Have you ever thought about what makes you choose a certain company over another one? Why do you buy a product from one website and not the other? Many factors affect the buyer process, including budget, emotional triggers, customer reviews, and brand name. In some cases, people go through a long buyer’s journey. In the beginning, one faces a certain challenge and conducts research to find solutions. Consequently, one compares alternatives to find the best-matching product.
Both B2C and B2B customers go on such a journey. Providing tailored content materials for each stage of the buyer’s journey can influence buying decisions. For example, you increase your chances of selling if you help your audience find the best match for their needs while they evaluate alternatives.
It is crucial that you truly understand your buyer personas when identifying buyer’s journey content formats. Once you recognize the phases your potential buyers go through, you will be able to adapt your content marketing strategy accordingly. As a result, you will report massive growth in your revenue.
So, let’s explore the best way to create content for each buyer’s journey stage.
This blog post covers the following:
- What are the three stages of the buyer’s journey?
- The benefits of mapping your content to your buyer’s journey
- The best buyer’s journey content formats for each stage of the marketing funnel
- How to get started with interactive buyer’s journey content?
What are the three stages of the buyer’s journey?
1. Awareness stage
Most customers begin their journey in the awareness stage, where they confront a certain problem or challenge. People are not familiar with your brand yet. Moreover, people don’t have a clear idea of the product or service they need. They will probably talk to a friend or use the internet to start their research.
Although potential customers are not ready to buy just yet, they would appreciate a source of information that will help them understand their situation better. For example, a skin type infographic can educate them about skin treatment. Therefore, your visitors might start looking for skincare products if they experience problems with their skin. As your company created the source of information, there is a high probability that they will remember your name further down in their buyer’s journey.
2. Consideration stage
During the consideration stage, consumers are looking actively for a solution to their problem. They are still not ready to buy, but they compare multiple alternatives. Here is your chance to create relevant and engaging content that will set you apart from the competitors. You need to catch your audience’s attention so that they remember your brand name during the next phase too.
The content adapted for the consideration stage should be informational and educational. The purpose is to highlight your product or service as one of the potential options for your audience.
3. Decision stage
The decision stage is where prospective buyers select the best solution based on their criteria. For example, one potential buyer might be looking for the cheapest solution, and another user might be interested in the most sustainable one. The content you create for this stage should be detailed enough to facilitate the decision-making process. Engagement also plays a crucial role in the buying decision. The higher the customer engagement, the higher the chances of them choosing you over the competitors.
Again, it is crucial that you understand your buyer personas, but also your business and marketing objectives. Is your goal to raise awareness? Or are you trying to generate leads? Maybe you aim to help those customers who simply need the last push to buy your products? With this fundamental knowledge, you will be able to start mapping your content according to your marketing funnel.
Following the Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel is a tool that describes the different steps your customers take, from being absolute strangers landing on your website for the first time to converting into buyers.
The marketing funnel has three fundamental parts: Top-of-the-funnel (TOFU), Middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU), and Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) (see the image above). As you move along the funnel, you lose a part of your leads for a variety of reasons.
A well-crafted content marketing strategy can help you convince your leads to purchase from your company. From capturing their attention as they first become familiar with your brand to giving them an extra push during the decision stage, your online content can make a big difference.
If you have tons of marketing material in your database, it might be super difficult to decide what goes where. You could make videos that are personalized that may be helpful to increase the diversity in your marketing approaches, or you could focus on writing educational blog posts. Mapping the buyer’s journey and connecting different types of content to each stage will help you out.
Benefits of mapping your content to your buyer’s journey
Mapping your content to the buyer’s journey stages is crucial for your strategy. Even if you attract many visitors during the awareness phase, you might lose them later in the process due to a lack of information. For example, you might attract substantial organic traffic through high-quality blog posts. Readers are engaged and excited to know more about your products. Nevertheless, they can’t find any good product descriptions or guided selling experiences. In this case, your audience will most probably leave and go to a competitor’s website with diverse content adapted to every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Don’t let your potential customers run away. Mapping your content will help you retain your audience. In fact, almost 80% of companies with successful content marketing have previously worked on a comprehensive content strategy. Therefore, it is important to place your online experiences with a clear purpose.
Let’s sum up the benefits of content mapping:
- You nurture your customers during all three stages of their journey.
- Your audience is engaged.
- You make your content marketing a big success.
The best buyer’s journey content formats
The buyer’s journey includes multiple touchpoints that require different types of interactions. Using engaging online experiences will help you get and hold your customers’ attention. Implementing Interactive Content is a strategy that will help you enhance customer engagement like never before. Interactive Content can make your customers enthralled with your brand experience, loving and advocating for your brand.
