Customers’ needs change throughout their buying journey. That represents a challenge for us marketers and customer experience managers–How do you create the right content to support that journey? The trick is to align your Personas to your Buyer Journey Map and then to your Funnel.
Before looking at what content you need to create to support your customers’ journey, let’s back up and take a fresh look at Persona definition. This is where we can find the inspiration we need to create the right content with our customers. However, defining needs can be a bit “abstract” and you just might not have the insights available to guide you. To get your creative juices flowing, instead think of what jobs your customer has to get done.
For example, if I am a business traveller I need to:
Attend a client meeting, Stay somewhere overnight, Reserve accommodation, Feel safe, eat, look good with clients, Sleep and get rest, Feel connected with home, have a bath.
I have functional jobs to be done–attend client meeting, stay somewhere overnight, sleep and get rest, eat, bath.
I have social jobs to be done–look good with my clients.
I have emotional jobs to be done–feel safe, feel connected with home.
And I have supporting jobs to be done–reserve the accommodation.
For each job to be done, there are then barriers (things that prevent the job being completed) and there are accelerators (things that enable the positive outcomes).
Now you can take the jobs to be done and align them to steps on the journey. Barriers and accelerators can also apply to the journey and would mostly appear at the beginning of the journey. When a barrier or an accelerator intensifies–whether better or worse–that is usually the call to action step. This is the point where the customer needs to satisfy the need/job they wish to get done. For example, the date for the customer’s client meeting gets closer, so they need to make a reservation.
I am now armed with a map with a list of topics for content aligned to each step of the journey–a crude editorial list. I can, of course, then refine this into content titles that will help my customer on their journey (both metaphorical and practically!).
Hints & Tips: Content that covers more than one job type will be more engaging. (Job types: Function, Social, Emotional, Supporting.)
Managing the production of this content and making sure that it is available to the customer at the right point in their journey is the next problem–you can find out how we do this by contacting us.