Shaping the journey
How to shape your customer’s journey
Significant changes to the buying journey recently means it's hard for marketers and content creators to keep up. With less than 30 seconds to capture and hold your customer’s attention, here seven key principles to remember:
Capture their interest
Be provocative from the outset
Share insight on key issues
Answer your customer’s burning questions
Provide expert guidance
Become the brand your customer turns to for expert advice
Create messaging for key buyers
Surface the right information for the right customers
Showcase quality of your team
Customers will buy your people, not your products
Reassure on ESG credentials
Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk
Create a winning partnership
Open a dialogue for a long-standing partnership
Map your content to your customer's journey
Thought leadership typically occupies the top layer of the funnel. The goal is to build awareness, demonstrate expertise and tee up a commercial conversation through establishing an unmet need.
Increasingly, brands and marketers are looking for ways to go beyond those first two stages of awareness and interest. Start using content and thought leadership to nurture your customer’s through the whole end-to-end journey, from awareness through to deal consideration, purchase and beyond.
Create content for every stage of the funnel, from eye-catching data hooks and headlines at the top, to case studies and ROI proof points at the bottom. But remember, be consistent: this content must all be part of a seamless integrated campaign and customer experience, or your effort will be wasted.