How do you customize your content and messaging for different buyer journey stages?

It’s important that you emphasize social proof in the awareness stage so people know that it’s effective if they do need the product or service. This could be UGC videos, influencer videos, testimonials and reviews.

An example I love sharing in my classes is illustrating the marketing of headache medication. In the market, some experience intense head pain without realizing it's a headache. They need awareness and understanding of the pain's signs and symptoms. This group differs from those who've identified their condition and those aware of the specific medication they seek. The unaware group Googles to comprehend their pain's "why" and "what." As a content creator, addressing this stage involves crafting relevant content on their WHY, WHAT, and Story of someone who had experienced such pain then linking to what was done too. 7 reasons why you are having this pain "Are you experiencing this" content type and many more

I concur with the statement. The awareness stage is crucial in the customer journey, where prospects seek solutions but aren't ready to purchase. It's important to provide informative and inspiring content, positioning your business as a trustworthy expert. Various content types like blog posts, ebooks, webinars, and podcasts cater to diverse audience preferences. Yet, it's key to tailor content to your target audience's needs and optimize it for each distribution channel to ensure effective engagement.

I view the Awareness stage differently. In my experience, it isn't that they're already looking for solutions. It's that they don't even know they have a problem/challenge yet. Often times, b2b solutions' biggest villain is the status quo. True top of the funnel is focused on spurring the recognition that there is a problem or challenge in the first place and the way they're currently doing something can't continue.

B2B relationships to kickoff depend on trust, as they use to imply either on large investments, operational adaptations, deep products or services analysis, and also normally envision the long term. Awareness require effective marketing tools that will help build the trust like white papers, workshops, customers testimonials, product certifications, performance data and claims substantiation. Though, even when providing more technical or informative content, as marketers we have to always remember that there is a human on the other side of the table, so communications have to be interesting and engaging enough to cause a reaction, and the attitude to a response we are expecting. Forget about that idea that brochures will sell products.

Not included here is an important piece of information: price. Being upfront and transparent about your pricing structure pulls financial decision makers into your conversation earlier, making conversations thereafter far easier than if you withheld pricing until deeper funnel stages. The added benefit is this also ejects the leads that are NOT a fit for you. Why waste reps' time working leads that ultimately can't pay? Higher quality, better fit leads can be jet fuel to improving your CAC and preventing your teams from burning out working thankless leads that never convert.

This is a great place to start introducing social proof at scale (things like: reviews, quotes, testimonials, customer stories, UGC).

This is a great place to start introducing social proof at scale (things like: reviews, quotes, testimonials, customer stories, UGC).

With so much macroeconomic volatility, prospects want to be assured of a return on their investment (ROI). Calculators that help prospects compute the ROI on buying your product or service can really move the needle.

At this stage, it's not a game of overwhelming prospects with a flood of product information. Instead, it's about tactfully steering potential customers to swiftly see the value quickly– the "aha moment,". And also reducing friction to ensure they feel confident and secure in making a decision.

Buyers remorse is real and immediate. Content at this stage is aimed at helping the customer feel good and excited about their purchase. Unfortunately, legal contracts have the opposite effect. ;) Consider creating a personalized video from the CEO reinforcing why this purchase will solve the customer’s (stated) problem and what to expect during the onboarding process.

Do you know what’s a great idea? Actually calling all of your customers that purchased from your website on the phone thanking them for their purchase and seeing if they are pleased with their purchase. It’s a great time to emphasize your customer referral program and other upsells that you may be able to engage the customer with. I’ve implemented programs like this over the years and I can tell you that the customers are extremely happy when they get that phone call. Have a friendly person doing it that goes without saying.

A lot of companies leave post-purchase content up to the customer success or operations team. This is a mistake, as these departments are not typically trained in “communications”, leading to complicated and long-winded onboarding documents. Tip for marketers: get involved and lead the process to simplify customer onboarding, implementation tips and interesting use cases. After all, if customers aren’t fully using the product they bought, they will struggle to see the value...which ultimately means they will leave.

Onboarding, implementing, and adopting are sometimes just as challenging, and just as important, as the sale itself. That's where a lot of companies drop the ball. Sometimes there is even a disconnect from the person who demoed the product and ultimately the one(s) who ends up using it. In cases like these, you need to be super invested in this process.

It takes more than creating custom content because how does this content help you attract your audience if they are never seeing it? With SEO, you can optimize your content to hit your target market in various stages of the buying process. Utilize cornerstone content on your webpage to address the needs of those who are in the awareness, consideration, decision, and post-purchase stages. Then elevate their knowledge by regularly posting blogs that address each of these in more detail and incorporating an interlinking and backlinking strategy. Following SEO best practices helps ensure when people start searching for your product or service, they can easily find you on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

One of the best ways to employ content strategically is to match different kinds of content with the stages of the customer life cycle. ??Know: Create blog content and ads to boost organic search and facilitate referral introductions ??Like: Use newsletters and guides to build trust and expertise over time ??Trust: Share customer stories, & case studies to build trust. SEO efforts and social media participation ??Try: Offer sample content like proposals, or seminars to exceed expectations and drive sales ??Buy: Ongoing education post-purchase such as an onboarding pdf ??Repeat: Establish a results review process to capture success stories ??Refer: Collaborate with best-of-class providers to create content and incentivize mutual referrals