One simple, practical and effective content strategy involves creating content assets that match your customers’ major problems at each stage of the purchase cycle. Content assets can be blog articles, social media posts, podcasts, videos, presentations, ebooks, white papers, or even traditional books. I love this particular strategy because there is very little guesswork, and it doesn’t primarily hang on the whims of search engines or on viral potential.
The customer purchase cycle, also called a buying cycle or journey, is a series of steps a customer must take before they make a purchase. Your company’s customers go through it, and steps look something like this:
- Awareness
- Research
- Deliberation
- Purchase
- Repurchase
Even though the names of the steps, and even the number of the steps, are a little different depending on who you speak to, the core concepts remain the same.
Depending on your company, we may be divide them into additional steps or consolidate them into fewer. For example, customers of a food product with a nominal cost may go directly from research to purchase, whereas customers looking to implement a solar farm for their company will go through an additional consideration stage where they receive demos and attend meetings with the companies that could help solve their complex problem.
When we take this approach to content marketing, we are applying a design thinking approach in which our focus is to anticipate and solve your customers’ problems as they go through the steps in their buying cycle. In the rest of this post, I have shared a description of each stage, the purpose of content at that stage, and links to effective blog content examples at each step created by companies you probably already know. I do absolutely recommend reading those if you’re looking for this idea to come life. So let’s get started!
Awareness Stage
This is when your customer, let’s call him Bob, recognizes he has a problem or a need that must be resolved. Often, customers realize this on their own, but they may not always realize this in a timely manner, or at all without a little help. Take Bob–his company recently purchased a sales efficiency software that saves his reps 10% of their time but only costs about 2% of that time, increasing efficiency.
Bob wishes his company had figured out their sales operations were inefficient years ago! He just didn’t figure they had a problem for a long time, and he missed out on the potential benefits for those years.
The purpose of the content we create for this stage is to raise awareness about needs and problems that your customers may be overlooking. It is not about manufacturing problems or any kind of manipulation. These are just problems that are being overlooked, and we’re putting a magnifying glass on them.
Take the blog post titled Eco-Enthusiast investigates air pollution exposure in Hong Kong, which is exemplary for content at this stage. This post is part of a campaign from Dyson. If you’re unfamiliar with Dyson, they are a manufacturer of innovative appliances. And in this particular post, we learn about the deployment their “air pollution backpack” around the city of Hong Kong. Now, Dyson doesn’t sell these backpacks…
The point of the article is to bring attention to air pollution in indoor public spaces, where cooking and the use of cleaning products, among other factors, dirty the air. This campaign then supports demand for solutions to indoor air pollution, for which Dyson is in the running. I’m getting a few steps ahead, but know that Dyson manufactures air purifiers, and they recently released their Formaldehyde Tower Fan, which is designed for businesses just like the ones visited in the blog post.
In reality, going from the awareness of a problem to purchasing a solution takes a few more steps, ones your content can help with.
Research Stage
The research stage begins when Bob realizes he has a problem or need, and he goes looking for help. He turns to Google to find out which solution types would resolve his issue. At the research stage, Bob is more receptive to content than at any other. He is actively seeking it, so you can expect both a lot of content opportunities and competition.
Our goal for content at this stage is to advocate for the solution type or category that your company provides. Take into account the Dyson blog post; there are a multitude of solutions to the air pollution problems discussed in the post. Purchasing an air purifier from any company to resolve the pollution issues that were raised is merely one type of solution. Opening a window and using organic cleaning products instead of toxic ones could be other valid solutions.
Take as an example this T-Mobile blog post titled 5G enables the future of work from anywhere. For reference, T-Mobile is a global telecommunications company. And the post promotes 5G as a solution to unreliable connectedness across the remote workforce.
There are a few things to look out for in that blog post. The first is that it doesn’t focus on why lack of perfect connectivity is a problem for companies. It presumes that its readers are already aware that it is problem. The second great thing about the post is that it offers readers 5G connectivity as the solution, and then it stops there. What I mean is, the post doesn’t focus on what makes T-Mobile’s 5G plan the best one. That’s a really good thing because the customer who resonates with the title is probably at the research stage, they are open to solutions, but they won’t care about specifics until the next step.
Deliberation Stage
Research and deliberation are usually considered to be part of the same stage. I have divided the two in order to more specifically discuss each. This is where Bob has chosen the solution type he is looking for, and he’s ready to find the companies that will provide it to him.
At this stage, we strive to create content that offers as much specificity as possible about your company’s offering, both features and benefits. This content asset is not for all of your potential customers or readers, only the ones considering making a purchase imminently!
Take, for example, the post titled Pitt Graphite Pencils on Faber-Castell’s blog. You probably had Faber-Castell crayons at some point, they are a provider of art supplies and stationery. And that blog post is focused exclusively on their Pitt Graphite Pencil line. It clarifies features, and sets expectations for use, while connecting those features to their benefits very specifically.
It’s kind of a dry a post, full of a lot of detail; it doesn’t grab your attention and it’s not very interesting. But that’s okay because your customer has a good reason to be reading it. If they had searched for “features of Pitt Graphite Pencils,” in an attempt to do a compare-and-contrast with other companies’ pencils, they would find this post, and it would tell them exactly what they are after.
This type of content empowers your customer to make informed comparisons between your offering and your competitors’ offerings. If you leave them in the dark or take for granted that they don’t know what you know about your company or your products or your services, you may lose them at this crucial point, even if you are already on their radar.
Purchase Stage
By now, Bob has become aware of a problem, researched solution types and chosen his preferred provider. Now, he will seek to validate and confirm his choice before he makes a purchase. This stage is largely user-driven. Bob, and customers like him, will look to authentic user reviews–often on third-party websites–to validate their decision. However, there is still content you can create or aggregate for your blog.
Our key message for readers at this stage is: look at everyone else who is happy choosing your solution, and here is why there is no risk for you (the customer) to do the same thing. So, highlight real successes and adoption with a focus on any policy-based risk-reversal that your can offer customers, things like a return policy, a warranty, or other type of guarantee.
An example of purchase stage content is this blog post titled Bosch IoT Suite services launch on Huawei Cloud. Okay, I know, it does sound a little technical. Bosch, the vacuum cleaner company, has become an Internet of Things cloud provider. It’s one of many companies in this space. And the reason I am featuring them is to show that by writing a post on Huawei, a no-doubt large conquest client, they are validating the would-be choice of other clients who may be hesitating.
Repurchase Stage
Those who have already purchased from your company are your most valuable customer segment. Designing content for this audience can present great ROI opportunities. These customers have overcome the risks of purchasing from your business, which means your company overcame hesitance and objections at least once.
The goal of this content is to re-engage and nurture existing customer relationships by sharing useful, relevant content, including the promotion of offerings with additional value.
I love Merrithew’s 5 reasons to add a Merrithew™ Split-Pedal Stability Chair™ to your studio or clinic offering blog post as an example of a re-purchase stage content asset. Merrithew is the company behind the STOTT Pilates brand, the most popular contemporary Pilates training method.
Any Pilates trainer who would add such a stability chair to their studio is likely already a Merrithew customer thanks at the very least to STOTT’s training fees and registration dues. But most likely, at least some of the other equipment in their studio would have been purchased directly from Merrithew as well. And the post focuses on the additional value this chair can provide the customer, such as the ability to accommodate more client types. It’s presumed they already have the Merrithew reformer.
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I hope today’s post was helpful! Polishing Stories is a boutique content marketing agency. We love helping companies tell their stories creatively and authentically. We offer a variety of services, including:
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