Use this CONTENT STRATEGY to come up with unlimited ideas for your blog or writing clients (Updated).

Today, I’d like to talk to you about one powerful content strategy, I like to use, to beat writer’s block. The?customer journey strategy.

And I find it works particularly well if:

a)???I want to brainstorm ideas for my own blog

b)???I want to impress potential writing clients with a well-polished content marketing strategy.

Done correctly, it can blow the socks of any potential writing client because customer journey strategies are 100% focused on the reader. I have even been told by clients, in the past, how creating a customer journey strategy played a catalytic role in them choosing me over other writers . Let’s face it,?content strategies are a really nice way to set yourself apart.

So what is a customer journey, exactly?

A customer journey is a way of visualising a customer’s experience with a brand over the course of time. You may have heard of the terms?customer or buyer persona?before - a profile or representation of a company’s ideal customer.

Companies spend countless man hours trying to figure out who their ideal?persona?is because if they get this wrong, it could have a very negative effect on their sales. Customer journeys are similar but they are focused?on questions?rather than on a person’s profile.

In my FREE 5-day writing course, I keep banging on about how questions are key if you are a writer, because?the best content is written around a question people ask.

Up to here ok? Let’s get into the nitty-gritty details of this strategy now, shall we?

A customer journey, also known as a?buyer’s journey,?is usually broken down into three stages:?Awareness?– Consideration – Decision.

During the Awareness stage we know we have a problem. It could be anything, (eg. I want to go on holidays). During the Consideration stage, I am considering my options (eg. a holiday where? Which county? What should I be aware of?) During the Decision stage it’s time for me to make a purchase (I’ve chosen France. Where do I go to purchase my trip?)

As customers we all go through these three stages, some of us faster than others. There are customers that may stay at the Awareness stage for ever while others may jump straight to the Decision. Since we can’t know at which stage each potential customer is, our job as writers is to create good content for all three stages.

Roughly speaking,?

Awareness?=?Problem,

Consideration?=?Solution?and?

Decision?=?Product.

Of course, every business wants customers to go through all three stages as quickly as possible and finish by making a purchase, so your job as a writer is to educate potential customers (=readers) with targeted posts about each stage of this process to help them move down the “customer journey” until they reach a Decision.

So, how does that translate into content and how can you use it for your own blog too?

In Day 2 of my FREE 5-day writing course I say:

“The majority of traffic to any article or content you put out there comes from people searching for something.??And people usually search for an answer to their questions.”

This is where the right keywords come in.

Posts at the awareness stage tend to include?problem-based keywords, at the consideration stage they include?solution-based keywords?and at the decision stage, they include?branded keywords?(your client’s or your product or service).

Therefore, the best way to create a strong content strategy is to create content around questions like:

a)????What goes through a potential customer’s mind when they are experiencing a problem in that particular niche??(Awareness)

b)????When they are looking for a solution to that problem??(Consideration)

c)????When they are getting ready to get their credit card out and make a purchase??(Decision)

And so I always begin by asking questions. I put my detective hat on and try to get inside a potential customer’s mind.?

This strategy can work very well with your own blog too because you can use the same logic, which is based on buyer's psychology, to come up with unlimited content ideas depending on what it is you talk about in the blog.

Who does your blog serve?

If you are selling mentoring packages to other translators or just your translation services to potential clients, you can still use this 3-stage strategy to educate potential clients, each step of the way, about why they should buy from you.

But it really works with everything. You could be selling handmade items on Etsy and you could still create content for each stage of the buying process to get people to buy from you.

Which questions should you ask exactly?

Customer journeys – like personas – don’t need and can’t be 100% precise. You cannot know exactly what each customer thinks.?Accurate customer insight is usually obtained through surveys.

For you, the writer, there will be a lot of guess work involved. However, if you know your niche well and have done your research or are one of the target audience already, it is not that difficult either to find out what people may be thinking about each stage of the process.

In Content Writing For Translators, I show you word-for-word how to write mouth-watering content strategies (with examples of questions to ask) that will leave your clients salivating in anticipation for your work.?

So what do you say? Are you ready to try out that strategy for your own content?