The number 1 thing that most online entrepreneurs want to know how to do is make more sales. More sales come through learning about and implementing what is known as the buyer journey into your content and marketing. When we learn to infuse this buyer journey into our strategy then we hit gold!

So what is the buyer journey, what do you need to be aware of when it comes to it and how can you start to bring it into your content? We’re going to break down all of these questions in this blog!

What is the buyer journey?

The buyer/ customer journey is the process that your audience will go through from the moment that they find you, all the way to making a decision to buy from you.  This is typically done through your marketing and content.

To get people where they are in a place to buy from us they must have high levels of trust in you and your brand and have good buyer awareness. 

In the online space I’m sure that you’ve heard the phrase, ‘Know, Like and Trust’ and this simply means that people have to have a positive experience of you in order to want to buy from you.

A few years ago the number of touchpoints that someone needed to have before buying were typically around 7-8 but these days it’s more like 30-40 so it’s extremely important that we understand what stages we need to move people through in order to take them from ‘No Idea You Exist’ to ‘Where Do I Sign up?’

In order to build a super-hot audience that has high levels of trust in you we need to move them through the following stages:

Awareness > Interest > Desire > Action

How do we build trust through these stages?

The first stage of the trust journey is awareness and making sure that people know you exist and that you’re someone who is going to support them with their desires/ problems. 

This is done through brand awareness content (such as sharing your personal story) and being visible on the right platforms to your ideal audience. This is all about getting in front of the right people and getting them to hit that follow button.

Once we’ve got in front of the right people we then need to get their interest! This is where we need to be speaking in our content to them about their problems, showing them that we understand what they’re struggling with, what they want to achieve and also why we’re the right person to guide them along the way. 

We’ve piqued their interest now we need to get them to desire to work with us. This is where we need to continue building trust and showing them that we have the solution to their problems and activating them to take the next step to working with us. 

This is when we ignite with them taking action, and this is done simply by making sure that we are including CTA’s and urgency for them to take that step right now. 

As well as taking our audience through the trust journey with our marketing we also need to make sure that we are aware of the different awareness levels our audience are at.

So is our audience aware of their problem and the different solutions out there? This is really important to know because if you’re directing your marketing at people in the wrong awareness phase then potentially it can be very difficult to sell to them. Let’s break it down. 

The different awareness stages of the buyer journey

Unaware: A person who doesn’t know that they have a problem, is not looking for a solution and so therefore it’s usually not worth marketing to them.

Problem aware: This is when our audience knows that they have a problem but they don’t understand why they’re having those experiences and issues and what the solution is to fix it. 

E.g. They are experiencing low views on their social media and they don’t know why their content isn’t being pushed out and so they blame it on the algorithm but actually it’s down to them having a weak content strategy or being consistent enough with their content.

So we need to educate them on what the REAL problem is so they can start looking for a solution. 

For this level of customer we need to get super clear on what language are they using? What do they think their pain points are? What symptoms or experiences are they having and how are they expressing them? A great pro-tip for this is to look at the questions your ideal customer is asking and use this as the language/ lens to talk to them through.

Solution Aware (Agitation/authority): For those who know what the problem is and have tried to find solutions but it hasn’t worked for them so far. Our job here is to highlight why it might not have worked for them before and why your product/ offer/ service is better. Why your way works and will help them. You can highlight practices within your industry that you don’t like or don’t help people. 

For this level of customer it’s all about explaining why your solution is the best out there. 

Offer Aware (Solution/social proof): They know what the solutions are out there and about your solution but they need more proof of this and information on how it’s going to help them solve their issue.  This is all about showing client results/ social proof/ testimonials and showing people that you are the answer to their problems and going to help them get to their desires. 

Most Aware: This person is very aware of you and what you do, they are on the cusp of buying but they need either one more touch-point with you, or some objection-handling to help them overcome any questions that they have. 

When we are thinking about our offers and funnels/ marketing content we have to keep a few things at the top of mind:

• How are our ideal clients talking about their problems - what language are they using? What do they think their pain points are?

• What level are they at in their awareness of the problems that they have?

• How can our offers help our clients at each stage of their journey and do we have offers for clients at each stage of their journey? If we do have offers then is there a natural progression from one offer to the next? Do our offers make sense together or are they all random and helping with too many different things?

When we fully understand these buyer journeys and can apply them to our marketing then we will make it easier for people to understand what we are about, and how we help and build trust that our solution is the right one for them. And we can do all this without having to cold DM or jump on calls to convince people to work with us!

Need help mapping out your buyer journey against your offers? Click here to book a call with us and see how we can help you!