Creating content without considering where your audience sits in the buying journey is like shouting into a void.
Content marketing isn’t just about writing quick blogs and posting on social media now and then, it’s about delivering the right message to your audience, at the exact right time. If you truly want to guide your website visitors towards making a purchase and sticking around as loyal customers, you need to craft content tailored to each stage of your sales funnel. Whether it’s building awareness or securing a sale, here’s how to craft content that converts.
Understanding the sales funnel
Before we get stuck into content strategies, it’s important to have a deep understanding of the typical sales funnel phases to ensure that your writing resonates with your audience throughout their buying journey. Here is a quick recap:
- Awareness: The awareness phase does exactly what it says on the tin! In this phase, customers are only just becoming aware of your product or service.
- Consideration: During the consideration phase, customers are likely to be researching particularly products, watching product tutorials and reading your product descriptions. Also during this phase, they will be looking at your competitors, so this is a crucial time to get it right!
- Conversion: Well done, you’ve successfully led your customer from the awareness phase, all the way through to committing to a purchase. However, during this phase you must do everything you can to avoid customers abandoning their carts!
- Retention: During the retention phase, it’s important to nurture your customers. Make them feel loved and appreciated by offering them exclusive discounts and make them feel part of your community.
- Advocacy: Advocates are the crème de la crème of customers and should be treated that way! Customers within this phase strongly align with your brand values and want to shout about your business from the rooftops.
1. Awareness: Catching Attention
During the awareness stage, your audience is barely aware of your brand. Your job here is to capture their attention, spark curiosity and start building brand familiarity, so the next time they come across your products, they’ll already trust your brand. In this stage, it’s absolutely essential that you focus on being genuinely helpful and aim to provide value to your prospects, without being salesy (it’s best to save that for later on). The goal is to capture attention, add value and start earning trust which can be done in a variety of ways including;
- Blog posts that answer common questions
- Infographics that highlight surprising stats or trends
- SEO-driven posts targeting early search terms (e.g. ‘how to improve sleep’ if you’re a mattress company)
- Social media posts that both educate and entertain
Be sure to keep your tone of voice friendly and approachable while adhering to your brand identity. Avoiding jargon and salesy language will stand you in good stead for nurturing your audience later down the line.
2. Consideration: Proving Value
When someone is aware of your brand and their need / want, they’ll enter the consideration phase. Often this looks like actively researching solutions and weighing up their options, that means checking out the competition! This is your key opportunity to show them why your product or service deserves a spot on their shortlist! You can do this is a number of ways including:
- Product comparison pages
- Case studies showcasing real results from verified customers
- In-depth guides and how-to articles
During the consideration phase, it’s absolutely essential for your tone to feel confident and trustworthy, demonstrating expertise without feeling too pushy or salesy. Be sure to balance facts and figures with features and benefits to gently guide users towards choosing your brand.
3. Conversion: Sealing The Deal
Well done! Your user has made it to the conversion stage and that should be celebrated! Content that targets users at this stage of the buying funnel should be focused on removing any lingering doubts that customers may have and provide clear next steps to taking action. Here are a few content ideas that will help you to get your audience over the finish line:
- Clear and compelling landing pages with strong call-to-actions
- Product demonstrations & free trials
- Limited-time offers or incentives
- Verified customer testimonials and star ratings
Ensure that you use direct, reassuring language that makes it easy for users to hit the checkout button. Use language that is clea, concise and action-driven to incentivise users to add products to their basket and complete checkout. Confidence is paramount in this phase, so keep that in mind when honing your tone of voice for call-to-actions and key landing pages.
4. Retention: Nurturing Customers
The sales funnel does not end at purchase! Retaining your customers is just as important as winning them over in the first place. Good retention content keeps customers engaged, happy and aware of everything else you can offer to them. Whether you’re a product or service-based business, think about how your brand can go the extra mile and offer helpful tips on how to care for a product post-purchase or perhaps follow up with an offer of a monthly subscription. Here are a few content ideas to help you on your way to retaining customers:
- Onboarding emails and user guides
- Regular check-in emails or surveys
- Exclusive content for customers
- Loyalty programmes
5. Advocacy: Creating Exceptional Experiences
Loyal customers are a brand’s biggest asset. When a customer reaches this stage, your content should undeniably reward them, make them feel an important part of your community and encourage them to spread the word about how amazing your products or services are! We’d recommend utilising the following strategies and tools to ensure your loyal customers feel loved and appreciated.
- Referral programmes
- Sneak peeks at new products or features
- Personalised thank you messages
- Tiered VIP customer rewards
And there we have it! Our top tips for crafting winning content for each and every stage of the customer buying journey. Whether you’re an established marketer or are running your own ecommerce brand, we hope these tips have provided you with the ideas and insight needed to drive tangible growth for your business by nurturing existing users and transforming them into loyal brand advocates.
If you need a helping hand with anything from SEO and content marketing to ecommerce web design or branding, don’t hesitate to get in touch and we’ll be happy to help!