Pro Tip: Repurpose your old static content into Interactive Content to enhance the buyer’s journey.
Pulling this disparate interaction into a captivating story told across many touchpoints starts with having all types of Interactive Content at your disposal. Examples include Marketing Games, Interactive Videos, Interactive Flipbooks, Calculators, and Quizzes. Each type of Interactive Content is a tool in the buyer’s journey and has a purpose – all come together to form a compelling story. For instance, an online game can be an engaging interaction that will set your website apart from the competition.
The capability for marketers to deliver a cohesive digital journey begins with a strategic approach. Marketers must be empowered to focus on funnel performance rather than production or resource constraints.
Related: What is Interactive Content?
Interactive buyer’s journey Content that follows the marketing funnel
The image below gives an overview of what Interactive Content formats are best for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
TOFU content formats
In the TOFU stage, your goal is to get the awareness of your audience. Additionally, you want to help buyers define their problems. Besides tools like blog articles, online contests, and interactive posts for social media, Interactive Content can help you differentiate your brand. For instance, Interactive Infographics and Marketing Games will inform, educate, and entertain your audience in a fun way during the awareness stage. Particularly, Interactive Quizzes can help you educate your audience about a certain topic or even your products and services. Furthermore, integrating a lead form into your Interactive Quiz enables you to collect and segment leads into different categories based on their answers. Keep in mind the gated content best practices to ensure your leads are qualified.
The most suitable Interactive Experiences to attract prospects during the TOFU stage are:
- Interactive Infographics
- Interactive Videos
- Quizzes
- Marketing Games
- Interactive Social Media Posts
- Blog posts
- Contests
Click on the image to experience an Interactive Quiz example
MOFU content formats
The MOFU stage is where the stranger transitions into an interested visitor. The visitor, and thus a prospect of yours, is ready to address their problem. In the consideration stage, the prospects start analyzing all available options. According to the Demand Gen Report, 60% of B2B buyers engage with content formats such as whitepapers, and eBooks before buying. Making your flipbooks and eBooks interactive will differentiate your content from the competitors and will keep readers focused.
At this stage, it is crucial for you to position your products and services as the only valuable solution to their challenge. For instance, you can enhance your marketing by adding the wow factor to your website with an Interactive Virtual Showroom. Within an Interactive Virtual Showroom, your audience can have a conversation with you, read more about your company and products, and much more.
Furthermore, you can help your visitors evaluate their situation with Calculators and Assessments.
The most suitable Interactive Experiences to stand out during the MOFU stage are:
- Interactive Flipbooks
- Interactive eBooks
- Calculators
- Interactive Virtual Tours
- Assessments
Click on the image to experience an Interactive Virtual Showroom example
BOFU content formats
During the BOFU stage of your marketing funnel, the buyers are ready to make a decision based on their research. You need to delight and nurture your leads to show appreciation at this stage. For instance, you can help them find the best matching product for their needs. A Guided Selling recreates an in-person sales experience on your website. It generally consists of several questions about the respondent’s preferences and needs. The results guide your visitors directly to the solution to their problems.
Related: What is Guided Selling?
Interactive Content formats like Guided Selling, Product Recommenders, and Solution Builders help your leads make an informed purchase decision. Therefore, these formats are perfect for the BOFU stage.
The most suitable Interactive Experiences to convince your potential buyers during the BOFU stage are:
- Guided Selling
- Product Recommender
- Interactive Conversations
- Solutions Builders
Guided Selling can significantly shorten the decision-making process and convert your leads into confident buyers. The example below is a cosmetics finder template that helps customers find the best skin products for their skin types. Quick, simple, and engaging, this Interactive Experience will give that extra push in the BOFU stage.
Click on the image to experience an Embedded Cosmetics Product Finder example
Convert your leads into customers with the best Interactive Content formats
In today’s crowded digital space, brands should adapt their stories through Interactive Content to raise awareness, generate more leads, and convert these into customers. If your visitors are captivated by your buyer’s journey content, they are more likely to move down your sales funnel. Using different types of Interactive Content for every stage of the buyer’s journey will help you maintain your customers.
Unlike point solutions, you can create all types of Interactive Content with Dot.vu. Get inspired on our marketplace, where you can find hundreds of creative templates. Do you already have an idea for an amazing Interactive Experience in mind? Great! The Dot.vu Editor allows you to create your own design from scratch or customize a template.
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