Understanding the Phases of the Buyer’s Journey

 

In today’s modern and competitive market, anticipating – and addressing – the needs of your target audience is crucial to your brand’s long-term success. Though it sounds like quite a feat, successfully delivering quality, anticipatory content to your prospective customers isn’t difficult if you understand the phases of the buyer’s journey. These phases, broken down into anticipation, consideration, decision, and delight, describe every prospective customer’s psychological journey as they consider your brand. By understanding the phases of the buyer’s journey, you’ll be able to deliver content that meets your audience where they are, ultimately building a deep level of trust that incentivizes them to invest in your brand. To gain a better understanding of the four phases of the buyer’s journey, keep reading. 

 

1. The Awareness Phase

Customers who are not familiar with your industry or services will always go through the awareness phase. During this stage of the buyer’s journey, the members of your audience need general information about your industry or services. They’re not looking for offers or incentives to buy; in fact, they may not be looking for anything in particular. 

It’s your brand’s job to capture your audience’s attention at this stage, providing visually appealing content that entertains or informs them about some facet of your industry. In this way, the awareness stage builds a foundation of trust between the prospective customer and your brand: if you provide them with relatively no-strings information or entertainment, they’re less likely to be suspicious of your intentions when they come across your content gain. 

 

2. The Consideration Phase

Not all prospective customers will enter the buyer’s journey at the awareness stage. In fact, customers who have acknowledged their need for a specific service or product will usually enter at the consideration stage. At this point, your audience members are weighing the pros and cons of different service providers to determine which works best for them. At this phase, your brand should try to establish itself as a go-to resource for audience members, capturing contact information that allows you to stay in contact with them. 

 

3. The Decision Phase

At this stage, your content and messaging will be aiming to convert prospective customers into actual ones. This is where it is useful to demonstrate the value of your brand through things like testimonials and customer reviews, all the while driving exclusive offers that drive them to invest in your brand. At this point, the foundation of trust you’ve established throughout the previous phases will serve as an additional incentive. 

 

4. The Delight Phase

Your efforts don’t stop once you gain a customer. After an audience member converts to a paying customer, you must maintain a positive relationship with them. This means driving continued value that makes your customers excited to continue engaging with your brand. This not only makes them happy, but it allows you to reap the benefits of things like referrals and reviews, which will in turn attract more customers. 

The phases of the buyer’s journey are intended to meet your prospective customers where they are psychologically, incentivizing them to trust your brand until it’s time to make an investment – and then to remain satisfied after they do. To learn more about how to craft the phases of a buyer’s journey to appeal to your ideal customer, contact us! 

 

Read Kelly’s full article, Build Customer Trust and Better Sales with 4 Buyer Touch Points, on LivePlan.com