Before your potential customer makes an attempt at contacting you, they will have gone through 70-90 percent of the buyer’s journey. And right before they make the decision to purchase from your business, they would have interacted with 11.4 pieces of content related to your service or product. This content includes third-party content from industry experts, branded content from your company and user-generated content from reviews.
But which content has the most influence on your consumers?
In Daniel Newman’s recent article on the Role of Influence in the New Buyer’s Journey, he digs deeper at the type of content that has the most impact on consumers. In his exploration, he finds that the most powerful content are those from industry experts (as seen in a study by Nielsen). This is seen as the most influential type of content since the the source is viewed as as a trusted and unbiased.
What about your brand’s content on your website?
Your brand’s content, those produced on behalf of your company or your employees are a powerful part of the sales cycle – especially as they move up the buyer’s journey.
In producing content that takes your buyers through the buyer’s journey’s phases: Discover, Explore, Buy and Engage, the importance of putting mobile into the equation is now more important than ever. Traditionally, we’ve known phases of the buyer’s journey as Awareness, Consideration and Decision-Making.
The 4 Phases of the Customer Journey are Discover, Explore, Buy and Engage via The Moz Blog.
In the Discovery stage, Bridget points out the importance of creating a seamless and consistent user experience across all devices. Your potential consumers have found your product or service either by landing on your website, coming across one of your social media channels or found you while performing a search online. In aiding your consumers through the buyer’s journey, make sure the content shared on your social media channels are also mobile-friendly. If you’re using a PPC sales-driven approach, you can optimize your campaigns for local searches. For organic traffic, you can optimize your content for local search traffic.
In the Explore stage, consumers have discovered your brand and are looking to find out more about you and your products or services before making the decision to purchase. In this stage, personalizing your consumer’s web experience can be very beneficial. For example, you can use geolocation to show the closest location or offer local promotions. You can implement a recommendation engine to show related products based on their searches like online retailer Amazon.
In this stage, consumers are interacting with the three types of content mentioned above. This goes beyond your website and includes content such as blog posts, case studies, white papers, social media conversations, customer reviews and testimonials.
After consumers have made their purchase, they will still be engaged with your business. This is an opportunity for you to engage with other content such as email marketing campaigns with related products or ask them for a review about their experience.
Consider this: Word-of-mouth is still a very powerful tool. Seventy percent of consumers say they view online reviews first before considering a brand.
Since consumers will have already found your business and researched about your products or services before purchasing or contacting you, it is important for your business to create a web experience that personalizes their experience and enables them to find the right information at the right time.
Want insight into the tech buyer’s journey? Join Lori Wizdo, Principal Analyst at Forrester in their complimentary webinar Myth Busting 101: Insights into the Tech Buyer Journey.
