significantly boost sales and foster long-term customer relationships.
How to Create Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Since the way people think during each stage of the buyer’s journey is different, you need to create specific content that caters to each of these mindsets. Let’s dive into the types of content you can create to connect with prospects throughout their decision-making process.
Awareness Stage
In the awareness stage, someone has a problem but they don’t know what to do about it, or they need to be made aware of something. They’re looking for answers, resources, and education on a topic.
An example of content you could create for the awareness stage would be a blog. A blog post is a great way to expand on a pain point, problem, or topic your target audience wants to learn more about.
For example, let’s pretend you are a florist and your ideal client is looking for the perfect flowers for their wedding day.
An awareness stage blog for this audience could be about the hidden meanings behind different types of flowers. Your blog post could explain how various flowers have hidden messages and purposes—such as a single daffodil giving the receiver bad luck.
By providing this kind of content, you’re giving your audience the opportunity to better understand their situation and how potential solutions may impact it. After all, no one wants to bring bad luck to their wedding day!
You’re also developing a sense of trust and authority for your brand or business. Awareness pieces, such as this blog example, allow you to engage and interact with your audience in a way that both serves them and positions your business as a trusted resource—making them more likely to trust you with a purchase in the future.
Consideration Stage
The consideration stage is where someone is researching or considering ways to get something done.
In their awareness stage research, the buyer becomes aware of possible solutions to their problem—and this is where they get to research those solutions to better understand what will best fit their needs.
Building off of the florist example, after a prospect has read your blog post, they probably have a better idea of what kinds of flowers they either do or don’t want. But, they still need more guidance before they’re ready to make a final decision.
In this phase of the buyer’s journey, you have the opportunity to further serve them and lead them through your sales funnel with an opt-in of some kind. Opt-ins, or lead-generating content, can be an informational download, a coupon code, a quiz, or anything else that your audience can gain access to in exchange for their email address.
With our florist example, a good opt-in could be an informational download explaining what flowers are in season throughout the year and how that impacts their quality and affordability when selected as wedding flowers. In this instance, potential customers would submit their email and then receive the download via email.
Once you have their email address, you’re able to continue the conversation and nurture your potential buyer as they make a decision about how to solve their problem.
Decision Stage
The decision stage is the point at which a potential customer is ready to make a decision—and likely a purchase. During this stage, you need to show them that your product or service is the right choice for them.
An example of content for the decision stage would be a service or product landing page. Your potential customer is already aware of their problem and has considered how they can solve it, so they’re ready to look into the exact specifications of a product or service that will make that solution a reality.
Learn more about writing website copy in “Episode 107: How to Write Website Copy for Your Small Business: How to Write Your Home, Service, & About Pages” of Priority Pursuit Podcast!
While prospects will receive emails throughout the process, from opting into making a final choice, the landing page serves as the primary platform for promoting and selling your product or service. Essentially, it is the place where customers will make their ultimate decision.
In this final stage of our florist example, a prospect decides what flowers or plants they would like to use for their wedding. Your product landing page is where they will decide to purchase those bouquets and centerpieces.
The whole goal of content marketing is to create engaging and informative content that leads prospects through the buyer’s journey.
By catering content for each of these stages, you are engaging with potential customers through every step of the buying process instead of just focusing on the decision stage as most traditional marketing does. This allows you to reach more people on their terms and create connections that will, in the end, make them want to buy from you.
Small businesses deserve to have a marketing strategy and partner that works as hard as they do.
Treefrog Marketing is a marketing agency for small businesses located in Lafayette, Indiana that builds effective marketing strategies and systems that help small business leaders take their companies to the next level. We specialize in marketing leadership, strategic marketing and advertising, digital marketing, graphic design, web design, social media, SEO, and more. For more information, please visit our website. You can also connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
