SME990: Value-Based Marketing

Inbound Marketing
W1L1S2
Agenda What is the Buyer Journey?

Building Buyer Persona

What is a lead? Lead Generation?

Lead Generation Strategy

Tools & Templates

2
What is the Buyer’s Journey?
◎ Each one of your prospective customers will be at different points in
their journey towards a purchase.
◎ By understanding your buyer’s journey, you can give those prospects
the fuel they need to move towards making a purchase.
◎ It’s a framework to help you empathize with your prospects.

The Buyer’s Journey: The active research process someone goes

through leading up to making a purchase.
Using the buyer’s journey
will help you better
attract, engage, and
delight your prospects
and customers.
By meeting them where they’re
at in their journey and
providing the needed
guidance and value that
they’re seeking.
Creating your Buyer’s Journey
1. Understand your buyer persona.
2. Develop each buyer’s journey stage around your industry and
persona’s intent.
The Awareness Stage
The awareness stage is when your
prospect is experiencing and expressing
symptoms of a problem or opportunity.
They use terms like:
troubleshoot, issue, resolve, risks,
upgrade, improve, optimize, or prevent
I am a buyer aware that I have a problem
◎ I need to improve ______________.
◎ I need to prevent _______________.
◎ I need to start _____________.
◎ I need to stop ______________.
◎ I need to optimize _______________.
◎ I need to solve _______________.
◎ I need to learn more about _________.
The Consideration Stage

Your prospect has now clearly I am a buyer considering how to solve my

defined and given a name to their
problem or opportunity.
They use terms like:
provider, service, supplier, tool,
device, software, appliance, or
solution
problem
• What tools are available for_____________?
• What are ______________industry
solutions?
• What are my____________ options?
• What ______ options are there for _______?
 The Decision Stage
Your prospect has now decided on
their solution strategy, method, or
approach.
They use terms like:
compare, versus, comparison,
pros and cons, benchmarks, review,
or test
I am a buyer deciding on a specific product
• I need prices for_______________________________.
• I need_________________________ product specifics.
• I need proof that __________________________
works.
• I need evidence that ________________________.
• I need assurance
that____________________________.
Example From Real Estate
Content Mapping
Content Mapping
What content is appropriate to offer in each stage of the buyer’s journey?
It all comes down to what your content is about and how it’s positioned.

Content focused on the problem your

Awareness buyer persona is experiencing

Content more about the solution to a

Consideration problem

Content that answers questions about

Decision your product or service
For the awareness stage, ask yourself:

• How do buyers describe their goals or challenges?

• How do buyers educate themselves on these goals or challenges?
• What are the consequences of inaction by the buyer?

• Are there common misconceptions buyers have about

addressing the goal or challenge?

• How do buyers decide whether the goal or challenge

should be prioritized?
For the consideration stage, ask yourself:

• What categories of solutions do buyers investigate?

• How do buyers educate themselves on the various categories?
• How do buyers perceive the pros and cons of each category?
• How do buyers decide which category is right for them?
For the decision stage, ask yourself:
• What criteria do buyers use to evaluate the available offerings?
• What do they like about your company compared to alternatives?
• What concerns do they have with your offering?
• Who needs to be involved in the decision? For each person involved, how does
their perspective on the decision differ?
• Do buyers have expectations around trying the offering before they purchase it?
• Outside of purchasing, do buyers need to make additional preparations, such as
implementation plans or training strategies?
Is Everyone asking the same questions?
 Click icon to add
picture

Buyer Persona Development

 What is a Buyer persona?

A semi-fictional representation of
your ideal buyer based on data,
interviews, and some educated
guesses.
A Robust Buyer Persona
◎ Who should create your persona?
The creation of your buyer personas should include input from as many different
perspectives within your company as possible. The more viewpoints you can
include in the persona creation process, the better the final personas will be.

◎ How to create your persona?

⦿ Define the information that should be included
⦿ Identify the best sources for that information

◎ Ways your persona can be used

How to Create Buyer Persona
◎If you have a concrete understanding of the problem your company is
meant to solve, that will form the foundation of your buyer persona.
◎What traits are highly correlated with success using your product?
◎Have marketing, sales, and customer service list out the questions
they need answered in order to serve each persona.
 Things Marketing might want to Things Sales might want to know
know
◎How high of a priority is overcoming this problem?
◎How does this person phrase their problem
◎What kinds of goals is this problem preventing this
when they type it into Google?
persona from achieving?
◎Where does this persona go to get help with
◎Is this persona typically the only person involved in
their problem?
the purchasing decision?

◎What channels of communication do they ◎How long or short do they expect the sales

prefer to be contacted through? process to be?

◎Demographic information (helps with tone, ◎Do they typically view your product’s price point

as being high, low, or about average?

languages, imagery, etc.)
Identify Best sources of information
?Q&A’s
Thank you