Sarah
With the power of the internet at their fingertips, people are more knowledgeable and attentive than ever when looking into products or considering buying from a particular business. This is good news for the buyer, but it also means that companies had to change their sales and marketing methods in the past several decades to be more customer-centric, including reevaluating the language they use in their buyer’s journey.
Selling is no longer about telling customers what they need and why they need it in a flashy (and sometimes pushy) way. Instead, it’s about stepping into the customer’s shoes and understanding their mindset. Businesses can accomplish this by learning more about the people that buy from them, empathizing with customers’ pain points and daily challenges, and positioning their products as a genuinely helpful solution.
Buyer’s Journey, Sales Funnel, and Copywriting, Oh My!
The buyer’s journey, sometimes called the customer’s journey, is a representation of the path that a person goes down from the first time they realize they have a problem that needs solving (awareness) to the time they purchase something that will help them solve that problem (decision). Often, the buyer’s journey is spoken about alongside the term “sales funnel”.
Though these concepts are similar, a sales funnel is a strategy or tool that is used internally to track a customer’s progress from the time they learn about the existence of your business (or before!) to the time they make a purchase. A sales funnel takes the concept of the “buyer’s journey” into account and uses it to encourage the buyer along the path from the awareness stage all the way to the decision stage.
Your sales funnel likely consists of many different components, from landing pages, informative articles, and paid ads to organic content on social media and email newsletters (etc.). Copywriting is an unavoidable and important factor in the creation of an enjoyable and compelling sales funnel. This is why copywriting services for small businesses are becoming more mainstream and are often sought out in addition to marketing agencies.
This article will walk you through the different stages of the buyer’s journey, their sales funnel counterparts, and the different kinds of copy you should have in each stage. You’ll also get some advice on how to optimize your copywriting.
The Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
Before diving into the nitty-gritty of copywriting, let’s go over the three stages of the buyer’s journey and the different sales funnel stages associated with each.
The three stages of the buyer’s journey include the awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage. Sales funnels may look slightly different for every business and have a varying number of stages, but they are often narrowed down to four stages: awareness/attention, interest, decision, and action.
Awareness
Remember, these stages are all from the buyer’s point of view. The awareness stage doesn’t mean that the buyer just became aware of your products or services; it means that they’ve become aware of an issue they’re facing and are trying to better understand the landscape surrounding that issue.
Consider this: someone who experiences dry and itchy skin wants to get to the root of the problem, so they start Googling things like “why is my skin so dry?” and “what makes your skin dry and itchy?”, etc. They’ve entered the awareness stage.
Associated Sales Funnel Stages: Awareness/Attention
When a potential customer becomes aware of a problem, it’s your chance to encourage brand awareness. You shouldn’t necessarily focus on promoting your products and services at this stage, but on providing value and offering helpful information.
If you can educate, inform, and act as an authority, you will be more trustworthy and memorable throughout that individual’s journey. The sales funnel’s awareness stage often consists of marketing efforts that expand your visibility as a company so that buyers are more likely to come across your business when they are first inquiring about a particular problem. Your main goal in this stage is to provide value to the customer that is not directly related to your products or services.
Consideration
After the buyer has done their preliminary research and comes to a conclusion about the source of their problem, they begin learning about and considering potential solutions. For example, they may start searching “how to relieve dry skin” or similar queries.
Associated Sales Funnel Stages: Awareness/Attention and Interest
You should still be focused on helping the buyer learn more about solutions to their problem, but this is also the time for you to consider what makes your solution better than the others and then communicate that. The goal is to provide value while positioning your products and services as a viable solution.
Decision
The buyer has decided on a specific type of solution, but they have not yet chosen your business. For example, a person suffering from dry and itchy skin has decided to purchase some moisturizing creams and specially formulated face wash, but they have not yet decided which business to purchase from. This is the stage in which the buyer compares and contrasts different brands and looks into specific products.
Associated Sales Funnel Stages: Interest, Decision, and Action
You must have attracted a buyer’s attention and sparked their interest for them to count you as a contender. While the buyer is trying to decide what specific product will get them the results they want, they’ll likely look more deeply into your prices, product features, and sales pages. This is the final stretch where you use your sales tactics and excellent copywriting to get the buyer to take action.
Optimizing Copy for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Copywriting, or “copy”, is text written with the intention of encouraging the reader to do something. This category of writing is broad and can include advertisements, web copy, social media posts, blog posts (sometimes), sales emails and newsletters, product and service descriptions, mission statements and slogans, and much more.
Outlined below are different kinds of copywriting that are associated with each stage of the buyer’s journey/sales funnel, as well as some advice on how to optimize your copy.
Copywriting for the Awareness Stage
The awareness stage of the buyer’s journey (and likewise, the awareness/attention stage in your sales funnel) is all about providing value to the customer and getting your business’s name out there. This is accomplished through marketing, which includes different kinds of copy.
