What Is a Customer Journey? How Does It Inform Content Marketing?

What if there were a way that content marketers could deliver exactly the right message to the right consumer, at the right time, through the perfect channel? 

Imagine what kind of impact that would have on your conversions, sales, and other key metrics. The good news is, you don’t have to imagine it; you can implement it. 

The secret is in understanding how the customer journey and all of the different stages of the funnel, affect, impact, and inform content marketing. 

Here’s how to align your content with different stages of the customer journey, starting from the beginning. 

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• A customer journey describes the step-by-step process or journey that a customer takes when interacting and engaging with your brand.
• There are several stages of a customer journey, and it’s important to tailor your content to each:
  • Awareness: customers are just learning about your brand.
  • Consideration: in this stage, customers are comparing brands and products.
  • Decision: customers are ready to make a purchase (conversion).
  • Retention: the retention stage focuses on continuing conversions and repeat purchases.
  • Advocacy: during advocacy, customers establish brand loyalty and share your brand.

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What Is a Customer Journey?

The customer journey is the step-by-step journey that a customer has with a given brand from the moment they first hear about it (awareness), all the way to the interactions they have with it after they purchase. 

Understanding the customer journey is part of what it takes to be successful in content marketing, as you’ll be able to create and tailor content to various stages of a customer’s journey. 

What Are the Stages of the Customer Journey?

You may have heard in the past about the content marketing funnel, and the various stages like awareness (top of the funnel), consideration (middle of the funnel), and decision (bottom of the funnel). These are the steps that lead to a conversion. 

What about after the sale? 

Here’s a breakdown of all of the stages of the customer journey: 

1. Awareness

In the awareness stage, the customer has an issue, need, or problem to solve. They go about searching or finding a solution and come across your brand for the first time. 

How they find out about your brand matters:

• Different types of content are needed at different stages to encourage conversions. 
• They may have found you through a search engine, blog post, social media, or ads.

At this stage, they’re interested in the solution you provide.

However, your brand is probably not the only one out there offering this type of product or service, so they’ll eventually move on to the next stage — consideration. 

Learn more about repurposing content across the funnel. 

2. Consideration

At this stage in the customer journey, the customer is actively evaluating different solutions. 

They’re comparing you with your competition and seeing what you have to offer that’s better in terms of quality, price, selection, or other features.

They’re likely also reading reviews and testimonials from others to help inform their decision. 

3. Decision

The customer is ready to purchase by the decision point of the customer journey. 

Now all you have to do is nudge them into taking action with content that’s tailored to help them feel confident about doing so. 

This is also generally where most customer journey sales funnels end, since after the customer has purchased, it results in a conversion and, for many companies, that’s the ultimate goal. 

However, there are two more stages beyond the decision or conversion stage that need to be mentioned in order to understand the full customer journey. 

4. Retention

After the customer has made a purchase, it’s up to the brand to do everything they can to make the user experience as rewarding as possible. 

That could mean helping the customer get started with using the product, being available to answer questions or help them take their next steps, and so on. 

This stage is a key opportunity to set the stage for repeat conversions.

5. Advocacy

For customers who have a truly outstanding experience with the product, advocacy is the best of all possible stages of the journey. 

This is where customer loyalty is established and further, the customer is actively recommending your brand to others, which can help to generate more sales. 

Why the Customer Journey Matters in Content Marketing

So why is knowing all of this important? Well, as a content marketer, the more closely you tailor your content to the various stages of the funnel, the better your results will be. 

You wouldn’t ask a brand new customer who has just discovered your brand to leave you a review on social media, for example — they haven’t even made a purchase yet! 

Ensuring your content is aligned with where your customers are at throughout the different stages of the journey is crucial to making sure that their experience is stellar enough to establish brand loyalty. 

Here’s how to go about creating content that resonates with customers at different stages of the funnel: 

1. Awareness stage content

The beginning stage of content is all about knowledge. The customer has a problem, need, or concern, and they’re actively looking for solutions.

That’s why content at the awareness stage should focus on keeping your brand visible as they search. 

Awareness stage content examples: 

• Informative blog posts and articles that are optimized for search engines. 
• Visual breakdowns of more complex items or concepts such as infographics and social media campaigns. 
• Content that is built around guiding the user from “you have this problem” to “we have the solution.”

2. Consideration stage content

This is the stage where customers are evaluating all of their options. 

Consideration stage content examples:

• Comparison charts
• Testimonials
• Webinars
• Guides

Essentially, prioritize content that positions your brand’s product or service as the best possible option. 

The more you can make your consideration stage content visually digestible and easy to understand, the better your chances that the customer will ultimately choose you. 

3. Decision stage content

Content at this stage is meant to nudge the user toward a conversion. 

You want to make it easy for them to take action. 

Decision stage content examples:

• Product comparisons
• Demos
• Limited-time discount offer or coupon codes

Here, you want to highlight messaging that makes customers feel that “this deal is too good to pass up!” 

4. Retention stage content

Once the customer has their product or service, how do you continue to keep them engaged and involved with your brand? 

Retention stage content examples:

• Personalized recommendations based on previous purchases.
• If your brand has a loyalty program, share information about this.

Overall, in this stage, your content marketing should build on the initial conversion that makes customers want to keep coming back to your brand.

5. Advocacy stage content

The goal of advocacy content is to encourage the user to share and recommend the product. 

Advocacy stage content:

• Inform customers how they can leave a review.
• Encourage user-generated content (for example: share a photo on [social media platform] of [product] and tag [brand]).
• Organize contests to get them talking and recommending your brand to others. 

The key here is to keep customers talking about and continuing to engage with your product.

Final Thoughts

Understanding the complete customer journey, along with the content marketing funnel, is an excellent way to prepare content that encourages conversions — and keeps customers coming back.

Then, remember that not all customers experience the customer journey in the same way, and it may not always be a straight line from the beginning to the end of the funnel. 

Some customers may go from awareness to decision to advocacy, others may stay in consideration for a lengthy period of time.

Each customer is unique and deserves the best possible content to help them take the next step when they’re ready. 

Get a best-in-class suite of Originality.ai tools to streamline your editorial process with an AI Checker, Grammar Checker, and Plagiarism Checker.

Then, get more tips on how to build and strengthen your content marketing strategy:

• 10 Ways to Use AI to Identify Content Marketing Challenges in Your Strategy
• How to Create a Content Calendar in 11 Steps
• What Is GEO? An Overview of Generative Engine Optimization
• 11 Tips for Planning Web Content Marketing
• How Do I Address Customer Pain Points During the Customer Journey?