How marketers create content
Most of the time the process probably looks like this. You conduct keyword research, pick few you think might do, create personas you’d be writing for, come up with exact topics and then, set off to write. In other words, you create content based on what you think your audience wants. Right?
Buying behavior
Understanding how people actually buy is crucial to creating the right content for them.
- Need Recognition – this is where your customer realizes that he or she might have a problem or a need.
- Information or Solution Search – once the problem is realized comes a stage where the customer starts to gather initial information about possible solutions. However, customers at this stage are not ready to start evaluating their options yet.
- Evaluation – this stage is all about evaluating alternative solutions. This is when your offer is compared with those of your competitors.
- Purchase Decision
- Post-Purchase Evaluation or Buyer’s Remorse – a highly important stage of the process. This is the time when customers begin to wonder if they made the right choice with the purchase. This is the moment when they might decide to return the item and therefore it is very important for every company to have systems in place that will reassure their customers of their decision.
Using Buyer Intent for Content
All 5 stages of the buying process relate to the buyer intent a customer has when going through different stages of the process. By realizing the intent of a customer you can feed them with the exact information they are looking for.
There are three types of intent you need to focus on:
1. Intent to Learn
you should try to understand what type of research your potential consumers would be doing and where. With that information you can create a content around it and make sure that it is available to them in every avenue they would be searching for it.
Ideal types of content for this intent:
- blog posts
- guides
- how-to guides
- short videos
2. Intent to Compare
Your marketing challenge for this intent is to create content that will highlight the benefits of your product. This time you are communicating with people who are fully aware of their problem and solutions available on the market. In such case your content needs to highlight why your solution is better than your competitors.
Ideal types of content for this intent:
- videos
- presentations
- demos
- slideshare
- testimonials
- images of product in use
3. Intent to Order
Customers with this intent are the most likely to land on your product or sales pages, rather than informational content and therefore your focus should be on helping them to complete the purchase as quickly as possible. Your content should also reaffirm their perception of the product or service as being the best choice to solve their problem.
Ideal types of content for this intent:
- product pages
- sales pages
- landing pages
How user search is structured in various intents
To turn that theory in practice, let’s look at how users structure their search for each intent and what sort of content you could create to satisfy them at each stage of the buying process
Intent to Learn:
- Blog post – laptops as desktop computer replacements
- Cheat sheet – Things to pay attention to when buying your first laptop
- Cheat sheet to typical laptop PC terminology
- Blog post or video – how to evaluate if a particular laptop is good for me
Intent to compare:
- Video – review of two same range laptops
- eBook – What’s inside my laptop
- Case study – how a laptop helped this freelancer live a remote life
- Webinar – setting up a laptop for remote work
Intent to buy:
- A laptops product page
- Landing Page for a line of laptops
- Regular newsletter with new laptops and tips & tricks
- In Depth Blog post on HP Chromebook 11
Getting your content noticed isn’t an easy task. You have to break through all the noises caused by your peers and still reach the target audience. Having a clear message that is exactly what your customers at various stages of the buying process want definitely helps.
