Sylvia Melena81% of consumers research online before purchasing online or in the store. – Paul Mallory 1
It’s true.
Most clients don’t instantly buy our products and services.
Before your potential clients or customers give you their money, they’ll do some vetting. That’s where the buyer’s journey comes in.
Understanding how your potential clients and customers move from one stage of the journey to another will help you shape your content marketing strategy, sell more books, and attract your ideal customers and clients.
The Buyer’s Journey
The buyer’s journey includes things your ideal customer or client is thinking and doing consciously and subconsciously before, during, and after their first purchase from your business. You can map the buyer’s journeys in many ways, and some are elaborate. I’ll give you a concise 10,000-foot view of what your buyers feel and do before they hit the buy button.
3 Basic Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
Your buyers go through three main stages to get to their first purchase from you: awareness, consideration, and decision. Understanding how your ideal customers and clients move from one stage to the next in the buyer’s journey is vital in the development of your marketing strategy.2
Stage 1 – Awareness
In the awareness stage, your potential book buyer experiences a pain point or need and the urge to resolve it. She searches Google for her symptoms to investigate the problem and the cause. She’s seeking basic information and is willing to explore solutions.
At the awareness stage, you can reach your ideal buyer by providing informative and educational content that addresses the symptoms and pain points because that’s what she’s searching for online. You can also provide helpful information about the solutions available and highlight yours.
Here are the types of questions your ideal client may be asking during the awareness stage:
- What problem is or may be causing the symptoms?
- What tools and resources can help her understand the problem?
- What are some solutions that can fix the problem?
- What are the pros and cons of each solution?
- What are the consequences of not addressing the problem?
- How have others successfully tackled the problem?
Pro Tip: The awareness stage is perfect for your lead magnet because it allows you to capture your ideal buyer at the beginning of the journey. You can answer awareness questions through your blogs, YouTube videos, social media, and other content and add a link to your lead magnet opt-in page. You can also answer these questions in your lead magnet.
By answering awareness-related questions with relevant and valuable content, you engage your potential buyer early, showcase your expertise, and position yourself as the supplier of choice throughout the rest of the buyer’s journey.
And guess what? Your book is just a starting point on this journey. If written well and strategically, your book will convert readers into clients. That’s another part of the buyer’s journey I’ll cover in another article.
Stage 2 – Consideration
In the consideration stage, your potential customer or client is problem aware. She knows what the problem is or thinks she knows.
She’s now searching for and evaluating optional solutions. She wants specific information about her options and how these options meet her individual needs, expectations, and preferences.
At this stage in the journey, you can provide her with informative and persuasive content that answers the following types of questions:
- What solutions are available to solve her problem or meet her needs? Are there books, online courses, coaching, consulting services, and training programs?
- How do the solutions work?
- How do the solutions solve her problem?
- What are the benefits and features of the solutions?
- What are the pros and cons of each solution?
At this stage, you can continue to answer questions through blogs, YouTube videos, social media, and other content types. If your ideal client isn’t yet on your e-mail list, here’s another opportunity to capture her.
If she’s already on your list, you can send her helpful e-mails with information, tools, and links to other content pieces that will answer these questions. Your e-mails will continue to guide her along her buyer’s journey and help her purchase the products and services that work best for her.
Providing content that answers these questions during the consideration stage helps potential buyers make well-informed decisions and move closer to purchasing their first or next product or service. And it won’t always be yours. But that’s okay because you want to be of service and attract the right customers and clients.
Stage 3 – Decision
During the decision stage, your potential buyer has already identified her preferred solution or method and narrowed her options. She’s now in buying mode, evaluating potential purchases.
It could be her first or next purchase. She could be evaluating an entry-level product or a high-value service. In any case, she’s looking for specific information to help her finalize her selection and eliminate her doubts and reservations. She wants to feel confident that her money will be well spent and avoid making a purchasing decision she’ll regret.
If you’re already on the journey with her because you captured her e-mail and provided lots of helpful information, she’s most likely considering your offers. She already knows, likes, and trusts you but has additional questions.
- Are there any case studies or success stories of other people like her who have successfully used your solution?
- How reliable or trustworthy is your brand or company?
- What level of support or assistance will you provide after the purchase?
- What pricing options or packages do you have available?
- Do you have any special offers, discounts, or promotions?
- What guarantees or assurances come with your solution?
You can answer these questions through your sales pages, testimonials, marketing e-mails, and other promotional content to influence the decision in your favor. If your potential buyers trust you, you increase the likelihood they’ll buy your offer.
You can create lead magnets for any stage of the buyer’s journey, and advanced marketers often do. They create several sales funnels and segment subscribers with remarkable precision.
Pro Tip: You’re going to keep things simple and create a freebie (or lead magnet) that captures people at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. You’ll help them get started, build relationships with them, and become the “go-to” person when they’re ready to buy.
Unexpected Twists & Turns
In real life, these three broad phases of the buyer’s journey are not always linear. Your buyers can take unexpected twists and turns. The road is often marked by nuances, overlap, or backtracking.
Also, the buyer’s journey is not just one finite cycle. It can involve multiple simultaneous cycles at various stages and for different products and services. The buyer can also start and stop a journey at unexpected junctures.
Likewise, many factors impact how long your potential client or customer takes to go from awareness to purchase. For instance, the more significant or expensive your offer, the more contacts and time your ideal buyer needs to make the purchase.
Additionally, the complete buyer’s journey is complex and involves additional stages before, after, and between the three I shared. I provided the simple version because it paints the big picture of content marketing and how your lead magnet fits in and helps you grow your e-mail list.
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The article above is also an excerpt from Lead Magnet Formula: How to Plan, Create, and Design a Free E-Book in Just 6 Days that Attracts More Clients, © 2024 Sylvia Melena. Reprinted with permission.
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About the Author
SYLVIA MELENA is the Founder and CEO of Melena Consulting Group, a leadership and management consulting, training, and nonfiction book coaching company. She is also the two-time international award-winning author and #1 best-selling author of Supportive Accountability: How to Inspire People and Improve Performance and its Spanish translation, Responsabilidad solidaria. She’s also the former Vice President of the San Diego Book Awards Association.
References 1 Mallory, P. (2023, October 16). How many consumers research online before buying? ConsumerGravity. https://consumegravity.com/online-shopping-statistics. Accessed November 2, 2024. 2 Gajanova, Lubica, “The Agile Content Marketing Roadmap Based on the B2B Buyer’s Journey – The Case Study of the Slovak Republic,” SHS Web of Conferences 91 (January 2021): 1–9, accessed July 15, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20219101025, Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International Deed: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
