Did you know your audience journeys through a customer purchase life cycle? To hit the ground running, it’s vital to wrap your head around this affiliate marketing cycle. Get this down pat early, and you’re on track to attract loyal customers to your brand. This ensures your long-term success.
Knowing about this customer purchase life cycle means you can tailor your content and marketing so you can lead customers through this cycle to the ultimate purchase. Let’s look at these three critical stages and how they can impact your efforts…
1. Awareness Stage
As an affiliate marketer, your job is to position yourself as the trusted expert in your niche. You’re the ‘go-to’ person for help and information and the place for your audience to find solutions to their problems.
The Awareness Stage is where your audience is searching for solutions to their problems. You want them to find you and your valuable answers.
You can engage with them through a variety of channels, such as top-quality blog posts, social media, organic search, YouTube videos, and email marketing.
Your role here is to create engaging content that grabs the customer’s attention, piques their interest, and solves their problem.
Blog Posts to Create
For example, for a beauty blog, the problem is oily skin. You could write helpful and informative blog posts…
- What does oily skin look like?
- Why do I have oily skin?
- How do you get rid of oily skin naturally?
- When to use toner for oily skin?
- Will my oily face go away?
Things To Do
Tell the world! It doesn’t have to cost money to promote your blog posts. Free channels include Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Quora, and Reddit. Use Canva to create YouTube videos, Instagram visuals, and Pinterest pins.
Engage Them: Offer actionable insights and recommendations in your content. Include visuals like images, infographics, and videos to make your posts more engaging.
Follow Best SEO Practice: Find the keywords that people are searching for – and this doesn’t have to cost money either. For example, the oily skin examples above I found on Google’s ‘People Also Ask’. These are up-to-the-minute searches people are asking Google right now!
See more posts about Keyword Research
- The Jaaxy Keyword Tool for High-Performance Keywords
- Unlock Your Audience’s Secret Questions with AlsoAsked
- The Hoth Keyword Tool
2. Consideration Stage
This is the stage where your audience is looking at products to solve their problems. Once they’re aware of the product, they wonder whether they need it or want it.
Your job here is to tell them they do and why it’s perfect for them, by providing detailed information about the product, with benefits, and features.
At this stage they’re doing their research and comparison shopping. So, DO the work for them. Instead of looking at loads of websites they can come to your blog for your expert opinion on the product/s.
To Do: Link the Awareness Stage helpful posts to these money pages…
Blog Posts to Create (your money pages)
- Best of Posts
- Comparison Posts
- List Posts
- Review Posts
- Round Up Posts
- Landing Page for a Product or Service
1. You can offer comparisons with similar products and discuss any concerns or questions the customer may have.
2. You can write reviews of products, the outcome may be positive or negative. If it’s negative then recommend another product.
3. Customer testimonials are always a great item to add to your posts. For example, I add guest reviews to my accommodation website articles.
Example: Shall I buy a Hoka Speedgoat 5 Hiking Shoe or a Salomon X Ultra 4 GTX Hiking Shoe?
See how this website compares the hiking shoes and tells you their best picks for specific hiking scenarios (e.g. off-trail scrambling) and specific customers (e.g. budget).
Email Marketing
Promote your affiliate products in emails to your readership. You can segment your audience and tailor your message just for them. It’s a smart move because it’s personal and they expect to receive recommendations from you.
More About Email Marketing
- Is ActiveCampaign Good for Email Marketing?
- Is AWeber Good for Email Marketing? (A Definitive Deep Dive)
- Why is Email Marketing a Good Strategy for Niche Bloggers?
3. Conversion (Purchase) Stage
With affiliate marketing it’s easy to get excited by the number of clicks you get, but clicks are nothing compared to actually making a sale.
Conversion is the point where the customer makes the purchase (ka-ching!) Your role is to ensure that conversion process is smooth and easy for them.
- On your landing page or post provide a clear call to action, e.g. a Button or a Text Link
- Offer discounts if your affiliate program offers these
- Create a sense of urgency by promoting limited-time offers
- Make sure the affiliate link is up-to-date and works
Key Tips
Research and promote affiliate products and services that are good quality and that you trust. They don’t have to always be top-of-the-line, think of a range of budgets, and always consider your target audience.
You don’t have to sign up to a thousand affiliate programs. Maintain your consistency with what you promote and don’t confuse your audience. If your blog’s niche is train travel in France, don’t try promoting gaming!
Key Takeaways for The Customer Purchase Life Cycle
To master the Customer Purchase Life Cycle position yourself as the authority in your niche, guide your readers through awareness, consideration, and ultimately to conversion with confidence and expertise. You also create enduring connections with your audience.
Now, take these insights, apply them to your strategy, and watch as your efforts translate into meaningful engagement and a thriving affiliate business.
Your next step? create content that aligns with the customer lifecycle stages, promote your blog, and refine your calls to action for maximum conversion.
Your path to long-term success includes hard work, and cultivating genuine trust as you become a pivotal resource on your audience’s journey.
P.S. Hi Friends – I hope this blog post has benefited you and you’ve gained some insights. Check out my latest value-packed posts about niche blogging and affiliate marketing to help your business progress.
Please share if you think this will help your friends and networks. Also, see my Number 1 recommendation for the top blog training online where I learned the craft.
Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about this post!
To your success, Alisa
