Creating Content for Every Stage of the Client Journey

The average firm’s content is almost entirely focused on the selection stage of the client lifecycle. Their website, emails and social media posts are primarily focused on company information and selling points, assuming that everyone is ready to hire the firm right then and there.

What about prospects that aren't ready to make a selection?

The reality is, at any given time, very few of your prospects are ready to make a selection decision. With few exceptions, a prospect goes through a journey, moving from awareness about your firm to the point where they evaluate and decide whether or not to hire your firm. Content should play an important role in every stage of the buyer’s journey to help create awareness, build trust, establish credibility, generate leads and convert leads into opportunities.

Mapping content to the buying stages of the client journey

Certain marketing channels, such as blog posts or social media, will play a role throughout the entire selection process, but the information prospects are seeking varies greatly at each stage of the buying cycle. It’s important to create the right type of content for every stage by considering your buyer personas and identifying the key information your prospects are seeking as they move through the cycle or down the sales funnel.

Creating content for unknown visitors and prospects

There are many different ways to slice and dice the stages of the buyer’s journey, but we’ve condensed it down to three typical primary stages:

1. Awareness

In this stage, a prospect becomes familiar with your firm and/or realizes that they have a need for your services. They’re trying to figure out what options exist and become familiar with the landscape. Blogging is the primary type of content to use at the awareness stage. It will help you appear in search results and help position you as a subject matter expert once they arrive at your website. Other content to consider would be infographics, articles, videos and online news releases. Social media is useful to promote your content and to start building awareness and rapport with prospects.

2. Interest/Consideration

At this stage, a prospect has identified a need and begins to conduct research for potential solutions or partners. They have interest in your firm to some degree, but are not ready to sign on the dotted line just yet. This is the stage where lead generation happens. Once you’ve attracted a prospect to your website through blogging or social media, you need content to convert the unknown visitor into an identified lead. They’re looking for information that will later help them make the decision of selecting a partner, so premium offers such as eBooks, whitepapers, reports, research studies and webinars are critical types of content in this stage.

3. Evaluation/Selection

Once a prospect has considered their options, they begin to narrow down the choices and ultimately determine who to select. This is where more traditional content plays a role. Prospects are looking for detailed firm information, data sheets and project profiles. They’re interested in reading case studies and testimonials, and are much more interested in sitting through a presentation. Last but not least, even a proposal should be viewed as content. It’s your last chance to add value, make a case for your firm and ultimately get on the shortlist, so look for unique ways to add more to the proposal than simply a scope and fee estimate.

Creating content for existing clients

Up until this point, we’ve only considered the buying stages of the client journey, and for good reason. Content marketing is very effective for demand generation, lead generation and then nurturing leads until they become clients. But the usefulness of content marketing doesn’t stop at the point of sale; it extends far beyond business development and is valuable for ongoing client development. Consider the last two cycles of the client lifecycle.

4. Satisfaction/Retention

Continue to show your knowledge and expertise and keep adding value to the relationship, even after you’ve closed the deal. After all, you want them to be satisfied and remain your clients for the long haul. Create content that would be beneficial in the early onboarding stage of the relationship, such as user guides or FAQs to answer any questions or issues that typical new clients may have about your services. Be sure to continue to publish helpful blog posts that clients and prospects alike will find valuable.

5. Cross-selling/Up-selling

It’s a known fact that it’s easier (and cheaper) to sell to an existing client than it is to convert a new one. In fact, research from Bain & Company found that it costs up to 7 times more to acquire a new client than to retain an existing one. This only further reinforces the need to engage your clients with the goal of generating repeat business. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. A solid content marketing program (combined with an outstanding client experience) leads to passionate brand advocates who do the selling for you. Consider holding workshops specifically for clients to educate them about a particular area of interest, offer promotions or set up an ongoing drip email campaign that sends them valuable insights on occasion.

The goal: turning prospects into promoters

If your content marketing is solely focused on the front-end of the client journey, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity to engage your existing client base with the aim of retention, cross-selling and advocacy.

As you create a content marketing strategy and a content roadmap, be sure to carefully consider your audience’s needs and interests throughout the entire lifecycle, not just the front end or the tail end. Ultimately, the end goal of content marketing and the reason for creating content for every stage of the client journey is really quite simple: to continuously deliver valuable content that solidifies profitable, long-term client relationships and creates influential brand advocates.

Face-to-face and personal relationships are still critical in business, but the right kind of content can be one of your greatest assets as you continuously nurture both prospect and client relationships.