Ever wondered why your blog posts seemed to fall flat? Why didn’t they increase the number of customers even though so much hard work was put in?

You’ve done your keyword research, hitting all the right buzzwords and even have a snazzy headline—why isn’t this blog post converting?

The biggest reason why content fails to convert visitors into customers is lack of planning around where it connects with the customer along their path to make a purchase.

Buyer’s Path is much like a sales funnel and the terms are often used interchangeably. The primary difference is that it is considered entirely from the buyer’s perspective.

For the sake of this article, we will interpret a buyer’s path as defined by Hubspot in their concept of Buyer’s Journey. It is the process a customer goes through to ultimately decide to make a purchase. It begins with the customer having no prior knowledge of your company, just of a problem they want to solve or need that they want to fill.

It is broken down into three stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

If you’re considering doing content marketing for an ecommerce store, check out our post on how to use content marketing to get customers onto your ecommerce store.

Awareness Stage: Web Visitor Has Become Aware of a Problem

When the potential customer is identifying their problem, they are in what’s known as the Awareness Stage. At this stage, the user is trying to better understand their problem and potentially begin pursuing solutions.

The primary goal of your content in this phase is to get the visitor to decide to take action and resolve their problem. You want to take your web visitor from, “Man, I don’t know what to do with my hands at school or work” to “I should get a fidget spinner”.

Content in this step of the buyer’s journey should be what I call Problem Defining Content. Problem Defining Content touches on and accentuates how bad the problem is, speaking to the pressure points of the buyer.

This content describes how it would feel to have this problem resolved.

Your intent when you’re creating for this stage of the Buyer’s Journey should be to move viewers to act by deciding they need to solve this problem. You don’t want the buyer to decide that it is not worth the trouble to seek a solution and stop here in their purchasing process.

Often times it is here that you should begin to hint at or even describe potential solutions to the visitor’s problem. Of course, its essential to have a good foundation in content marketing before you begin.

If you’re looking for the basics of content marketing, see my recent post on how to get customers to your store with content marketing.

Consideration Stage: Web Visitor is Considering Different Solutions

In the Consideration Stage the web visitor is exploring the types of solutions available and discovering the companies that offer them. She may be the advantages of different product specifications and considering the relevant benefits regarding their cost.

Blog posts that include in-depth product reviews speak to web visitors in this stage of their buyer’s journey. Review videos, infographics, and testimonial blog posts all work well at this stage.

Content that you write at this stage of should be what’s called Solution Oriented Content. When you’re writing content at this stage you should speak to the advantages and disadvantages of different products, services, and companies.

For instance, if you’re a web development agency you might weigh the design and functionality of web sites at different price ranges.

The primary goal here is to leave your reader feeling informed enough that they feel ready enough to make a decision on how they’re going to solve their problem. Although you do not want overtly promotional, it is not a bad idea to leave internal links and clues towards your promotional content.

Decision Stage: a decision is being made on how this problem is going to be solved

At the bottom of your sales funnel is the Decision Stage. This is where purchases are made and you cash in. The web visitor only gets here after identifying the problem and selecting a solution.

The content you create here should be Promotional Content—directly positioning your brand as the solution that is right answer for you’re the web visitor. You want your copy to accentuate the unique value proposition that your brand is going to provide.

If you sell the highest quality custom stencils on the web, you should make it known. Say your content strategy is to make great blog posts, your posts here should speak to positioning your brand’s benefits to your buyer persona’s needs.

Your content goal at this stage should seek to convert the visitors. At this point your web visitors have moved from becoming aware of their problem and determined your brand to be their solution and moved to act by your promotional content.

If you successfully create content around these three stages you will be able to attract relevant traffic to your articles and move them through your sales funnel.

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