Your Audience’s Awareness Level Matters

Review of a messaging flow on the sales page and the B.E.L.T. Method

Advertising and selling is all about storytelling. The more engaging and relevant your story is, the more sales it will generate.

The challenge is that the story needs to be personalised for each potential buyer. While it’s impossible to create a unique message for everyone, there are ways to adjust it to different parts of the funnel. For that, we look at the relationship we have already built with the audience and how aware they are of the problem, solution to this problem and how your product or service can help them.

In this post I’m going to share what your product message should look like for different audiences and the B.E.L.T. Method for social media marketing, which is also based on awareness level segmentation and targeting. These topics were covered in the CXL Institute courses, which I took this week: Product Messaging & Facebook ads. This is a review of my learning highlights.

Humans tend to arrange their thought sequences in story. That’s the way humans think. A good story is memorable and encourages a person to act. That’s why storytelling is critical to selling.

Normally a narrative begins with an exposition, follows up with a rising action, reaches climax and ends in resolution. Such framework is also applicable to product messaging with some specifications for the field.

You definitely need a setting first. Once people land on your page, show and tell them what you’re selling and for whom. From there on, describe your features and benefits and identify how the solution relates to the setting. In the meantime, you need to build excitement and anticipation around the solution you offer. At the pinnacle of this excitement, the “story” reaches the climax. That’s when you pitch the sale or offer. When you encourage users/leads to act, you help them overcome their anxieties and inner friction. At this point it’s also critical to add incentives so that it’s easier for prospects to get over the hurdle. The resolution is basically a post-conversion user-experience.

In a nutshell, the messaging framework can be summarised in the following sequence:

Clarifying Motivation> Making a Value Proposition > Addressing Anxieties (addressing skeptical thoughts and objections)> Call-to-Action with Incentives

However this story arc changes greatly depending on the audience’s awareness. If users or website visitors are at the lower awareness level, then you need to spend more time on the pain points and your product solution and maybe create a longer copy.

High aware audiences don’t want to hear about any pains because they already know the product. Telling about the problem is redundant and unnecessary as customers are already emotionally engaged and motivated to buy from you. That’s why you can go for a shorter copy and focus on incentives.

So, the main takeaway here is that you need to know who is coming to your website, with what motivation and prior experiences with your brand.

The concept of awareness is important not only for copywriting but also driving traffic to the website and generating sales through Facebook ads by targeting audiences at the Top, Middle and Bottom of the Funnel. One of the most effective methods is B.E.L.T.:

• Belief
• Engage
• Lead
• Transact.

1. Belief

At this point potential customers may or may not be aware that they have a pain or a problem, that there may be a solution to that problem, and that your product or service could solve that problem. It’s actually your job to help them believe they have certain needs or problems and there is a way to solve them.

You want to help the audience realise that there is a need for something and your product or service can fulfil this need. The main goal is awareness of the problem and the product.

2. Engage

Here the prospects are already aware of a problem and that your product or service can resolve it. So, you help the audience evaluate why your product or offer is the best solution specifically for their needs. The goal is to nurture and engage the prospects as they have identified themselves as potential customers within your original targeting by engaging with your ‘Belief’ ad campaign.

3. Lead

Lead the audience to your solution by offering them value in exchange for a piece of information. The aim is to turn a prospect into a lead.

In this part of customer journey the prospect should be already product-focused and your messaging should give your prospects support, potential solutions, and the ability to actually make a purchase from you. You really do need to lead them to your sales presentation or offer.

4. Transact

This happens at the end of customer journey and the event is transaction — that’s something you want after all! The goal is to get leads perform a transaction. At this stage you are retargeting to drive sales from people who have been through the funnel stages and are ready to make a purchase decision.

The B.E.L.T. Method is all about building the belief system and a rapport with the target audience that eventually leads to the transaction. With the B.E.L.T Method you look beyond mere clicks and cost per click and look at the bigger picture.

I would like to add what else was covered in the Facebook Ads course. The Instructor looked at different ad formats and their best implementation practices. I also learned what targeting options I have and how to set them up. We also touched upon the technical side of tracking and targeting with Facebook pixels. What’s more the course included classes on segmentation based on email lists, website traffic and engaged video viewers.

This has been the 10th week of my Growth Marketing program at CXL Institute. My learning journey with CXL is coming to an end and this definitely upsets me a bit. But this also means I need to make the most of my concluding courses. Looking forward to even more exciting courses next week!