Last year saw more businesses turning to the internet to meet clients’ needs, but with that comes speaking to an audience that you might not have had much experience with before 2020. The modern client buyer journey has changed with developments in online shopping and research which means you might need to rethink what content you need to produce and share with your digital audience as part of your overall content marketing strategy.
How the buyer journey has changed
The buyer journey refers to the process that buyers or clients go through to become aware of your brand, review it, and make a purchase for your product or service. It sounds pretty straight forward. However, 67 per cent of this buyer journey now takes place online. This means that the client is now in control. With lockdown restrictions taking place worldwide in 2020, this figure is likely to have risen. Online buyers are looking for personalised care and information on their own time which means it’s your job to supply the information they need when the client is ready to make a purchase.
67 per cent of this buyer journey now takes place online!
Inbound marketing
The strategy of sharing information to increase your brand awareness and build your brand credibility is called inbound marketing. It focuses on attracting clients through relevant and helpful content and adding value at every stage of your client’s buying journey. Potential clients will be able to find you through your blogs, search engines, and social media. The modern client will always do their research and ask for recommendations before committing to a purchase.
For example, a recent case study by Google found that one car buying journey by a woman included more than 900 digital touchpoints – 71 per cent of which occurred on a mobile device. Within those digital touchpoints, the woman used her mobile device to search for answers to her questions. The buyer explored 14 brands of vehicle, conducted 139 Google searches, looked at 89 images, watched 14 YouTube videos, had 69 dealer interactions and 186 manufacturer interactions.
Use content to create awareness
With many of us now turning to the internet to do our buyer research, it’s vital that you improve your brand awareness online. By sharing content to your website blog, in your email newsletters and to social media, you become a brand name clients can trust for reliable and high-quality information. If we look at the example above in the Google study, the woman shopping for a car conducted 139 Google searches. As a brand, you need to appear in as many of those search results as possible. To do that, you need to have information in the form of content that answers the questions being asked by your potential clients. Your potential clients will be asking questions about the service or product and the brand so make sure you have reviews on your social media pages and you’re sharing your content there too.
Be where your audience is
That brings us to our next point. You need to share content where your audience is, whether that’s on your website to appear in Google searches, or on your social media pages. The content you share also needs to follow clients along their buyer journey. That means you need to provide case studies, technical information and answers to common questions. Consider what your clients need to move onto the next stage of the buyer journey and create and share content to support that move. Think about the common questions you get asked by clients and start creating content from there.
The end of the buyer journey
You need to continue supporting your clients’ buyer journey through to the end. So, once you’ve made a sale, you should always follow up with an email asking for their feedback. Using this feedback, you can continue to provide support or ask the client to review your business on social media or on Google. This word-of-mouth advertising will help improve your brand credibility and trustworthiness for those clients who are just now entering their buyer journey.
Remember, it all starts with building your brand awareness so make sure you’re sharing content that is relevant, engaging and interesting to your clients.