Creating and Promoting content that attracts, converts, closes and delights your prospects or buyer personas forms the core of the Inbound marketing methodology. So what it does says is content plays an important role in formulating an effective inbound marketing methodology. The content should be streamlined and mapped along with the stages of the marketing funnel. Providing prospects with useful content aligning with the buyer’s journey in the marketing funnel, it establishes a trust with the audience. This trust helps you to drive the prospects to the bottom of the marketing funnel ultimately converting them into leads. So what type of content should you deliver to prospects all along with the marketing stage?
1.Awareness Stage
The first phase of the marketing funnel involves awareness stage. At this stage of the funnel, the buyer is aware of a problem and is looking for a solution. In order to find a solution for that problem, they may not be even aware of anything they should invest on. Different purchasers come into the funnel with different levels of awareness and comprehension. The buyers that get involved in the top of the marketing funnel everyone does not have the same considerations and awareness. They do vary in different aspects.
As far as the content is concerned the primary objective at the awareness stage is to educate about the problem. While in the process of ongoing educating, it is the best practice to offer them a solution to their problems. But avoid marketing at this stage of the funnel. The buyer personas at this stage of the marketing funnel are all about focussing on the problems they are facing at the moment.
At the awareness stage of the marketing funnel the content that should be educational in the process. Educate them about the problem they are facing. Help them understand the pain points and how they can overcome this. The content should provide them with answers. Most common types of contents that are used in the awareness stage are
- Blog Posts
- Infographics
- Social media posts
- Podcasts
- Ebooks and Guides
2. Consideration Stage
This is the stage of the marketing funnel when the customers have more clarity about the issues they are facing. This is the stage when they consider serious solutions that help them resolve the challenges they are facing.
The content delivered during the consideration stage should be more specific when compared to those content you produced in the awareness stage. It is the stage when follow-ups become the key in content marketing. Use marketing strategies like email marketing to push your content to the target audience.
It should create an urge for a customer to take action by consuming the content. It is really important that you provide more personalized and value-added content keeping the customers as a priority.
It is important that you build a strong trust and relationship with your prospects. A more streamlined personalized and targeted content that gives the prospects the priority helps to build a serious relationship with buyers in mind.
3. Decision Stage
This is the next stage of the inbound marketing methodology. This is the stage of the marketing funnel where the prospect or customer makes a decision. At this stage, the prospect will be so close that they are more intended to make a decision. So the content should be more optimized and personalized especially in your business assets like the website and other platforms.
Your contents must persuade consumers, without a doubt, that your product or service is the best solution to meet their needs, desires or pains.
It could be your last opportunity to turn a potential customer into a buyer. Always focus on streamlining the content with the buyer’s journey, give ample importance on why your products or services should be chosen rather than your competitors. Types of content that can be delivered before the prospects at this stage of the journey are.
- In-Depth Case studies
- White Papers
- Customer Testimonials
- White papers
- Customer Testimonials
- Product Reviews
- Frequently Asked Questions
4. Delight Stage
This is the stage where most of the brands tend to take it easy but it shouldn’t be. This is the stage when you turns your happy customers to the brand advocates. It all depends on how you value them and provide them with all the necessary support once they have turned into your customers. Customer support, encouraging emails and social media can all be used to remind consumers of the value they have of their after-sales experience. For example, direct purchasers to social media channels for questions about customer service, or provide exclusive content that lets them take advantage of their purchases.
After the purchase has been made the content to be consumed should more be focussed on the brand reputation and referral. This is an important part of a content marketing strategy that defines success in the long term. A delightful customer is a brand advocate. They add value by bringing in more and more customers and also they themselves tend to stay in for the long term.
Contents that can be delivered at this stage to the customers should be more focussed on keeping themselves delightful like
- User Guides
- Video Tutorials
- Promotional and Reward Programs
- Exclusive Contents
- Contests
- Surveys
To Conclude
Content marketers should always focus on aligning their content throughout the buyer’s journey. It is always important to know the behaviour and interests of your potential prospects, to make sure they land themselves and consume very relevant and engaging content that urges them to take action.
A consistent marketing strategy was created by the most popular brands, which fits each type of content to a particular stage of sales. Each piece of content has a clear purpose and can also be measured in terms of its quality in content marketing.
Imagine yourself in a content marketing funnel to help generate content ideas. Ask yourself what type of content you need to find in every phase of your buyer journey.
Speak to real customers and leaders. What do your customers really want to hear? Right now, what are their problems? Your content will always struggle to make an impact if your services or brand can’t address their pain points.
Start Delivering Quality Content Constantly and nothing can replicate the success that this brings to your brand or services.
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