How to Use the Buyer’s Journey to Create Targeted Content That Converts

Creating content that resonates with your audience and converts them into buyers is vital for any business But with buyers today self-educating at every stage of their journey, just pushing out content isn’t enough You need to map your content strategy to their path so you can attract, nurture and delight them at each stage.

Understanding the buyer’s journey and aligning your content accordingly is crucial to maximizing conversions. In this post, I’ll walk you through how to use the buyer’s journey to create targeted content that converts.

What is the Buyer’s Journey?

The buyer’s journey refers to the process buyers go through when researching evaluating and deciding to purchase a product or service. It consists of 5 main stages

Awareness – The buyer realizes they have a problem to be solved but doesn’t know how yet. They start researching to learn more.

Consideration – The buyer defines their problem and looks at options to solve it. They consume content about different solutions.

Decision – The buyer decides on the best solution for their needs They evaluate providers that offer it.

Purchase – The buyer chooses a provider, makes the purchase and becomes a customer.

Post-Purchase – The buyer uses the purchased solution. Their experience shapes how they feel about their purchase.

The buyer’s journey isn’t linear. Buyers may move back and forth between stages as they weigh information and make decisions.

Understanding this journey helps you map your content strategy to provide value to buyers at each stage. Aligned content helps convert cold audiences into warm leads, and warm leads into customers.

Why Map Content to the Buyer’s Journey?

There are 3 key reasons to align your content with the buyer’s journey:

1. Meet Buyers Where They Are

Buyers at different stages have different mindsets, questions and needs. Providing stage-specific content helps you meet buyers where they are in their journey.

For example, buyers in the awareness stage need educational content to learn about the problem they face. In the decision stage, they need content that compares options and helps finalize their choice.

Content tailored to their mindset and needs at each stage builds trust and positions you as an authority. This makes them more likely to convert.

2. Nurture Buyers Along Their Path

The buyer’s journey often takes time. According to HubSpot, it can take up to 6 months for complex B2B purchases.

Stage-specific content helps you nurture buyers along each step of their path. Educational content attracts them early on. Comparison content helps them evaluate options. Promotional content provides the final incentive to convert.

Nurturing buyers with helpful content tailored to each stage earns their trust and keeps you top of mind. This increases conversions over the long haul.

3. Reduce Churn Post-Purchase

The buyer’s journey doesn’t end after a purchase is made. You need to continue delighting new customers to prevent churn.

Post-purchase content like onboarding checklists, how-to’s and troubleshooting guides helps customers implement their purchase successfully. This improves their experience and reduces churn.

In sum, aligning content to each stage of the buyer’s journey allows you to attract, nurture, convert and retain more customers over time.

How to Map Content to the Buyer’s Journey

Here are 5 steps to align your content strategy with the buyer’s journey:

Step 1. Define Your Buyer Personas

Your content should be tailored to your target audience. So the first step is understanding who your key buyer personas are.

Research your existing customer base to identify:

• Demographic details like job title, industry, location

• Goals and challenges they face

• Questions they ask

• Content format and channel preferences

This helps you create personas that reflect your best customer profiles. You can then craft targeted content that resonates with each persona.

Step 2. Analyze Their Journey

Next, analyze how your personas move through the buyer’s journey to purchase. Look at:

• How they become aware of their problem

• Information sought at the consideration stage

• Key factors influencing their final decision

• Who else is involved in purchase decisions

• How long the process takes

This analysis will reveal the milestones and mindsets your personas have at each stage. You can then map content to guide them through their unique journey.

Step 3. Create Content for Each Stage

Now develop content tailored to your personas’ needs at each stage:

Awareness Stage

• Blog posts and social media updates explaining common problems and symptoms

• Educational videos and ebooks overviewing the issues

• Quizzes to help match problems to solutions

Consideration Stage

• Product comparison charts weighing different options

• Case studies demonstrating solutions in action

• Free trials allowing first-hand evaluation

Decision Stage

• Pros/cons lists of top providers

• Pricing/feature matrices for side-by-side comparisons

• ROI calculators quantifying the business value of solutions

Post-Purchase Stage

• Onboarding email sequences introducing key features

• Video tutorials for self-guided learning

• FAQs and how-to guides for troubleshooting

Step 4. Promote Content Across Channels

Now distribute your stage-specific content across channels where your personas are most active, such as:

• Blog and website
• Email nurturing campaigns
• Social media
• Paid ads
• Sales interactions

Leveraging multiple channels exposes your personas to the right content at the right time during their journey.

Step 5. Measure and Refine

Finally, track content performance across each stage:

• Awareness – social shares, inbound links, organic traffic

• Consideration – downloads, email open/click rates

• Decision – form fills, requests for demos/trials

• Post-Purchase – engagement, customer satisfaction, retention

Use these metrics to refine your persona and journey mapping. Double down on content resonating strongly at each stage and improve weakly performing content.

Key Content Types for Each Buyer’s Journey Stage

Here are some of the most effective content types to map to each stage of the buyer’s journey:

Awareness Stage

• Blog articles

• Social media updates

• Videos

• Quizzes

• Infographics

• Ebooks

Consideration Stage

• Product comparison articles/charts

• Case studies

• Free trials

• Product demos

• Peer reviews

Decision Stage

• ROI calculators

• RFP/requirements templates

• Pricing/feature matrices

• Pros/cons lists

• Analyst reports

Post-Purchase Stage

• Onboarding emails

• Video tutorials

• How-to articles

• Quickstart guides

• FAQs

Examples of Buyer Journey Content Done Right

Here are some examples of brands using stage-specific content to convert buyers:

Awareness – Software Advice blog educates readers on evaluating HR software with posts like “5 Must-Have Features in Your Employee Scheduling Software”.

Consideration – Unbounce’s free conversion course helps users weigh landing page builders with product demos and side-by-side comparisons.

Decision – Drift provides an ROI calculator quantifying the value of their chatbot technology to assist final provider evaluations.

Post-Purchase – Headspace’s welcome emails and onboarding sequence help subscribers implement their new meditation program.

These examples demonstrate how targeted content matched to the buyer’s mindset and needs at each stage can attract, guide and convert buyers.

Summing Up

Aligning your content to your target buyer personas’ journeys is critical for conversion. Stage-specific content helps attract cold audiences, nurture leads and satisfy new customers.

Dedicate time upfront to research your personas and analyze their journeys. Then map targeted content to guide them through each stage. Finally, promote this content across channels through a mix of organic content, email nurturing, social media, and ads.

With the right mix of helpful content tailored to their stage, you can meet buyers where they are, build trust over time, and ultimately convert more over the long term.

What’s your top tip for mapping content to your target audience’s journey? Share your thoughts in the comments!