A solid marketing strategy starts with target market data (or buyer persona) and a plan! for producing and distributing the content that each buyer nes! at the right time. Critical to developing this plan is the concept of the buying! cycle, or the buyer’s journey—that much-debat “sales funnel.”
Sales channel
The funnel is a simple and useful analogy for understanding! the process from lead conversion to eventual sale. There are three stages in the buyer’s journey that correspond from the top to the bottom of the funnel. Each progressive stage approaches the final opening, where the sale is complet. The decreasing size of each stage, represent by the shape of the funnel, illustrates the diminishing size of each context, from a complete stranger, to a lead, and finally to a specific customer. Each stage narrows as you get to the most valuable lead.
By understanding the entire process a potential buyer goes through, you can customize your content to target each stage.
Source: Livespace CRM
Phase 1: Awareness stage
The awareness stage encompasses the first phase of the journey, the largest demographically and the lead-generating “pool.” In the awareness stage, buyers have not fully identifi their own ne for a product or service, namely the problem for which they are being offer a solution through that product.
A potential buyer in the awareness stage might be an SMB owner or a middle-level executive with a vague task of increasing output and productivity. It might be a teacher who doesn’t feel like their lessons are connecting with their students. It might be an e-commerce site unhappy with their revenue. In each case, there is an underlying ne for improvement that could be facilitat with a product or service that addresses their challenge. However, none of these buyers have yet identifi exactly what is affecting their productivity, engagement, or underperformance.
A traditional ad would go through all the stages of the journey in one fell swoop, identifying email list the problem and throwing out the copy that drives the purchase, both in one breath. The inbound approach revolves around lead nurturing In an inbound marketing approach, you would structure your content towards buyers in the awareness stage, with an eye toward an in-depth discussion of their specific nes, aim at understanding them and providing ample resources to explore and understand the challenges and solutions inherent in their position.
Source: Express Writers
Phase 2: Consideration stage
Buyers can reach the decision-making stage on their own through careful analysis, advice from others, or external resources. A successful inbound strategy has mov a buyer segment from awareness to consideration through effective content what were the biggest challenges at the beginning and what problems did you have to overcome? delivery. If you can do this successfully, you have already establish yourself as an authority in your niche segment and built a lead’s trust.
In the consideration phase, buyers know what their specific challenge is and are hklists committ to fixing it. The SMB owner knows that CRM software lacks adequate personalization. The teacher knows that multimia resources are essential to keeping their students engag. The e-commerce site knows that poor UX design increases bounce rates. Now the question is how to address these issues. here is always a broad spectrum, from cost-effective technology to agetech technology, and every buyer goes through the consideration process within that spectrum.
Marketing content in the review phase starts to become more promotional in terms of talking about your.