The content you create will most likely serve different purposes for your audience depending on what stage of the buying cycle they are in.
stage 1
Early on this will be communicating first impressions, clearly establishing your offering, and setting expectations for the later stages.
stage 2
If they are still onboard once they have a sense of who you are and what you do, they will probably want to learn more about the details of your offering and if it’s right for them.
stage 3
Once they decide that it is, they will need to know in what way to move forward and take advantage of your offering.
stage 4
And finally, there is often a post-purchase stage which requires reassurance that the purchase was a good idea, or a way to go back to the learning stage and begin again as needed.
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Depending on what you offer, some of these stages will be taken care of by actual in-person communication, but in general there is usually room for content communication in each phase. In fact, in many cases it can speed up the buying process if that communication can happen on the buyer’s own time via content before they ever reach out or walk in your door.
Since the form and context of your content will probably look different at the different stages, we’ll take some time in the next few days to consider each one in more detail.
