2 minute readPublished 3 December
At Tiga Creative Marketing in Kent, we've found a way to super charge our client campaigns. The secret, although it’s no biggie, is to think like a customer.
We ask 3 simple questions:
- Where are they looking?
- What are they looking for?
- And what do they want to see?
Then we build a ‘super highway’ of online content, ensuring it can be easily found, and giving prospects precisely what they are looking for at each stage of the buying process, signposting along the client highway – right through to conversion.
The ‘Find it’ stage
At this stage the prospect is lost but looking. Create optimised content which engages and interests your audience leaving them yearning to find out more.
Examples of ‘lost’ stage content:
- Engaging blog posts
- Top 10 tips / advice guides
- Infographics / video
- Issues-based editorial
The ‘Want it’ stage
At this stage the prospect has consumed several pieces of ‘engagement’ content. They like your style, they have a feel for your company and they are beginning to develop an interest and trust in your opinions. They want to gain a deeper understanding of what it is you’re all about.
You should embedded signposts via links from all ‘engagement’ content to deeper level material, designed to put more meat on the bones and generate greater buy-in. At this point the prospect will be sufficiently engaged to provide you with an email address and name in order to receive your content. Build content data capture landing pages to simplify this process, leading to the development of an ‘opted-in’ lead nurture database.
Typical ‘want it’ stage content:
- Research reports
- Whitepapers
- In-depth interviews
Did you know that 80% of purchases start with an online search? If your potential clients can't find you at this point, they'll find your competitors instead
The ‘Evidence it’ stage
This is the moment your prospect turns into a lead – they are asking for evidence to support what you are saying. They are brought in to your company, they believe you are an expert in your field, they want to take it to the next stage - but before they do they want more details about your product or service. They want evidence that you are what you say and they want to find out what your customers are saying about you.
Anticipate these requests by embedding links to content offering proof-points and success stories. At this stage you can begin your email lead nurture and conversion programmes using the data captured from the ‘want it’ stage.
Typical ‘evidence it’ stage content:
- Product guides
- Case studies / client videos
- 3rd Party Product Reviews
- Industry standards
- Industry awards
- Positive editorial
The ‘Buy-it’ stage
Now your prospects have received everything they need to make a decision and make the purchase – all it takes is a little encouragement in the form of a telemarketing call to prompt an action or answer any last minute questions. By now you have tracked online engagement and content downloads for each lead which enters the ‘buy-it’ stage and can provide contact details along with engagement history to a telemarketing agency or in-house sales team in order to convert the lead.
The ‘I want more’ stage
Hoorah – your lead is now a happy customer. I’m sure everyone has heard the old adage ‘it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one’ so it’s vitally important to keep communicating and exciting existing clients with content and offers relevant to them.
Think about your retention and loyalty programmes – make sure they’re designed to continue engaging and interesting existing clients, thereby securing their long-term customer loyalty.
And saving your business money by reducing the amount you need to spend on costly acquisition activity. Read more about our B2B content marketing services here.
