Best Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

A little while ago we walked through what you need to know to create a solid buyer’s journey for your personas. In this post, we’ll walk you through the buyer’s journey and show you how to create the right type of content for each stage. This will allow you to serve up relevant content and meet your buyers where they are.

The Awareness Stage

What is it?

The buyer has just come to the realization that they have a problem and need to solve it. At this point, they might not even know what the problem is. They’re just trying to get their bearings and figure out the lay of the land.

Best content forms

At this point, you want to focus on generating website visitors or social media engagement. SEO and blogging is very important at this stage. You need to stand out and be found—and to do that you need to provide information that helps your buyers clarify their pain, need, or challenge.

Best content at this stage:

• Blog posts. These posts should focus on your keywords and should be filled with very targeted long-tail keywords that will help your content be found.
• Social media. Share information related to the pains or general questions buyers are asking. Don’t forget: with B2B, different social channels have greater benefits than others. LinkedIn groups can be very powerful locations for your target buyers to look for trusted information.
• Downloadable content: Infographics, checklists, quick guides, videos, testimonials and interactive content are great assets to answer the key questions buyers have. They’re also easy to find, consume, and share.
• Social Ads and PPC can be good ways to increase reach and awareness faster—but to maximize your ad spend, make sure you have some lead capture points set up on your site. You don’t want to just spend money on impressions and site visitors without getting more data.

The Consideration Stage

What is it?

During the Consideration stage, the buyer is refining their understanding of their pain and is looking for information to determine the best solution.

Best content forms

At this stage, you want to gain new contacts and conversion rates for content offers. Keep an eye on targeted activities like an email marketing drip campaign to track performance. The buyer now knows your company, but they need to build trust and a relationship with you. To do that you need to be seen as a reliable resource in their buying process.

Best content at this stage:

• Blogs. Don’t make your posts just about the pain but give details about how to solve their problem. Your content should impress that they need to rely on your business to solve their challenge.
• Downloadable content: White papers, case studies, webinars, how-to guides, and eBooks. This content is more technical and solution-based than the downloadable content in the Awareness stage, and it provides meatier information the buyer can use.
• Targeted email campaigns. A good automated drip campaign can help educate your buyer and help trigger actions, rather than waiting around for them to come back and engage.

The Decision Stage

What is it?

At this point in the buyer’s journey, they have refined the potential solutions and you are one of the finalists. They need to emotionally buy-in to purchasing from you and close the deal.

Best content forms

• Email campaigns, case studies, client testimonials, and white papers are great elements to help reinforce you as the best solution.
• Targeted content will help your contact sell you to their internal selection team. In B2B, most decisions have a few roadblocks that can derail a purchase, such as a form required by purchasing, or an influencer with very different goals and objections than the buyer you’ve been connecting with.

Need help crafting the best content for each stage of the buyer’s journey? We can help with that. Contact us to learn more about our marketing services to take your content to the next level.