Sometimes, blogs can be a form of copywriting, especially if they encourage a specific action or try to make a sale, but many blogs fit into the category of content marketing. Regardless of their copywriting status, informative articles, case studies, How-Tos, listicles, and other kinds of blog posts play a significant role in the first stage of the buyer’s journey.
Consider the following example. You are a skincare brand that offers several different products to help people maintain healthy skin. A buyer that has just entered the awareness stage of the customer journey Googles “why is my skin so dry?” Instead of being bombarded with offers for products that they don’t even know they want yet, they see a blog post (your blog post!) titled “6 Things That Might Be Causing Dry Skin”.
You offer genuinely helpful information about what might be causing dry skin (lack of water, cold environment, hormonal imbalance, low-quality facial soap, etc.). As a result, the buyer is able to continue along their journey, and you are remembered as a helpful brand that understands their pain points. If people think you understand their problems, they are also more likely to assume you have a solution that will work for them.
This example shows why many businesses enjoy the benefits of content writing services in the modern day. Publishing consistent content increases your authority and gives you a more prominent presence in your industry. Solid content marketing strategies often include blog posts, social media copy, email newsletters, and more.
Copywriting for the Consideration Stage
At this point, the buyer knows their problem and is now searching for a solution. For copywriting, focus on social media copy, web copy, product/service descriptions, and ads in addition to your standard content marketing.
The relevant sales funnel stages include awareness/attention and interest. While the customer may still be interacting with some informational articles, the consideration stage often comes with a more concentrated search into the products and services that can help the buyer solve their problem. Of course, this means that you have to be ready to show them your hand!
Suppose a buyer with dry skin Googles “how to relieve dry skin”. In that case, several suggestions might fit the bill, including “drink more water”, “get a humidifier”, or “buy specially formulated face wash and moisturizer.” A skincare business that wants to make sales should have copywriting that entices the customer to consider their products as a solution. Here’s how to optimize different types of copy for this stage.
Social Media Copy
Make social media posts that are entertaining, informative, relatable, inspiring, and relevant. Just like blog posts, posting on social media platforms allows you to connect with people throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey and provides value beyond just promoting your business. Keep your text purposeful and easily digestible.
Web Copy, Including Landing and Sales Pages
Always keep the buyer in mind. It can be tempting to write about how your business was founded or how great your product is, but this doesn’t support the customer’s journey. Instead, focus on creating web copy that shows you understand your customers’ problems and that you have a solution that will provide results. This requires you to understand your customer base and target audience, which can be accomplished through research, surveys, and data collection.
Product/Service Descriptions
Demonstrate how you are different from your competitors. What sets your products above the rest? In addition to listing product features, mention product benefits and results to keep your descriptions customer-centered. Keep your descriptions simple, unique, and honest, as well as SEO-friendly.
Advertisements
Think paid, targeted ads on popular platforms like Facebook. Facebook Ads are targeted to users based on their location, demographics, and other characterizing information. This ensures that the buyers in the awareness and consideration stages of their journey are exposed to your business.
To write effective ad copy for Facebook or other platforms, you need to know who you’re writing for. Use the existing data that your business has on current customers and leads (age, profession, location, interests) to create copy that is compelling to your audience. Keep your copy short and to the point, and include a call to action such as “visit our website”, “watch this video to learn more”, “click here to buy”, “check out the reviews on this product”, etc.
Copywriting for the Decision Stage
Once the buyer has decided on pursuing your specific “genre” of solution and has been exposed to your business and/or products, it’s time to focus on sales copy. This is the stage in which the buyer weighs their options and compares you to your competitors.
Sales copy can appear in many of the locations already mentioned (your website, social media pages, platforms that support paid ads, etc.), as well as in emails. Specifically, sales copy’s purpose is to convince someone to purchase your product or service. Unfortunately, sales copy doesn’t have the best reputation. Businesses are often afraid of making copy that is too boring or too pushy, but there are ways to avoid this.
Remember to focus on the buyer in your sales copy. Use customer-centered language that helps them envision their life after purchasing your product. A sales page that only lists features and facts will likely not perform as well as a sales page that shows the customer the benefits the product could bring them.
For example, a sales page, sales email, or paid ad that promotes a night-time moisturizer would likely be better off using a customer-centered narrative such as “this moisturizer works overnight to relieve the pain and itchiness that comes with dry skin. You deserve to wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day,” as opposed to only listing product features like “lilac scent, smooth feel, gently moisturizing”.
Get the Most Out of Your Copywriting
Copywriting is undeniably one of the most important aspects of any marketing or sales strategy. Finding a good copywriting company can make a world of difference in your marketing and sales performance. The best SEO copywriting services use their knowledge and expertise to guide buyers through a sales funnel from beginning to end.
No matter who creates your copy, it’s vital to keep the customer in mind when writing. At the end of the day, the buyer is the one on the journey, and the copywriter’s job is to make it a good one!
