The Consideration Stage is a special part of the buyer’s journey. It is a pivotal point that could make or break your marketing campaign. The consideration stage means that the prospect is considering various different solutions to their problem that they have been provided by marketers. And that includes your business’ plans and products! Your job during this stage of the buyers journey is to inform the buyer that your plan will be the most effective and valuable solution. The way to do that is by creating content that is engaging and that delights. They are not yet in the buying stage, they are in the educational stage of learning about the solutions to their problem. So content for this stage should not be urging them to buy, yet. Instead, it should be highly educational in nature.
To create content for this stage, first you need to have buyer personas. Targeting your audience effectively will mean segmenting them so you can create content that is engaging for them and not interrupting their normal media consumption. Content should fit in seamlessly to what prospects willingly search for in media. This will engage them and delight them rather than interrupt them, when content interrupts prospects the message of the content falls to background noise. This is exactly what you want to avoid. Creating engaging content means speaking to the buyer persona’s interests in the channels they actively engage in.
Create Educational Content that Focuses on the Problem
At this point of the buyer’s journey the prospect is looking to research more about the problem they discovered during the awareness stage of the buyer's journey. Early on in this stage, they are not necessarily looking to solve the problem, but rather research more on the problem itself.
Educational content, in this stage, is what prospects will be actively searching for. By delivering this content to them, they will be both engaged and delighted. Some examples of great educational content are glossaries, case studies, and informational blogs. These pieces of content should be longer than content you will create for the awareness and decision stages. This is because prospects tend to spend the most amount of time in this stage. There should be a lot of information for them to shift through, this will keep them engaged with your content for longer.
If writing long documents does not sound appealing to your or not fitting to your business, consider other media. Videos can be very educational and detailed. Prospects may even be more likely to be engaged with this type of content. These videos may be easy to create as educational videos can be created using software such as Canva.
Content Should Acknowledge Solutions
Your content for the consideration stage should not only reach your prospects and engage them, but move them along the buyer's journey to the final stage. If your content fails to do this, then you are simply offering free information for people with problems, but not really providing them with a practical solution. This may even frustrate your prospects. There is a very high likelihood that the problems your prospects are facing are frustrating them, and they are looking for the most efficient way to solve them. While you want to provide them with the most amount of information on the problem first so that they can make an informed decision, you want to keep your end goal in mind the entire time.
There are several ways to steer your audiences to a solution during the consideration stage. While it may feel natural to provide solutions towards the end of your educational content, this way is not always the most effective. Blogs and other content are not always read all the way through, so if you save solutions to the problem towards the end or even the middle of your blog, prospects will look elsewhere.
Solutions should not come in the form of calls to action (for buying your product), because prospects are not ready for those offers yet. Calls to action are okay if they are in the form of “learn more” or “schedule for a free quote.”
Create Interactive Content
One of the best ways to engage your audience is by creating an asset that they can literally engage in. This content should be relevant to their problem and should be focused on giving more targeted information that steers prospects towards a solution. For instance, a calculator is a great consideration stage tool, it provides contacts with more information with the problem they are facing as well as an idea of what the solution will be. A cost calculator will help prospects gauge the severity of their problem, how much the problem has been costing them, and how a solution (your product) will save them.
But perhaps a cost calculator does not fit your product, no need to worry there are tons of other interactive content you can build! Quizzes are known for their popularity and functions similarly to a calculator but it is less focused on numerical measurements, which is perfect if the value of your product is not necessarily measured in a traditional way. Quizzes are quick, personal, and give prospects insights that they did not realize before. Quizzes can be used as a diagnostic tool, such as “What is Causing Your Business to Leads During the Consideration Stage.” Or they can help identify a solution such as “ What College Degree is Right for You.” You can provide multiple quizzes to help leads move through the funnel.
The consideration stage is a critical part of the buyer's journey, your business will need to stand out as prospects move to the decision stage. Engaging content that is informative and educational to remain at the top of prospect’s short list of potential solutions.
