Do you know what the customer journey is? If not, don’t worry – you’re not alone. A lot of business owners are in the same boat, including me.
I thought that people would see my offer once and (ideally) hand me bags of cash. Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen.
What I didn’t realize is that there’s a process – or a journey – that you have to think about while you’re writing. We know that we need to be writing to “someone” and have that persona clearly in mind, but too often we focus only on the demographics (i.e. age, location, gender) and not on the customer journey.
The Customer Journey
The customer journey is the process that your customers go through when they’re considering, researching, and finally buying a product or service.
Many people refer to this in 3 stages – Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
Awareness is when the customer becomes aware that they have a problem or need. The advice is to write content that educates them and makes them aware of the solutions available to them.
Consideration is when the customer understands their problem and is considering their options. Here, you want to provide content that helps them understand the different solutions available and how they work.
Decision is when the customer has decided on a solution and is ready to buy. Your job here is to provide content that helps them make the final decision and then take action.
However, I agree more with another approach which says that there are actually 4 and puts it into a nice acronym – OATH. Let’s look at what each of these are and how you can write for them.
Stages of Awareness – OATH
The OATH acronym divides your potential customers into four groups.
O = Oblivious – The customer is unaware of the problem or need.
A = Aware – The customer becomes aware of the problem or need.
T = Thinking – The customer is considering their options and thinking about a solution.
H = Hurting – The customer is actively looking for a solution.
The customer journey isn’t linear, which means that people will move back and forth between these stages before finally making a purchase.
However, it’s important to note that you cannot have content only dedicated to one stage.
Let’s use dentists as an example. Someone who is looking for a routine cleaning is coming at it with a very different motivation than someone who has a chipped tooth and an event the next day!
If you want people to buy from you, you need to provide content for them at every stage of their journey.
This is why it’s so important to have a clear understanding of who your customer is and what they’re going through. Only then can you create the kind of content that will speak to them and help them move through the customer journey.
When to use the OATH formula?
The OATH formula is best for a cold audience (people who don’t know you) or a warm audience (people who know you but haven’t bought from you).
If someone has already bought from you, they’re not going to need content about the problem – they already know! What they need to know is WHY they need to keep buying from you. (But let’s save that for another day.)
OATH and SEO
OATH is especially important in web content because it will help you when thinking about your SEO keywords.
Let’s consider a business coach. What that might look like for them?
Oblivious – starting a business
Apathetic – how to get more sales
Thinking – working with a business coach
Hurting – best business coach for sales
Do you have web content that speaks to each stage? If not, it might be time to take a look at what you have and see where you can make some changes.
BONUS perk – OATH and Writer’s Block
Struggling to know what to write? Use OATH!
O = Oblivious – Write something that educates your customer about the problem.
A = Apathetic – Write something that helps them understand why the solution matters (how will they suffer from staying where they are vs. solving their problem)
T = Thinking – Write something that helps them make a decision that your solution is better for them.
H = Hurting – Write something that helps them take action or believe that it’s easy to get the solution from you!
What might that look like for me?
Oblivious – write something about why your business isn’t growing. (the answer – because people either can’t find your site or you haven’t communicated what you do)
Apathetic – write something about how a regular blog can contribute to their growth
Thinking – write something about how a regular blog is easier to maintain than a podcast or YouTube channel (especially if you outsource it to someone like me!)
Hurting – talk about how easy it is to work with me (spend 1 hour per month chatting and then getting a lot of content) and what it will free you up to do.
See? Just wrote my content for next week 🙂
The Customer Journey and Content Strategy for Small Businesses
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how to create a content strategy for small businesses.
The customer journey is a great place to start. Think about what kind of content you can create that will speak to each stage of the customer journey.
If you would like some help putting your ideas into a strategy, let’s book a call! I’d love to chat.
