A buyer’s journey is no longer linear. Back in 2011, Google released their guide on search engine marketing with the famous Zero Moment of Truth theory. It outlines the fact that the moment customers realize that they want or need a product is the zero moment. It is then they will begin to search for it with an intent to buy.

It used to work based on analyzing “buying keywords” and understanding the searcher’s intention.

However, as more online channels like social media begin to appear and become part of a customer’s online buying experience, there is realization that the online buying journey is no longer so straightforward.

Today’s customers are on a fragmented journey instead of a linear path.

With their smartphone at their fingertips, this has allowed people to consume content on the go.

The average person spends about 50 minutes per day on their FB newsfeed. According to ReelSEO, there were over 4.4 million videos uploaded directly to Facebook in February 2016, generating over 199 billion views.

In addition to that, Americans spent an average of 6 hours per day checking email with the average amount of time spent checking per email increasing to 11.1 seconds. Again mobile is a huge reason with many checking their email on the go.

This fragmented buying journey has led to a new marketing term called “micro-moments”.  

According to Google, micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device - increasingly a smartphone - to act on a need to:

  • learn something
  • do something
  • discover something
  • watch something, or
  • buy something.

They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.

In 2017, the best way to reach out to your buyers is by having a strong congruent strategy that integrates your social media, blog and email marketing together.

By understanding the customer’s journey, we can start creating content that is complements the micro-moment that the customer is at.

Here are 4 reasons why integrating your online content such as your social media, blog and email marketing is a valuable strategy:

  • Congruence Leads To Consistency In Content Consumption

In order to build up a sense of confidence in your brand, consistency is key. By having a congruent strategy across all your social media platforms and blog, your brand’s visibility will be heightened.

When your potential customer learns something new by reading a blog post on your website - your brand has become present at that exact micro-moment.

The journey to arrive to that blog post could have been due to to several incoming paths:

  • Someone sharing that blog post link on FB
  • From your company’s Twitter account
  • An employee sharing that blog post link as an update on LinkedIn
  • A searcher clicking on an Google’s search results page displayed on their mobile browser
  • From someone’s email who was forwarded that blog post link

As you can see, the permutations are many and countless that can bring traffic to your website and eventually your blog. While the journey might be fragmented, the congruent strategy will ensure that your content is consumed.

  • Persuasion doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered

According to Robert Cialdini’s latest book “Pre-Suasion”, that key moment is the one that allows a communicator to create a state of mind in recipients that is consistent with the forthcoming message. It’s the moment in which we can arrange for others to be attuned to our message before they encounter it.

Pre-suasion basically gets people sympathetic to your message before they experience the actual message.

By integrating social media, blog and email marketing together, it creates that presence that is “primed” to increase persuasion.

Integrating the various platforms together for your brand provides the ability to let people to have something that remains at the top of their consciousness - making them receptive to your message that’s yet to come.

An encounter with your Facebook post primes your future customer with your brand’s presence. An encounter with your “how-to” blog post primes your future customer with your expertise. An encounter with your personalized email allows for an intimate setting where they can feel acknowledged.

That’s when the selling can begin.

  • Multiple Touch Points Leads To Higher Conversion

In Marcus Sheridan’s book “They Ask, You Answer”, he shared an interesting statistic he gathered regarding the behaviour of his website visitors.

He was comparing two groups of people who had filled out the “I want to get a quote” form on his swimming pool website.

Both groups of people had shown they’d gained enough trust to potentially want to do business with his swimming pool company. But he noticed there was a BIG difference between the two groups.

  • The first group filled up the form but ended up not buying.
  • The second group filled up the form but ended up buying.

Based on his website’s Hubspot analytics data, he discovered that if someone read 30 or more pages of the website before the initial sales appointment, they would buy 80 percent of the time.

By contrast, if they didn’t read 30 or more pages, the average closing rate in terms of appointment-to-sale was only 20 percent.

Each time a person consumed content on a brand’s platform - whether it is social media, a blog post or email - that process allows the person to go through a self-qualifying process. The trust factor continues to increase.

At the end of the process, they will decide if they wish to proceed to purchase or not - eventually.

How does this self-qualifying process help your business?

Your various content pieces - whether is it your blog, social media or emails have done the heavy lifting for you. A higher conversion rate means more sales with the same amount of leads. This results in more revenue in a shorter amount of time.

  • Email marketing gives you permission to have a longer relationship

For larger ticket items, the customer journey can be much longer. They need time to research, discover competing brands, make comparisons and discuss first before making a decision.

That increased period of time (which could be months or years) can mean the risk of losing the relationship before a purchase could happen.

You will need their permission to continue the relationship. That permission needs to be given - it is a required prerequisite in order to ensure relevance.

By capturing their email address earlier in the customer journey, this provides more time to nurture and build up a relationship.

Their email gives you an opportunity to provide valuable content that can potentially lead to them buying.  

According to a study by Business Insider, millennials are not buying products through social media. However they use social media to research on a product before buying. This means that brands and retailers must maintain strong presences on Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and more.

At the same time, it also seems that millennials use emails just as much as everyone else - thanks to smartphones.

With their email address, you know you will have a captive audience and a potentially greater ROI on your marketing costs. (The ROI of email is 3800% according to the Direct Marketing Association.)

Conclusion

In running and growing your business, you will need to own the platforms you used - like your blog and email database. Social media is a means to disseminate your content but you never truly own it - you are subject to the terms & conditions of that social media channel.

But when you integrate all of them with a congruent marketing strategy, these various channels and platforms helps build a valuable pipeline of incoming visitors, email subscribers and sales.

The various pieces of content that you bring out to the world can potentially reach out to a 1000 people or even a million. There are no limits. If your content is evergreen, it can continue to sell for you for years and will never ask for a sales commission.

What your content integration can do continuously and consistently - is to answer the questions and concerns of your future customers. And ultimately that’s what your prospects care about - seeing what they’re going to spend their money on.

Marcus Sheridan states it succinctly. He mentions that your customer needs to see what is going on - “In the eyes of the consumer, if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”