Research by SEMrush shows that about 87% of marketers create content for customers at different stages of the buying journey. Many do so as part of a well-defined sales funnel, which gradually moves leads from becoming aware of a product to purchasing it.
The question for business owners today, then, is how to move potential buyers from one stage of your sales funnel to the next. The answer could lie in your blog.
Blog posts help potential customers:
- Get comfortable with your brand
- Understand the usefulness of your product category
- Learn the unique benefits your products offer within that category
This versatility makes blogging a powerful tool for moving leads through your sales funnel. In this article, we’ll examine how you can use it at each stage of your buyer’s journey.
1. The Awareness Stage: Attracting Readers
The first stage of most sales funnels is awareness. As the name implies, the goal here is getting potential customers familiar with your brand. Blogging is really effective at this.
Blogs at the awareness stage should focus on general topics relevant to the buyer personas you’re trying to attract. For example, a tire company might write a blog post explaining how to know when it’s time to buy new tires.
If done well, the blog would attract people who are searching for terms related to the purchase of new tires. For example, someone who Googled “When should I replace my tires?” might find the blog in their search results. This is what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about.
Great awareness-stage blogs may also be shared on social media, further expanding the company’s reach. But remember: At this point, you’re not trying to sell anything to the customer. You’re just introducing them to your brand by creating content that’s genuinely useful to your target audience.
2. Consideration: Engaging and Educating
The next phase of most sales funnels is consideration. At this point, your buyer is starting to consider actual solutions to the problem they’ve been researching. If we continue our previous example, the customer who searched for help in figuring out when it’s time to replace their tires would now be considering which tires they want to buy.
Blogs at this phase of the sales funnel are more sales-oriented. They may explain the different types of tires the customer can choose from and highlight the pros and cons of each option.
What’s key here is creating honest, educational content that doesn’t hard-sell the customer on your specific solution. Your goal should be getting readers to use the content as an informative guide while they shop.
Doing this increases brand awareness and helps you establish a reputable image in the customer’s mind. You can also subtly position your product as the best solution to the lead’s problems as long as you don’t get too sales-focused.
3. Decision: Converting Readers Into Customers
We’ve done a lot of lead nurturing up to this point, but we’re finally ready to talk about customer conversions. At the decision stage of your digital marketing strategy, you’re targeting readers who have considered their options and are now ready to make a purchasing decision.
This is when it’s time to really focus on what sets your product apart from the competition. You can do that with:
- Customer testimonials
- Case studies
- Success stories
- Blog posts that explain what sets your product apart from others
- Posts that build trust in your brand
Your goal here is to craft compelling calls to action (CTAs) that convince readers to make a purchase or contact your sales team. These usually go at the end of a blog article, but you can also include short ones (one or two sentences) once or twice throughout your content.
The best CTAs are clear and specific and create a sense of urgency for the reader. For example, highlighting a limited-time promotion can be a smart way to convince a lead that now is the right time to buy.
4. Retention: Keeping Customers Coming Back
Data shows that acquiring a new customer typically costs between five and seven times more than retaining an existing one. That makes the retention stage another critical step in the sales funnel.
Blogs at this stage should support existing customers and encourage repeat business. It may also make sense to upsell and cross-sell current customers on new subscriptions, higher tiers, or additional products.
For example, our tire company might post blog articles about the benefits of winter tires. Or it might write about the importance of regularly rotating your tires. This connects a loyal customer to the entire product list.
Measuring Success: Blog Analytics and Conversion Tracking
As you start writing more blog posts, it will be important to see what’s working and what isn’t. The best way to do this is by looking at the data. Some of the most common metrics for tracking the success of a blog include:
- Conversion rates: the percentage of blog readers who go on to buy the product highlighted in your CTA
- Bounce rates: the percentage of readers who leave your website without looking at any other pages
- Keyword rankings: where your blog ranks in the Google search results for key terms that potential buyers research
You can usually monitor these and other metrics on the platform you use to host your website. Be sure to watch how your metrics change over time and compare the results of articles on different topics to refine your digital marketing strategy.
Let Our Experts Take Blogging off Your To-Do List
Understanding the role of blogging in the decision-making process could be the first step toward generating more business. But every company seems to have a blog nowadays, which can make it difficult to stand out and attract new readers.
That’s where Pyromaniac Digital comes in. We’re digital marketing experts who offer transparent growth and marketing packages with personalized strategy meetings.
Whether you’re launching your business or have been at it for years but are too busy to add blogging to your to-do list, we can help with everything from SEO to copywriting and content marketing.
So why wait? Take a look at our packages today to learn more about how we can help your business grow.
