From discovering to buying. The complete journey of your potential customers
Knowing this journey is important to meet ‘them’ at each stage
Did you know: I’ve created this Notion template for those who want to pursue Blogging as a profession. This can be someone who wants to make a career out of blogging or a founder who wants to promote their business by blogging about it.
If you chose to read this article, it’s highly likely that you already own an online business or are planning to. Either way, this post is for you if you want to understand the journey of a user from being a prospect to an advocate of your brand.
When I started out as a business owner, I wanted to create awesome content to promote my business. I didn’t have the capital, I didn’t know what I know now, I didn’t have anything I have right now.
I wanted to establish a business that would transform many lives as my business transformed mine. But there was a problem. I didn’t know how to scale my business & reach everyone who was searching for what I know.
In order to spend money on my products/services, an unknown person has to go through a journey. This post is about that journey.
7 stages of a customer journey
People inch towards spending money on you with each stage passing.
After years of trial and error & endless execution, I ended up being decently successful in terms of business, my lifestyle, and the people who love to work with me.
Here’s how by simply structuring my content in parallel to the content consumption journey of an average internet user, I can (now you can too) control my business & scale it.
#1 Content discovery
When I say content, it can be text, video, images & audio forms that you can leverage & there are platforms centered around each of these content forms already.
All these platforms have an algorithm that helps you get discovered by people who like the content you’re putting out. For example, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, and creating videos to promote your business on YouTube will help you land in front of a highly relevant audience, which you’ll never be able to find them manually.
Of course, you can’t get discovered right from the first video you publish. You will have to continuously test out newer ways that work for your style, business & audience.
The generic advice on the web can help you get started, but once you get into the execution phase, you’ll have to tweak it several times to find the right fit. You may not find solutions to all the questions on the web, you may need to find someone to coach you.
In this phase, your audience has just discovered your content & this content shouldn’t be salesy by any means. It should be purely for educational purposes at the same time, it should leave a mark of your brand in their brains.
Creating content to sell (especially for people in this stage) is a big mistake that has cost me years of growth.
Nobody browses the web with a credit card in hand. Remember that.
#2 Attention
When you continuously create content targeting people who’re yet to discover your content (or have discovered it for the first time), you will land in front of them several times.
Don’t worry, you will not have to put effort into that, the algorithms will take care of that for you, provided you genuinely talk about the concerns people in this segment have. This is the phase where your content will catch their attention.
Remember our school days when we were taught, that consistency is the key? Yeah, this is what our teachers meant.
Consistently creating content that taps into what your products/service can do for them (without being salesy) can create a huge impact on their minds. You’re scratching their itch without charging anything & it will blow their minds off.
But wait? You’re a businessperson. Why would you do it for free? What are you making out of it?
Let me break it for you, you’re making ‘attention’ which is exponentially costlier than money. Businesses are pouring billions into ads to have their attention for a couple of seconds, and now, at this stage, you have their attention for free.
#3 Trust
After consuming your free content, trust will start playing its game. People would prefer what you have to say about their problems, this is where your brand will stand out from the rest.
Furthermore, if you optimize your content with a little bit of branding at this stage, you can leverage branded search queries, or best, people will search for their queries on your site and on Google.
That’s a huge win for any business. This is a topic in itself, which I can save for another day.
Furthermore, when people start trusting you, they observe your content and test your opinion on their problems. So, this is where you shift gears & start inching towards pitching your products & services.
#4 Transactions
In the previous step, you successfully established trust in the minds of your prospects. Now they don’t consume your content for information, they’ll do it to make decisions and the content you create for this set of the audience is optimized for sales.
*pulls out the calculator*
This content targets transactional keywords & this content will require an experienced copywriter who also excels at search engine optimization since the content will be discovered by your audience on search engines.
Pro Tip: Create a lead magnet for such people, it can be a free trial or a simple eBook taking them further in their journey. This exclusivity will take your relationship with them on a very long journey.
#5 Onboarding
The lead magnet you sent to the warm audience, should be inclined towards having them on board in your premium platform. Whatever you’ve built is fine. This is where things start flying.
The goal of these steps is to provide content or (contact with content) that makes them pull out their wallets.
This is the payback time. Everything you did since starting of their journey has come to fruition.
In this step, your audience would be highly interested in using your products upfront, a little bit of pushing might be required, but it won’t be as hard as any of the stages above.
Content for this set of audiences is highly fruitful & lucrative. Keep one thing in mind, you will still have to maintain the same integrity with your content that you had when the user began the journey with your content.
The only difference here would be the interest & preferences of the users would change.
Now, the users wouldn’t be searching for alternatives, they’ll be seeking specifically your products/services.
You’ll have the upper hand to drive the decisions but remember! Customers aren’t fools; they’ll see right through your motive & reject you if you seem greedy.
This is the stage where you’ll have to be the most patient. You’ll be one step away from making or breaking the loyalty of these users forever.
#6 Serve
Congratulations! You just hit a jackpot. In this step, you’ll be mostly interacting with the users directly. If you’re open to social DMs or emails, you’ll talk to them either of two.
Here you will be personalizing the product as per the user’s need, depending on the type of your product. If not the product, you’ll be personalizing the experience. It can be in form of emails, the feed, & more.
Users will pinpoint specific products (if you have an array of products) & seek help from you to optimize them for their needs or learn how to use them directly from you.
If you’re a consultant, your jackpot just got doubled. You’ll have a plethora of products to recommend based on the queries of the users, you don’t even have to own any of those products, plus you’ll earn a commission per referral.
At this step, the trust factor has reached its peak. You’ll not need to create any content for people at this stage other than calls or recommendations decks. They’ll create content (in form of questions) for you, and you just must address that content.
#7 Transform
The last stage of their journey is where you keep them forever in your personal network. They invest their personal interest & trust in your personal/corporate brand.
Thanks to the journey you planned for them that has transformed their life for good. They’re the advocate for your brand now.
As part of the content, all they need is support with their never-ending list of questions, which you don’t have to do pretty much anything.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a consultant, a SaaS business, or a products business. People in this group have crossed the stage of maturity and require the least maintenance in terms of content.
Final thoughts & TL; DR
The Internet is a marvelous tool that has transformed the way we live. It has opened a whole new world of information, opportunities, entertainment, and fun.
I hope this article was able to inform you about the stages of development of an unknown internet user into a customer.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me for any assistance.
If you’ve just skimmed through this hard written content, It’s okay, here’s a summary for you:
1. Content Discovery: People discover your content for the first time. Create free content that targets everything that your audience is searching for on the web, that your business can solve, of course, without being salesy.
2. Attention: At this stage, the users start paying attention to your opinion and point of view, mostly because it resonates with theirs. You’ve met your tribe. Create content that focuses on detailed problems.
3. Trust: At this stage, the users start to trust your opinions and point of view. Here, your brand will play a major role & the whole content will revolve around your brand.
4. Transaction: Now, people decide based on your content/recommendations. Create lead magnets to take people into your network.
5. Onboard: Now the users will start using moving into your ecosystem. This can be old content, courses, products & more. At this stage, you need to maintain contact with the users to address their concerns & offer personalized support.
6. Serve: This is where you will retain the users for future products & upgrades. Now you don’t have to worry about the content for them, but be careful not to turn them off by focusing on acquiring users & not on the acquired ones.
7. Transform: You will now have an army of advocates. They will do the marketing for you but you will need to take extra care of them since they’re investing their interest in your personal/corporate brand.
