Small Business B2B Marketing Blog

This small business web marketing strategy guide is easy to implement and can actually save time and money building your business on the Web.

The Internet is a big universe filled with many potential customers maybe yours, if you know how to communicate with them. Knowing how to communicate is the essence of converting your website visitors into sales. Understanding where your potential customer might be in the buying cycle and how to communicate with them to move them from their current position to a sale is the benefit of customer centric web marketing.

Your customer will go through at least 4 and possible 5 stages in the typical buying cycle. These stages are as follows:

Customer Buying Cycle Stages

1. Realization/Awareness

2. Contemplation

3. Tendency/Target

4. Purchase

5. Possible - Repurchase

The best way to communicate with your potential customers is to develop customer centric marketing messages marketing message that speak to your potential customer at every stage of the buying cycle. This way you can facilitate conversion of your customer at any and through all the stages of the buying cycle.

Keywords that visitors use to find your website is the first place to uncover what message you need to be sending to a particular website visitor. Keywords help us identify where in the buying cycle a visitor to your website is at that moment.

Let’s take a look at how keywords can tip you off on what messages to be sending your visitors. Below are some typical keyword phrases for someone searching for IT networking support.

Search Phrases

• “It networking support”

• “types of IT networking support options”

• “small business IT networking support”

• “small business IT networking support Atlanta”

• “flat rate small business IT networking support Atlanta”

Each of these keyword phrases gives us clues to identify where in the buying cycle your potential website visitor is relative to making a purchase decision. With these clues, we can begin to develop the customer centric marketing messages to deliver as part of converting a visitor at every stage in the buying cycle.

What These Keyword Searches Mean in Relation to the Buying Cycle -

• It networking support = Realization/Awareness or the investigative beginning of the buying cycle
         
• Types of IT networking support options = Contemplation or the beginning of a more serious consideration of the subject
   
•  Small business IT networking support = Tendency/Target how does the subject apply to my needs more specifically
   
• Small business IT networking support Atlanta = Possible Purchase
   
• Flat rate small business IT networking support Atlanta = Purchase?

Now that we have identified the buying cycle stage of your website visitors through keyword searches, we can begin to develop customer centric message strategies that will help move your visitors through the buying cycle.

Realization/Awareness
Customer centric messages in the Realization/Awareness stage will focus on helping the visitor to increase their awareness of the subject they searched on, in this case IT networking support.

Your marketing message goal for visitors in this stage is to:

• Reinforce your knowledge and provide resources for the subject to enhance their understanding 

• Use relevant and valuable content to maximize being found by search engines 

• Nurture your visitor to the next stage in the buying cycle with appropriate calls to action

Examples of on page marketing tactics in this stage include:

• Use your keyword in the title of the page – It Networking Support - How it Increase Sales 

• Use a button to move visitors to the next stage of the buying cycle – Free Networking Audit  

• Provide additional resources in the form of articles or white papers for download 

• Create content with an anchor text link that moves visitors to the next stage

Contemplation
Customer centric messages in the Contemplation stage will focus on helping the visitor to discover your company is the best choice for the subject of IT networking support.

Your marketing message goal for visitors in this stage is to:

• Provide reviews, application stories and case studies to display why you are the bestchoice
   
• Highlight some key benefits of your services
   
• Use your unique selling and value propositions to differentiate your firm from the competition
   
• Drive traffic to social media to increase your search engine marking efforts

Examples of on page marketing tactics in this stage include:

• Offer dedicated navigation to establish your best choice goal with - Why Your Firm
   
• Provide unbiased, third party validation – customer profiles, testimonials
   
• Highlight any awards, unique applications of problem solving, and thought leadership examples

Stay tuned for Part II. We will be completing the remaining stages in the buying cycleand provide more website sales lead generation insights into converting your website visitors into sales.

Takeaway
Keywords offer valuable clues into the stage of the buying cycle of your websitevisitors. Capitalizing upon these clues with customer centric web marketing content can help small business convert more visitors into sales.