What is the difference between a blog that succeeds at its goals and one that fails? The difference is that great blogs consider not only the customer right now, but their entire journey. If you take time to consider where the reader is coming from and where they're going next, you can create the right content design to make your blog successful.
What is the Customer Journey?
The customer journey is the entire lifecycle of the customer in relation to your business. It starts with awareness and ends with loyalty.
At each stage, the customer has different needs and expectations. Content design involves making sure that you meet the customer's needs and expectations at the moment they come across that content.
Mapping the Customer Journey
Content design starts with mapping the customer journey and identifying touchpoints. These touchpoints, where you have contact with your audience, are milestones along the way. These are the steps the person takes to go from being a total stranger with basic initial awareness to becoming a buyer and a fan.
It's not enough to simply put content on your website. You need to plan your content strategy so that it takes people along your customer journey and keeps them engaged throughout the process. By identifying and designing each of your touchpoints, you're able to craft a journey that gets people to your business.
Whether you're trying to gain new customers or retaining existing ones, you have to know how to move your prospects through the various stages of the customer journey.
Examples of touchpoints:
- hearing about your business from a friend
- checking your blog to look for specific information on your topic
- seeing your post on a social media platform
- hearing you on a podcast
- seeing a testimonial / review
- seeing an advertisement
- booking an appointment
- downloading your lead magnet
- commenting on your social media updates
- asking you a question
- purchasing a product or service
- contacting customer support
The Stages of the Customer Journey
While the customer journey may be different for each individual business, typically it includes these stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Awareness
In the awareness stage, your potential customer is confronted by some problem. They're aware of their frustration but don't yet know precisely what's causing it. They are searching for information that addresses their problem. At this stage people are unlikely to have heard of you or your products and services. Therefore it's important that content should not be sales-focused. Instead, it should be educational and informative in nature. Types of content that work well for this stage are:
- blog posts
- social media posts
- images
- videos
- tip sheets
- checklists
- infographics
Consideration
In the consideration stage, your potential customer has a better understanding of their problem. They will start researching in more detail the various products and services they feel have a potential to help them.
Content that works well in this stage are:
- free ebooks / guides / tutorials
- quizzes
- webinars
- live events
- testimonials / reviews
- free samples
Blog posts and social media updates are still relevant in this stage, but the tone and topic will need to be different. For example,
- a case study of how your product has helped people solve their problems
- a comparison of two solutions
Decision
The decision stage is where your potential customers take action, whether it's signing up for your email list, buying a product or joining your Facebook group. Customers may have some final questions or concerns in this stage before they take action, so your content needs to address those questions and concerns. Content for this stage include:
- landing pages
- FAQs
- consulation offer
- sales conversation
- assessment
- quotes / proposals
- free trial
- live demo
- coupons
Length of Journey
It's worth mentioning that the length of the customer journey differs from one customer base to another. Members of one market might hear about a business, check out its blog, and then they're ready to buy and become a loyal customer. It's possible for a complete stranger to become a customer in as short as a few minutes! In some niches, people might spend a great deal of time before they take action. For most audiences, it takes several touchpoints with a business before they buy.
Create the Right Content for Your Audience
To map your content to the customer journey, you need to understand not just who your audience members are but also how they go about finding information and buying products / services.
The best way to get started is to map your current customer journey. Take a look at your existing customers and their behavior and identify the beginning, end, and all the touchpoints along the way. Compare this with your current content strategy, and you'll see areas where you need to make changes.
If you're a new business owner and don't have existing data to work with, you can start with an educated guess and tweak along the way.
Whilst your full customer journey may be much more complex than the simplified version outlined above, hopefully this post has given you some tips and ideas on how to get started.
