Most marketers understand this basic concept: the content you create should be personalized for the visitors to your website. But the question lies in where to start, especially if your product/service targets multiple buyers. Delivering the right content, to the right person, at the right time may seem like a daunting task at first glance, but the truth of the matter is in doing this your leads will turn out more qualified and you’ll have a better understanding of what someone needs.
One of the best things about inbound marketing is that you can offer content to potential buyers before they even raise their hand. How is this done? It starts with buyer personas.
How Buyer Personas Affect Personalized Content & Generate More Leads
This is where it all begins. Buyer personas are different representations of your ideal customer(s). You may be selling lawn mowers - you could then have multiple personas: a lawn care company owner or a homeowner living in a suburb. So when developing content for your website, you’ll want to make sure you are speaking to both buyers. If you only speak to one or the other, the other buyer could assume you’re company doesn’t have a solution for them.
Speaking to your different personas is the exact thing that will make your leads more qualified. Instead of having a list of leads and not knowing what they are struggling with, challenge yourself to segment your leads into different lists, with different problems, and different needs. Once you have that nailed down, it gets exciting – you can now begin developing content for your personas based on their lifecycle stage.
Personalizing Content to a Lead’s Lifecycle Stage
You can read further about why lifecycle stages matter for inbound marketing. Lifecycle stages matter for multiple reasons and one major reason is being able to deliver content to the right people at the right time. In a nutshell, lifecycle stages are different points of a buyer’s journey. Whether someone is searching the web for a solution to a problem or ready to cut a check – we can offer different content based on their stage.
- The first stage is awareness – a buyer is in need of a solution and searching for where to find it. When creating content for these visitors remember they are looking to educate themselves more than anything. Speak to them as if you are an expert in the field. Rather than telling them you are the best of the best, show them. Don’t talk about your solution at all. Speak to their problem. You should utilize blogging for this stage. In addition to blogging you can offer them white papers or eBooks.
- The next stage is consideration – you’ve now built trust and a small relationship with you’re the potential buyer. This is when you can start speaking about your solution a bit. They realize you are an expert in the field, now show them why they should buy from you. Develop content that speaks to why your solution is better than your competitors. Once they consume this content they instantly become more qualified. Case studies are the best example of consideration content. You could also build an offer that shows what you solution solution solves compared to that of your competitors - this shows your expertise on the subject and will paint you in a better light.
- Finally we have intent - a buyer is more or less ready to buy from you. You’ve done your due diligence in offering content to help them get to this stage. At this point all you really need to ask them is if they’re ready to buy. You create a page or form on your website that asks if they’d like to see a demo or request for consultation.
New Ways to Personalize Content & Generate More Leads
HubSpot continues to find ways to better personalize content for an audience. One feature that I love is the Smart CTA tool. The Smart CTA tool allows you to show a different CTA to a lead if they already consumed a piece of content. Here’s an example: Offer A is an awareness white paper. There are a couple CTAs placed throughout your site pointing to a landing page for Offer A. Victor the Visitor clicks on the CTA and downloads the offer. Here’s where it gets fun - once Victor goes back to the page where he clicked on the CTA, he doesn’t see Offer A anymore but rather Offer B which is a consideration offer.
Presenting the right content to your different buyer personas will give you more qualified leads. You’ll have a better understanding of what they are looking for and you’ll be able to move them through the funnel with more ease.
How many different buyer personas does your company have? Are you developing content to speak to them all?
