How to generate new leads by telling your story
How to generate inbound leads by telling your story
Aristotle was an expert on inbound marketing lead generation! He wrote something relevant to anyone trying to win new customers with inbound, which can be summarised in three words: beginning; middle; and end.
In inbound marketing, your messaging and content (blog posts, emails, eBooks etc.) are your story and the buyer personas, your audience (if you don’t know what a buyer persona is, download our quickstart guide using the link at the bottom of this post).
Good messaging and content draws your buyers along a journey, informing and often entertaining them. This journey is the story you’re telling, and Aristotle said a good story should have a beginning, middle and end.
The Buyer’s Journey – The Beginning, middle and end of your inbound campaign story
Beginning: The Awareness Stage This is the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. Here you’re helping your potential customers to understand that they have a need that must be fulfilled. They have a problem and now they need information to help them diagnose the potential causes.
Middle: The Consideration Stage This is middle of the funnel. Your potential customer knows the source of their problem, has an idea of the different solutions, and is considering their options. At this stage, the buyer wants to educate themselves on their choices. You’re still being helpful with content, but you’re more focused on making them consider your product or service as a solution to their problem.
End: The Decision Stage This is bottom of the funnel. The buyer here is looking to make a decision. You want to support that with purchasing guides, comparison charts, ROI calculators, checklists and webinars. And don’t forget, you’ll probably want to include your sales team too. The buyer will want to speak to someone.
Each piece of content you create for a campaign will target a specific buyer persona (your audience) and fit into one of these buyer’s journey stages, capturing your audience’s attention, just like the components of a good story.