Creating Messaging Throughout Your Buyer Journey – Part 1

It's a pretty well known fact that buyers are doing their own research online prior to selecting and doing business with a provider. This has evolved as the internet became accessible and used by more and more of society. AND so........ the marketing game plan has changed accordingly.

You, as a provider of products & services must now make your buyers aware of you prior to them even having an active need for what you offer. Your content and messaging must be applicable for "each" stage of your buyer's journey from pre-need of what you offer to post purchase of what your offer. How you create you content and messaging will come from your 3 banks of knowledge.. your trifecta, as I refer to it .... i.e your personal business brand, your buyers, and your business;

This article is part 1 of two that will help you know how to create your messaging throughout the stages of the buyer journey: Attract, Connect, Engage, Convert, Advocacy.

Let's begin with a simple definition of The Buyer Journey:

“the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service. As a salesperson, you can personalize your sales process to the buyer's context by understanding the buyer's journey” . (from Hubspot)'

The first stage of attracting occurs before your buyer has any active need for what you offer. Part of their lifestyle seeds the needs that they will eventually have. For example, if you sell sports products and/or services, your buyer’s lifestyles include that sport in some form, shape or fashion You might think about cars. Buyers of cars have lifestyles that require a car for multiple reasons. And so on.

When thinking about creating content and messaging for this stage, you don’t want to even mention your products and services. Within your trifecta you will go primarily to your knowledge of your buyers and your personal business brand.

You want to attract by sharing your common interests in the lifestyle that seeds the needs. If it is sports, attract via identifying yourself with that sport so that they become aware of you. Position your personal business brand with the sport and open the doors to your relationships again, via the common interest, love, requirement, attachment, etc to the shared sport.

The second stage of “connecting” works with the same two primary knowledge banks of your trifecta, your buyer and your personal business brand, PLUS a bit of your business. When you “connect” you want to catch your buyer’s attention. Make them more than aware by bringing attention to your post and name via a specific point, topic, experience. Turn their head, catch their eye, hit them in their heart.

To create a “connect” to your posts, use a specific result or pain that lets potential buyers know “you get it” … you get that part of the lifestyle. Back to sports, the joy of winning a game and what that means beyond the game. How it adds to family fun and bondingif it's your child's little league game! If you offer back pain relief, the joy of a senior playing with their grandchild or just being able to bend over to pick them up! A van that unloads 12 kids!! And so on! Get outside your product/service box and think of all the “specifics” that you contribute to the enjoyment of this shared lifestyle and make them take notice of you. Again, NO mention of your products and services, just think about the results received via what you offer and choose specific results that will hit home with them.

Try creating a few posts. Identify a specific target market and make some posts that “attract” and then some posts that “connect.” One hint that you can play with is to use an image by itself to attract. You can use that same image with text on top of it to bring in a specific. BUT be creative with other ideas as well as the same thing done the same way all the time will lose a following.

As always, let me know if you would like some guidance. In Part 2 we will talk about the content for the engage and convert stages of the buyer journey.

Good Business is Good Communications ...

Here's to your success via online communications!

margie