Having a buyer’s journey can make the difference between good marketing and great marketing. It’s a roadmap to reaching and converting prospects. With it, your marketing is more targeted, and your content is more helpful.
If you haven’t created one for your business yet, there are many reasons why it’s important to do so. In fact, it might be easier than you think to create one. Plus, it will help build stronger relationships with prospects and customers.
A buyer’s journey provides you with valuable insights, informs content creation, aligns content to buyer stages, and improves the sales process. But here’s how you take all of that a step further to level up marketing efforts.
Develop deeper buyer insights
Knowing your audience is critical to delivering the content and service they expect. A deeper understanding of your buyer helps you anticipate needs—maybe even before they realize them.
Understanding your buyer is like being first-to-market. Suddenly your buyer says, “Wow, that solution meets a need I didn’t even know I had.” Only your solution isn’t new, it’s just new to them.
One of the best ways to cement your organization as the leader is to be there when your buyer needs you and to provide the value. The deeper you go, the more you’ll stand out from competitors.
By answering buyers’ questions, teaching them something new and engaging them, they’ll choose your product or service over the others.
Build more targeted marketing content
Developing a thorough buyer’s journey isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. Use it to craft targeted content and campaigns for each stage.
Elevate your campaigns with content that guides your buyer to the next stage. Address their pain points and point them in the right direction.
For instance, educational courses and blogs are best suited in earlier stages. Middle stages are perfect for case studies and thought leadership. In late stages, buyers want personalized emails and relationship-building opportunities.
It’s not enough these days to have generic content. The content must provide value and meet buyers where they are. That’s how you level up.
Create an expanded content library
As you map out content and campaigns, identify holes or opportunities for new and varied content. Test out different types of content: videos, articles, infographics, social media posts, e-books, white papers, and email newsletters.
Then, reuse or repackage each piece of content for different stages of the journey. A white paper might interest a buyer in the awareness stage through a digital ad, but you can also send it to current customers in an email.
A video shared in a social media post might also be part of a blog article. A story highlighted in a case study can be repurposed for sponsored content. When you invest in creating a piece of content, use it in as many ways as possible.
As you progress through campaigns, you’ll see which content is working well and which needs improvement. Build on the successful pieces, improve content where needed, or create new content altogether. Over time, you’ll create a vast library to pull from.
Cultivate more informed team members
You have your blueprints, and you’ve mapped out a campaign. You’ve categorized your content and identified what goes where. You know what to repurpose and what to create. The next step involves your marketing and sales teams.
Just as you deliver the right content at each stage, you need to connect buyers with the right person when they’re ready.
If your buyer is still in the awareness stage, there’s no need for a hard sales pitch from a rep. If they’ve already done research and are ready to purchase, they don’t want to read another blog article or look at another case study. They want to talk to the person who can close the deal.
No matter who or what connects with a buyer, a consistent experience is key. Your brand voice, tone, and look and feel should be consistent across all channels, platforms, and individuals. The information a buyer finds on your website should be the same information they get from a salesperson.
Equip your team members with insights captured during the buyer’s journey. Make sure sales teams know when a buyer interacts with content. Let reps know if a prospect downloaded content, clicked on a website CTA, or engaged on social media.
Ready to level up?
We can help take your buyer’s journey to the next level and use it to develop effective content and campaigns.