Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves “I’m going to buy something today.” People go through a process of research and evaluation before they commit to making a purchase.
That journey is called the buyer’s journey.
Nowadays, customers are more aware and in control than ever before. Therefore, it is crucial that you gain an insight into your target audience and their journey, so you can produce content that gives them a helping hand along the way, whilst also establishing your brand as a leader in your industry.
The journey begins when the individual is unaware of the problem that needs to be solved.
The person in question probably has the same characteristics as the sort of person you would ideally want as a client, who is known as your buyer persona. However, they do not know about your product or realize that they need it.
As more and more businesses turn to content marketing, it is evident that B2B content marketing is becoming increasingly popular. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 69% of B2B marketers have a well-defined and structured content marketing strategy. This shows that content marketing is a serious and effective tool for businesses to use.
In addition to that, a lot of them say that they’re having more success with content marketing than they did last year.
Why Creating Content For The Buyer’s Journey is Important
You must understand your audience to be successful in marketing. This includes understanding how they think, what answers they are looking for, and the path they usually take to find a solution.
The research you conduct can help you develop a documented content strategy that aligns your content with the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
If you’re not entirely sure who your target market is, you run the risk of losing their business.
If you’re a content marketing, this typically means the content you’re putting out isn’t relatable to your readers, which can result in losing them.
To make sure your content is seen by the right people, you need to think about what stage of their journey they are at, how you can reach them there, and what the best channels are for getting your content in front of them.
Content marketing via the internet has made it easier for marketers to engage customers throughout their journey.
Sixty percent of marketers rate content as either “very important” or “extremely important” to their strategy, which is one of the main reasons for its importance.
Top-of-Funnel Content to Spark Awareness
There are a number of organic methods that can help raise awareness and exposure, such as SEO and content marketing, video ads, PR outreach, and social media engagement on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. User-generated content can also play a role in this.
The central idea of this kind of content should be your professional knowledge and experience, which is sometimes called thought leadership content.
The goal is to educate or inform as though you were teaching an introductory course.
Here are my suggestion for your awareness stage content:
Blog articles
Infographics
Guest blog posts
Bylines
Podcasts
Landing pages
Homepages (websites)
Videos
Social media posts
Mid-Funnel Content to Grow Consideration
Conferences and tradeshows are important events in a traditional B2B marketing landscape.
With many occasions now taking place online, webinars and online streaming are now dominant.
Google applies this strategy by uploading live streams for users who are pre-registered or for those who watch them later on YouTube.
Other ways to promote your event online are by using social media, search engines, and email.
Find my recommendation for consideration stage content:
Influencer posts / customer profiles
Industry reports / eBooks
Email
Interactive content (e.g. quiz)
Live video
A sheet overviewing your company
Webinars
Video
Website feature pages
Bottom-of-Funnel Content to Drive Decision
Your sales department is vital to your success, responsible for highlighting your company’s strengths and generating profit.
Make sure your sales team is well-versed in the features and benefits of your product or solution. This way, they can more effectively sell to consumers and explain why your product is better than the competition.
Motivate action by walking them through the process and share decision stage content such as the following:
Competitive analysis
Sales product page
Case studies
Help centre articles
A sheet overviewing specific features
Pitch deck
How-to tutorials
Website FAQ page
Website pricing page
Loyalty Phase to Ensure Engagement
At the loyalty stage, consumers express trust in a brand and have interactions with it.
By connecting with their audience and being involved in their community, B2B marketers can create a personal relationship with them. Additionally, when B2B buyers are dedicated to a company, they are much more likely to refer others.
Some content that can guarantee this is:
White papers
Social media
Blog posts
Podcasts
Videos
Email marketing
Advocacy/Retention
Making your customers happy so that they become loyal fans is a great way to measure success in your business. Try giving product reviews on your social media channels to help increase leads.
Remember that an endorsement from a non-famous person can be very influential on a potential customer’s decision-making.
B2B marketers should encourage their customers to take active part in case studies and user-generated social media content.
This can be achieved via:
YouTube videos
Community engagement
Email marketing
Social media
White paper
Podcast
Let’s run through the different and fresh content formats best suited for your buyer’s journey:
1. Blog Post
A blog post is a great way to reach people who are in the awareness stage.
If you want your website to be successful, you should post content that your target audience is interested in. This will make your website more accessible to them and also increase your chances of being found by search engines. You can also promote your content on other platforms to reach a wider audience.
Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” href is a website that provides high-quality blog content.
The company produces articles that are original and full of helpful information in order to provide their readers with a satisfying experience.
