Without content, you can’t generate leads and nurture them to customers. But what content gets a lead’s attention? And what type of material convinces them to buy from you? By utilizing and creating collateral for every stage of the buyer’s journey, you can provide all the necessary information to get users to sign that dotted line.
Here is a look at the content you should create to nurture leads through the buyer’s journey.
What is The Buyer’s Journey?
HubSpot defines the buyer’s journey as the active research process a buyer goes through leading up to a purchase. Essentially, it’s everything a potential customer of yours does before deciding whether or not to buy your product service. Pretty important, right?
Not to mention, according to a report from CSO Insights, more than 70% of buyers define their needs and identify solutions before reaching out to sales. It seems obvious you should provide useful content. To do that, you need to be aware of the different stages of the buyer’s journey and what marketing material should be deployed.
What Are the Stages of The Buyer’s Journey?
There are three main stages of the buyer’s journey, plus an additional step for your customers:
- Awareness – Your prospective buyer has realized they have a problem and need a solution. At this point, questions and concerns are high-level.
- Consideration – Your potential customer has defined their issue and begins researching and understanding the available solutions. The consideration stage can be lengthy as your buyer weeds through experiences, viewpoints, and more.
- Decision – Once your prospective buyer has decided on a solution, they narrow down options related to companies, prices, features, fit, and more.
- Delight – If everything goes well and your lead becomes a customer, this stage should be used to keep them satisfied. After all, they can become a valuable marketing resource. There’s also the opportunity to upsell or cross-sell.
What Type of Content Should Be Used in Each Stage?
By giving users exactly what they need according to their particular stage, you can support them toward making a purchasing decision – ideally, from you. Here is a look at what material to create for each step so you can move your leads in the right direction:
Awareness or Top-Of-The-Funnel (TOFU) Content –
The terms “awareness-level” and “TOFU” are interchangeable as they both refer to collateral that reflects the initial stage of the buyer’s journey, where leads are eager to learn but not entirely ready to buy. Try supplying your contacts with material that’s educational without being pushy, such as:
- Informative blogs
- How-to’s
- Checklists
- Tip sheets
- Instructive webinars
- High-level whitepapers
- Infographics
- Social media posts
Consideration or Middle-Of-The-Funnel (MOFU) Content –
After you’ve captured someone’s attention, they’ve moved into the middle stages of the buyer’s journey and want to know more about how they can rectify their concern. Here you can create consideration or MOFU-level content that shows how your product or solution comes into play. Nurture them with items like:
- More in-depth blogs
- Case studies
- Testimonials
- Product-specific webinars
- Lunch and learns
- FAQs
- Data-sheets
- Demo videos
Decision or Bottom-Of-The-Funnel (BOFU) Content –
When your lead reaches this stage, they’re ready to buy, but you need to make the case that they should purchase from you and not a competitor. Decision or BOFU content must be specific, like:
- Free trials
- Live demos
- Personalized consultations
- Estimates
- Pricing sheets
- Coupons
- Product fact sheets
- Vendor comparison charts
Delight Content –
After the celebration of landing a new customer is over, don’t forget about them. The delight stage is integral to helping maximize customer value, turning them into promoters, or making them repeat buyers. Provide them with customer-tailored content like:
- Exclusive invites to events
- Promotions
- Product focused blogs
- Surveys
What Does It Look Like in Action?
Reading what to do is valuable, but putting the pieces together is another beast entirely. To help, we’ll provide an example:
Jeff works for a local landscaping company but hasn’t gotten much business in the last few months. He pokes around at his competitors’ websites and notices clean designs that have ample areas where visitors can submit contact information. He realizes his lack of business could be because his website has an old aesthetic and doesn’t have informative content to drive people to set up an appointment.
At this point, Jeff is clearly in the awareness stage. Your website design company wants to help consumers just like him. To capture his attention, try writing blogs that address his specific concern like: Is Your Website Out-of-Date? Is It Time to Redesign Your Site for The Upcoming Year? More importantly, you’d want to add persuasive CTAs throughout your writing to ease Jeff to the next step.
After Jeff has read several pieces about the importance of keeping your website updated for copy and user experience, he wants to dig deeper. He’s entered his email into one of your forms featured on a TOFU offer, but also continues to research other options. He specifically wants to know what companies can provide copywriting and development services.
Jeff has moved to the consideration stage and after filling out a form, he’s now a part of your website design lead nurture. During this second stage of the buyer’s journey, users like Jeff want to know everything they can about selecting the right third-party firm. Your drip campaign should provide offers like invitations to webinars with topics on web development and content or guides on how to choose the correct design partner.
Jeff has devoured the material you’ve sent him by email through triggered workflows. Every time he opens one and clicks a link, your company provides him with even more nurturing marketing collateral, so he’s ready to make a purchase. But he’s been closely examining another similar company that has the same services as yours.
Your contact Jeff has moved into the decision stage where he wants to buy but needs a final push. If you were utilizing a lead nurture campaign to guide him through the buyer’s journey, you would provide him with a link to book a personalized demo with a sales representative where you go over specific details, including pricing.
Jeff has decided to use your company to redesign his site. He liked your all-inclusive services, including copywriting, SEO, design, and development.
Once Jeff’s new site is launched, be sure to keep him on a customer-nurturing campaign. He may be interested in other services you provide. Similarly, he could be the subject of a case study you could use in another drip campaign. Get a sense of how he’s feeling by sending out a survey with questions on his experiences.
Create Your Ideal Buyer’s Journey
There you have it: the buyer’s journey. On paper, it seems simple enough, but when you begin to define the stages and material to go along with it, it can turn complex fast. You don’t have to go it alone, though! Reach out today for guidance.
