The Buyer’s Journey: Awareness Stage (Top of the Funnel)

When you’re planning out your outreach strategy for improving lead generation, the first step is understanding the distinct phases of the buyer’s journey. 

Being able to communicate effectively with potential customers in these different stages will not only improve your marketing but will also help you move your customers through your sales funnel that much more effectively. 

If you’re struggling to segment your marketing strategy to appeal to buyers in the awareness stage, this post will help. 

We’ll help you understand this first, crucial stage of your buyer’s journey and give you some specific outreach strategies you can implement to close more sales.

Wondering what factors affect buyer behavior? There are four interesting factors you need to know to improve your sales strategies – find out what they are in this guide. 

What is the Awareness Stage?

The buyer journey is broken down into three distinct stages, each representing a different part of the journey a buyer must go through to become a paying customer:

• The Awareness Stage: The buyer has a problem and has begun looking for a solution. They’re not familiar with your brand but may come across you during their initial research. 
• The Consideration Stage: The buyer has found a solution to their problem and is now researching specific businesses to create a shortlist to buy from. 
• Decision Stage: The buyer has made a decision to make a purchase and will now contact your business – this is where it’s your sales team’s job to close the deal. 

The awareness stage is the first phase of the buyer journey. During this stage, the buyer has begun to experience negative symptoms associated with a problem and is attempting to figure out the issue.

In the B2B market, this could be:

• A supply chain issue causing delays
• Slow software that is slowing down their sales
• Issues with acquiring new clients
• Problems with delivery
• And much more

Although the buyer may not know there is a product or service that can solve their problem, they are aware of the issue and are beginning to look for solutions. 

The Goals of the Awareness Stage

The ultimate goal of the awareness stage is to educate potential buyers and show them your product or service solves a specific problem. 

You do this by creating informative, valuable content that shows you understand the problem your audience is facing and you have the solutions they need. 

There is no point in marketing your product or service to buyers in the awareness stage – they are not ready to buy yet. 

Instead, your goal is to position yourself as an expert in the industry and build up that trust you need to be a contender when the buyer moves onto the next stage – consideration. 

By focusing on nurturing potential leads, you’ll reduce drop-offs and see more potential buyers move through your funnel.  

B2B Outbound Marketing Strategies and Tips for the Awareness Stage

When you’re planning your outreach strategy for the awareness stage, think of it as the very top of your sales funnel. 

Your aim is to capture the attention of potential customers and get them into the funnel so they can move along to the next stages. 

Content creation is the best marketing strategy for buyers in the awareness stage. But going a step further, your content should answer some key questions buyers will have: 

What Is Your Brand USP?

Potential customers in the awareness stage don’t know your brand yet, so you need to quickly and effectively communicate who you are, who you help, and what problem you solve.  

How to Achieve This: 

• Write a compelling About Page that communicates your brand values and the people behind your brand. 
• Create content that highlights the problems your audience is facing and position your product or service as a solution.
• Write in-depth guides and articles for your website that are SEO optimized to get hits whenever your ideal audience research using Google keywords.  
• Position your brand as an expert and trusted entity by giving free resources and tools that your audience can use on their buyer journey. 

Why Should Potential Clients Care?

Your marketing efforts need to take things a step further and demonstrate to your potential audience why they should care about your product or service. 

Even when buyers are experiencing a problem, they need to be convinced that the benefit of a product or service outweighs the potential negative consequences of implementing a change.

By focusing on the benefits your audience will experience you not only show them why they should care about your product or service, but you also establish your brand as the best option on the market.  

How to Achieve This: 

• Don’t focus on promotions or sales, instead, write content that highlights the benefits of your product or service – what improvements will your buyer experience?
• Explain how your product or service is a solution by providing case studies or testimonials from previous customers.
• Create informative how-to videos or create webinars that highlight the value of your product or service and how easy it is for your customer to implement. 

What’s the Result for Potential Clients if They Don’t Act?

Clients respond more significantly to avoid loss than to experience gain, so your B2B outbound marketing strategies should also highlight the potential results your audience will experience if they take no action. 

If you can highlight potential losses in facts or statistics, you’ll touch on the pain point much more quickly and nudge clients into the next stage of the buyer journey that much faster.

How to Achieve This: 

• Provide stats or case studies showing the potential loss a client might experience without your product or service. 
• Include numbers, percentages, or real-life results in your content to make the loss feel real to your audience. 

Outreach Strategy Forms for the Awareness Stage

We can drill down outreach strategies further to the specific type of content that works well for buyers in the awareness stage.

Create a range of content for your audience that informs, offers value, and helps your business show up in Google rankings during initial searches. 

Articles and Blog Posts

Long-form blog posts are one of the best types of content to create for buyers in the awareness stage. You should have at least 10 to 15 pieces of pillar content on your website that are optimized for key terms your buyers are searching for. Each article should focus on a specific problem, show the buyer you understand their current position, and then offer solutions. 

Blogs should offer free value that helps buyers on their journey without being overly promotional. Remember, buyers in the awareness phase aren’t ready to buy yet, so these blogs should focus on education and free value. Your overall goal is to get new clients to your website to grow brand recognition and build trust. 

Videos

Video tutorials, product demos, and explainers are popular forms of content and help buyers implement solutions quickly. By having video content, you also open up your content to a wider audience. Some examples of the types of videos you can include on your website and social channels include:

• Brand introductions
• How-to videos
• Product demos
• Documentaries
• Question & answer videos

Social Media Posts

It’s crucial to stay consistent on social media to build trust with your audience. Although social media is a great place to promote your products, sales, and offers to potential buyers in the consideration and decision stage, it’s also a great place to educate.

Regularly share posts that will appeal to your buyers in the awareness stage, including:

• Infographics
• Behind-the-scenes of your brand
• FAQs
• Testimonials and case studies
• Industry news
• Links to your informational blog posts

How to Push Potential Customers to the Next Stage

Clients are in research mode in the awareness stage, so to get them to the next stage, you need to help them understand their problem and the solutions available. 

By creating a solid content marketing strategy that offers valuable, informative content, you’ll naturally nudge your buyers into the next phase – the consideration stage. 

The longer you can keep your buyers interested in your brand, the more likely they are to think of you when they are ready to make a purchase.

Staying in touch with buyers

One of the best ways to ensure your brand is top of mind when buyers are ready to make a purchase is to provide consistent communication. Email drip marketing allows you to consistently show up in your potential buyer’s inbox, provide value, and slowly nudge them along your sales funnel. 

With Bant.io as your lead generation marketing agency, you can easily stay in touch with your potential clients through high-performing email marketing, retargeting PPC campaigns, automated social media posting, and even AI chatbots. 

All of our automated marketing resources allow you to communicate effectively with buyers in the awareness stage, nudge them along into the consideration stage, and lead score effectively so your sales team can focus on talking to only the best leads.  

Automate the Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is crucial since it sets the foundation for the other stages of the buyer journey. But since these clients are right at the top of your sales funnel, they’re cold prospects at best.

The last thing you want is your sales team spending too much time trying to boost brand awareness when they could be focusing on closing deals with warm leads. 
Automating the awareness stage means your business can stay in touch with potential buyers, build trust, and move them through your sales funnel quickly. Make sure you engage with your buyers effectively and schedule a demo today and automate your outreach with our experienced lead generation marketing agency.