2. Social Media Post
You can use social media to promote your other content, or create content specifically for the channel.
Pew Research reports that 72% of the public uses social media, so your audience probably uses social media too. Social media posts are usually shorter than blog posts, and videos are becoming more popular.
The content on SlideShare is created to be “snackable” with short-form take-aways that are popular on LinkedIn.
3. Whitepaper
A whitepaper is an authoritative report or guide that covers a specific topic in detail.
Whitepapers are useful as downloadable offers when readers want more information on a subject.
It is essential for whitepapers to provide information that is not readily available so that the audience appreciate the report’s worth and feel the need to acquire it.
HubSpot’s yearly survey on the state of marketing provides helpful guidance based on thought leadership to marketers, sales professionals, and business owners.
This text provides readers with statistics from a broad survey as well as opinions from industry experts on what the data means and where the industry is headed.
4. Checklist
If a task has many steps and is complicated, a person may want a guide that tells them what they need to do to reach their goal.
This is an example of how Opendoor meets its audience’s needs by providing a handy checklist in infographic form that spells out all the steps that need to be taken.
The graphic is appealing and has space for a few tips.
5. How-to video
Learned skills can often be the best way to alleviate pain or solve a problem. Although a purchase may be required in some cases, it is usually best for the individual to learn more about the issue and how to fix it themselves.
HubSpot Marketing has a series of videos dedicated to teaching viewers about SEO principles in easy-to-understand language and visuals.
The Marketing team is hoping to make SEO more understandable for viewers, since it can be a complicated topic.
6. Kit or tool
If the information you’re providing to your audience isn’t leading to decisions or action, you may need to make it more specific or personalized.
This is why creating content in the form of kits and tools can be very helpful for the reader as they go through the process of making a purchase.
Nerdwallet produces content on a variety of financial topics, with budgeting being one of the most popular.
They created a calculator that gives users a customized recommendation based on the numbers they provide.
7. eBook or tip sheet
Downloadable content such as eBooks and tip sheets are great options because they are shorter and more actionable.
The blog post CoSchedule wrote promotes their headline analyzer tool by discussing how to write headlines that drive traffic.
The blog post includes a great tip sheet of powerful words to include in headlines if you want to catch a reader’s attention.
8. Educational webinar
A webinar is a seminar that is provided online through video.
A webinar can be recorded and played at a later time or streamed live, which provides opportunities to share information with an audience that desires more visual and auditory content.
SEMrush uses webinars as a key part of its content marketing strategy, often running a valuable topic multiple times to get more mileage out of the content.
After becoming aware of your product or service, the next stage of the buyer’s journey is to learn more about it.
The consideration stage is when the person is aware of their problem and are trying to research their options to find the best solution.
Many people feel the need to commit to a future purchase as they evaluate their options.
9. Product comparison guides
At this stage, the buyer persona is considering different solutions to their problem. Product comparisons can help them make a decision.
10. Case study
A case study can help convince the reader that the solution works by providing evidence that the provider has achieved results for clients by administering the solution.
A successful case study will present detailed information and data on the final solution in a way that appeals to the reader’s emotions and logic.
Blueleadz is a HubSpot partner agency that tells a story about one of their clients and the problems they faced. They provide a detailed account of how they were able to solve those problems.
11. Free sample
They may select a brand because of low price, then search for reviews to ensure quality. A free sample is an example of content or an offer that can be used at any stage of the buyer’s journey.
As they identify which color they want to paint their house, they choose paint chip cards from the hardware store.
A provider creates these cards based on their individual solution. When the individual falls in love with a color, they can easily find and purchase the same color from the same provider.
Now that you have given customers the information they need to list or sample their options, it is time to help them make a decision.
As buyers get closer to the end of the decision-making process, they compare different providers’ specific or specialized offerings.
In order to win over customers, marketers want to provide a customer experience that is better than their competitors.
Handling objections, remove hesitation, position ahead of comp
The ideal channels for your decision stage content may include:
- Website
- Email Marketing
- Live Chat and Chatbots for Service
When prospects are showing increased interest, there are certain types of content that can help them move closer to making a purchase.
Wrapping Up
It’s important to find new ways to engage potential customers throughout their buyer’s journey. With so much content available online, and so many traditional marketing forms that can overwhelm prospects, it’s crucial to find ways to stand out.
Content marketing is a mix of information, education, persuasion, and entertainment that uses many different sources and formats.
When you find the right combination of formats, you can turn your leads into loyal customers in a way that no one else can. This will make your brand stronger and more successful.
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