Guiding Your Customer’s Journey: How To Create Content For Awareness, Consideration, Conversion and Delight Stages

Your customers don’t just buy from you.

You have to earn that sale. Dah, right? Of course!

But what does “earning” the sale actually involve? Well, people progress through a customer journey, where they go from a stranger of your brand to (hopefully) an advocate.

In today’s digital age, both B2B clients and B2C customers are actively hunting for content to research solutions to their needs at every stage of their buying journey. That’s where you can create “content checkpoints” that fulfil their information needs at each to get them to the next stage.

Here’s a breakdown of this journey and what you need to do at each point to finally earn the sale.

Prefer to listen, rather than read? Here's the Podcast summary!

4 Customer Content Checkpoints

While there are so many different iterations and models, funnels and flywheels depicting the customer journey from start to end and repeat, the stages are similar – or at least are a rehash of the same idea.

Here’s my quick summary.

All customers start with a need but don’t simply come to you, as they are strangers to your brand. To make the sale, you need to progress them from:

complete strangers to intrigued about the idea of your offering
explain the benefits to shift them into genuinely interested leads
reinforce the message to get them to convert into a paying customer
offer excellent value and ongoing support to earn their loyalty.

For more, read what are the 8 stages of the customer content journey?

How do you get them across these stages?

It all comes down to your content.

Through the content checkpoints of “awareness”, “consideration”, “conversion” and “delight”, you can provide people with exactly what they need to guide them forward along their journey.

Your customers are hunting for
these content checkpoints.

They don’t think of them as that black and white, but they are proactively searching. For instance, when they are looking for a new car, they start as strangers and do research into vehicle options and model types, “swinging” from content piece to content piece to make their final choice.

They look at a car website, review websites, video comparisons, car reports and more. This guides them from start to eventual purchase. The car brand without content is the one that allows its customers to stray away from the path towards earning the sale.

The brand without these content checkpoints is the one that allows its customers to stray away from the path towards earning the sale.

So, what do you have to do?

If you aren’t creating and offering content checkpoints throughout their journeys, then your potential customers are looking at others, like your competitors! Don’t risk it – lead this process so that people are following your journey and not your competitor’s one.

Every organisation and industry has a different journey length, but they all basically follow the same path. Your business must make your own content available, targeted directly at your ideal audience and ready for them to consume.

So, let’s break down these stages and the types of content at each checkpoint.

(1) AWARENESS PHASE

For the awareness checkpoint, you want to keep things light as this is your introduction. You want to make a good impression. So, don’t go for the sale too fast as you can lose them.

A better approach at the awareness phase is to talk about their problem to create relatability, and then introduce them to the idea of your solution (not your product itself). For example, if you’re selling a particular dishwasher product range, the awareness content will be discussing how manually washing dishes doesn’t clean as thoroughly as a machine and that it can take a lot of extra time after cooking.

See how it’s opening up the IDEA of your product? Slow and gentle wins the race!

A quick snapshot of the awareness content phase.

Goal: Turn your target audience from strangers into being curious about the idea.

Strategy: Educate them that there are potential ways to solve their problems.

Tactic: Link your solution as a possible answer to the target client’s problem.

Call To Action: Send them to the consideration phase content or perhaps a downloadable asset that provides more information, like “an ultimate guide”.

(2) CONSIDERATION PHASE

If the awareness content was successful, then you’ll have a group of your audience who have had their interests piqued. You’re now on their radar.

This means they’re curious and want to know more about how it works and what’s in it for them.

So now, create content that will draw them in to explain why they should consider you and your brand as an option. This is where you can start to present your product or service as a response to the ideas from the awareness checkpoint.

A quick snapshot of the consideration content phase.

Goal: Turn an informed audience into wanting to know who actually offers the solution.

Strategy: Now, educate them about your product or brand.

Tactic: Link your product/brand to their awareness stage curiosity.

Call To Action: send them to the conversion content and give them an opportunity to see the product or service in action, such as a free demonstration or something initial as a trial.

(3) CONVERSION PHASE

Right! Now that you’ve got people who are interested, they’re teetering on the edge of making a purchase, and are doing their final checks.

This can be quite the barrier as the true test of your marketing is getting them to put their money down. Here, they’re looking for emotional and rational satisfaction to justify the purchase.

So, you need content that’s going to reassure them. At the conversion phase, it’s more about: “Why choose this brand?” and “here are case studies of others who have seen the benefits after purchasing.” It’s like social proof and reinforcement to give them the final push.

A quick snapshot of the conversion content phase.

Goal: Turn interested prospects into paying customers.

Strategy: Reinforce the message, remove barriers and convince them to buy.

Tactic: Break down any resistance by showing them the positive outcome is in reach.

Call To Action: The purchase, of course! Buy now.

(4) DELIGHT PHASE

They’ve paid – what’s left to do?

Lots!

The delight checkpoint is the stage that so many businesses forget as part of their marketing process. New customers are more expensive than current customers, and so, delighting them after the purchase reduces buyer’s remorse while also providing further value and “stickiness”.

By delighting your current customers, you will turn them into loyal advocates of your brand to the point where they may even start doing your marketing for you! If you delight people enough, they will spread positive word of mouth to others, which is ideal.

A quick snapshot of the delight content phase.

Goal: Transform average paying customers into loyal advocates.

Strategy: Counter buyer’s remorse and emphasise the benefits they’ve received.

Tactic: Provide further value, ongoing support and contact.

Call To Action: Aim for additional purchases, repeat purchases and to share their experience with others.

Don’t forget!

It’s not just about creating content for content’s sake.

Taking this content marketing strategy approach will ensure that your potential customers have a clear path from start to finish, where you’re guiding them with carefully curated content in a strategic direction.

Also, once your content is created, it should be posted on your website, amplified across your social media platforms, sent out in newsletters and databases, used by the sales and customer service teams, and more.

Don’t get your content just sit there – put it to work.

How do you create all of this content?

Putting your strategy together and then working out what and how to write it all can seem like a daunting process. But a critical one nonetheless.

So, let us at Melotti Media help. We love this stuff!

How Can Melotti Media Help You?

To engage your customer and achieve ongoing business success today, you need a powerful message, quality copywriting and consistent content. However, this is easier said than done.

Perhaps you’re time poor and spread thin, or writing may not be your expertise.

So, let us take care of your message marketing, copywriting and content marketing needs!

For more information or to speak to a quality marketing copywriter to get the results your business deserves, contact me now at chris@melottimedia.com.au.

Our Message Marketing services can sharpen your words to achieve your goals, today.

Christopher Melotti
Melotti Media | Copywriting & Message Marketing Bureau
www.melottimedia.com.au

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Frequently asked questions

Guiding Your Customer’s Journey: How To Create Content For Awareness, Consideration, Conversion and Delight Stages

Prefer to listen, rather than read? Here's the Podcast summary!

How do you get them across these stages?

So, what do you have to do?

Don’t forget!

How do you create all of this content?

How Can Melotti Media Help You?

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