Mapping Your Buyer’s Level of Awareness to The Buyer’s Journey

Posted by Marie Gagne on May 26, 2017

Earlier this month, we posted two separate blogs on the Buyer’s Journey and Developing your B2B Buyer Personas, both of which are critical to your Inbound Marketing strategy. If you didn’t get a chance to read them, here's a quick overview.

Your Buyer Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. Developing your personas is a critical first step to your Inbound Marketing strategy, as it tells every member of your team who your primary customers are and how to engage with them. Personas drive content creation process, campaign development, and lead nurturing.

The Buyer’s Journey, on the other hand, is the process that your potential buyer goes through before the make their final purchase. There are three stages to the buyer’s journey.

Awareness (Top of the Funnel) – the buyer becomes AWARE of a challenge or opportunity, and are looking for answers, resources and education to better understand it.

Consideration (Middle of the Funnel) – the buyer is CONSIDERING the different solutions, and is looking for information that can educate them on their choices.

Decision (Bottom of the Funnel) – the buyer is ready to make a DECISION and is looking for information that will tell them exactly what they must do to become a customer.

Before you start working on the Buyer’s Journey, it's important that you have a strong understanding of your personas. This way, you can be sure that the journey aligns with the audience you are targeting.

The problem is, not every visitor is at the Top of the Funnel (Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey) when they arrive at your website. Some already have a full understanding of your product, while others know nothing at all.

Luckily, Eugene Schwartz, author of Breakthrough Advertising, has outlined five awareness levels that will help mitigate this issue and identify where different buyers will most likely enter the funnel.

  1. Most Aware – Buyers with this level of awareness are already sold on your product and service and are just looking for a few final details. They are in the decision stage and they just need the facts about the product and price.

  2. Product Aware – Buyers with this level of awareness are familiar with your brand, and even your product or service, but they are still questioning whether it is a good fit. They are looking for information specific to the features and perceived benefits, and how they compare to competitors. These buyers are often at the end of the consideration stage or beginning of the decision stage.

  3. Solution Aware – Buyers with this level of awareness know what results they hope to achieve and they know there are solutions but they are not sure if you can help. They may not even know your product exists. These buyers are in the consideration stage and are looking for claims and proof regarding the viability of your solution. Case studies, testimonials and certifications are all useful for these buyers.

  4. Problem Aware – Buyer’s with this level of awareness believe that they have a problem/need but they don’t know if any solution exists. They are at the beginning of the consideration stage – they have identified the problem but not the solution. At this level, your buyer will respond best to information targeting the benefits gained as well as content that focuses on the universal anxieties felt by people experiencing this problem.

  5. Not Aware – Buyer’s with this level of awareness have no idea about the solution or brand. They may not even realize there is a problem or opportunity yet. This buyer is in the beginning of the Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey and is looking for information about what their problem is or, in some cases, that there is a problem.

The closer the prospective buyer is to being most aware, the quicker you can guide them towards the final purchase, as they are closer to the bottom of the funnel. On the other hand, the closer they are to not aware, the more time you will have to spend guiding them through the buyer’s journey.

Knowing the levels of awareness that your buyers are most likely experiencing, when they arrive at your website, is critical to the implementation of a successful marketing strategy, as it will help you determine the flow of information you should be providing to each visitor.

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THE BRIT AGENCY is a certified Gold Tier Hubspot Partner, a HubSpot COS certified Inbound Website Design Agency, a Shopify eCommerce Partner, and a certified "Google Badged Agency Partner". We have offices in Toronto and Barrie, Canada, and Salisbury, UK.

Topics: Inbound Marketing