The ultimate goal of Lead Nurturing is to match your content to the needs of your prospective buyers. That partly depends on the personas of the buyers, so you can match the content to the buyer’s role and their interests. In addition to persona-based content, you also want to match content with the phase in the buying process to ensure that buyers receive the right content at the right time.
For more details on content mapping, see chapter 2 of the Essential Marketing Automation Handbook or this content series, and for an introduction to lead nurturing, see my earlier post Getting Going with Lead Nurturing.
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The 5 Stages of the Buying Process
There are many different ways to define the buying stages, many of them rooted in consumer behavior research. We want to find a model that is simple, but detailed enough to provide insight into the decision making process. The image to the right shows one example, but I personally like the buying decision process as described by Kotler and Armstrong in their textbook Principles of Marketing:
- need recognition
- information search
- evaluation of alternatives
- purchase decision
- post purchase behavior
It all starts with being aware of a problem that needs to be solved, which pushes a buyer to collect information on possible solutions. These solutions are then evaluated, until a purchase decision is made. After the purchase, the buyer can be satisfied or not, which is all about expectations management. Let’s take a look at these phases in more detail.
Need recognition
In this early phase of the buying process, it’s best to focus on fairly high-level content. Content in this phase does not describe how the problem is solved, but outlines why there is a problem. Good types of content are thought leadership whitepapers and webinars that address industry issues. Most buyers want to stay on top of the latests trends, and this is your opportunity to plant some seeds.
Information Search
Once buyers recognize a need, they will start to learn more about possible solutions. They are looking to be educated on your type of solution and possible alternatives. This is not about product features yet, but about typical challenges and various ways to address those, each with their own pros and cons. So this is where educational content is of key importance, like best practices whitepapers, case studies and how-to blog posts.
Evaluation of Alternatives
At this stage buyers are looking for product specific information, because they need to compare different products with each other. An evaluator’s guide helps buyers choose the right criteria. This should not only focus on product features, but also on benefits that are unique to your solution.
Purchase Decision
When a purchase decision is near, objections will typically come up, like: is this a vendor we can trust? Will the vendor still be around five year from now? Will the vendor’s solution really deliver? There may also be some politics involved, where some people in the decision making team have a bias towards a particular vendor. The best content for this phase takes away perceived risk: analyst reports that speak highly of your solution, customer success stories and testimonials, your CEO’s vision on the future of the industry, and so on.
Post Purchase Behavior
Lead nurturing doesn’t end when the deal is closed. Repeat customers have much lower acquisition costs than new customers, so this is not an area to forget about. It actually starts in the earlier nurturing phases where it’s important to set expectations correctly, because the biggest source of customer dissatisfaction are unmet expectations. A second reason for dissatisfaction is the lack of training, so educational content is essential in the post purchase phase.
Conclusion
With appropriate content for each phase your prospects will move through the funnel more quickly, and are more likely to buy from your organization rather than a competitor. It may seem like a lot of work, but if you’re smart about reusing existing content, you’ll be surprised how quickly your lead nurturing results will improve.
Image source: datadial
