Smarter Marketing Starts with the Buyer Journey

Marketing success rarely comes from random acts of content. It’s about precision—matching the right message to the right audience at the exact moment they need it. That’s where a well-mapped buyer journey comes into play. 

When you align your marketing strategy to the stages your buyer actually goes through in their decision-making process, magic happens.

At Wheels Up Collective, we’re obsessed with making your marketing work harder for you. Let’s walk through the stages of the buyer journey. Along the way, we’ll share strategies you can use to meet your audience where they are and help them move forward with confidence.

The Buyer Journey, Decoded

Your buyers don’t wake up one day and decide to work with you. Their journey follows a predictable path from curiosity to commitment. 

Here’s how we see it:

1. Awareness: A Spark of Curiosity 

At this stage, your future customers are thinking about a problem they have—a problem they might not know is solvable by a product or service like yours. When they come across your content, they might think “I didn’t know I could solve this problem that way,” or “what is this? I’ve never even heard of this solution but it seems relevant to my struggle.” Curiosity is taking the wheel. Your job? Light the spark.

• Marketing Goal: Capture attention

• Lead Stage: These are early-stage leads—people just starting to explore

• Lead Milestone: You’ve captured their contact information

• Tactics That Win: Speaking engagements, thought-leadership blog posts, beginner’s guides, and shareable whitepapers

• Amplification Channels: SEO content, organic social posts, LinkedIn campaigns, targeted ads, industry events and awards, press, and partner channels 

2. Education: The Quest for Knowledge

 

Here’s where your buyers are asking the big questions: “What problems can this product or service solve?” and  “How does this fit my team’s needs?” They’re building their case—to themselves and probably also to their stakeholders.

• Marketing Goal: Educate and inform, arm your potential champions with data they need to make their case

• Lead Stage: Here, you’re talking to marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), they’re actively consuming your content

• Lead Milestone: They’ve opted into communications and have a lead score greater than 100

• Tactics That Win: Explainer videos, webinars, and in-depth whitepapers showcasing your solutions

• Amplification Channels: Targeted email campaigns, newsletters, webinars, paid social and retargeting ads, and account-based marketing strategies

3. Selection: The Big Decision 

Your buyers are narrowing their options. They’re asking, “Is this the right solution? Does this make me look good to my team?”

• Marketing Goal: Build trust and reduce friction

• Lead Stage: These are sales-qualified leads (SQLs), they’re ready to make their move

• Lead Milestone: You’ve had a discovery call and confirmed their budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT)

• Tactics That Win: Case studies, earned media, ROI calculators, and side-by-side competitive analysis

• Amplification Channels: Solutions pages, retargeting ads, targeted email campaigns, and customer-focused webinars

4. Purchase: The Leap of Faith

The deal’s on the table. Buyers want to know they’re making a solid investment. At this stage, reassurance is everything.

• Marketing Goal: Close the deal

• Lead Stage: You’re talking to opportunities, this is a real potential buyer and it’s go time

• Lead Milestone: You’ve presented the deal

• Tactics That Win: Outreach from subject matter experts, peer validation through testimonials, implementation guides, clear pricing structures, and compelling case studies with lookalike use cases

• Amplification Channels: Direct sales enablement support and well-timed follow-ups

5. Retention and Growth: The Long Game

Once the deal is done, the journey isn’t over. Your new customers will be wondering if they got their money’s worth, who at your company can help them make the most of their investment, and what they should do next.

• Marketing Goal: Strengthen relationships and expand accounts

• Lead Stage: Customers who could become loyal advocates

• Lead Milestone: Contract executed, customer onboarding

• Tactics That Win: User conferences, community events, product-focused content that fuels engagement, robust customer support, and effective onboarding

• Amplification Channels: Co-pitching opportunities and community-driven PR initiatives

Each stage of the buyer journey calls for different tools and tactics. Think about your own process when making a big purchase. You probably heard about a cool new gadget via organic social posts and ads, word-of-mouth recommendations, or a mention in an article well before you sat down with a half-hour YouTube video that explains how to install it. You might not have realized it at the time, but each of those prior interactions played a role in getting you to buy and install that product. That’s what your marketing campaigns can do for potential buyers.

Making sure that you’re delivering your marketing message through the right channel is just as important as the content of your message. Misalignment can mean the difference between a prospect clicking “Schedule a Demo” or ghosting you altogether. When you pair the right content with the right amplification channels, you build trust, credibility, and momentum.

But let’s be real: this level of precision doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of thoughtful planning, crystal-clear goals, and a relentless commitment to meeting your audience’s needs. 

Ready to give it a try? Here’s how:

• Identify Buyer Consideration Questions: If you don’t already have your solution’s consideration questions mapped, grab some post-it notes and a standout member of your sales team and get to brainstorming! Jot down the things prospects need to understand before they buy. Try to think outside your solution and focus on the problems that you solve. You want your consideration questions to be about the decisions your prospects need to make to solve their problems—which doesn’t always align with how marketing talks about their products or solutions!

• Organize the Questions According to Buyer Journey Stages: If you see that one or more of the stages don’t have many post-its, that’s a sign that you have an opportunity to better understand what your prospect is going through. See who else you can involve in the conversation. UX designers, support specialists, and solutions architects are great team members to reach out to. If you can, interview a customer or two! (Just make sure you are picking customers that you’d like to attract more of.)

• Audit Content by Buyer Journey Stage, Too: Do a quick content audit to see what marketing content you already have that matches your buyer journey stages and respective consideration questions. Look at blog posts, case studies, and downloads. And don’t forget to look at the content library that your sales and CS teams have, too. They often have great content on implementation, objection handling, and competitive comparisons. Catalog any piece of content you have that’s still accurate and relevant into one of the 5 Buyer Journey stages.

• Bring It All Together: Now look at the whole thing in aggregate. Go stage by stage if you need to. See if each of your consideration questions has at least a few marketing assets that help a customer move forward confidently. This can help you quickly reorganize campaigns to offer content links at more appropriate times. (And it can help you identify what content to build next.)

Good luck! Download our handy template to get started, and customize it to fit your prospects’ buyer journey.

If you’re feeling like it’s a guessing game, it’s time for a reset. At Wheels Up Collective, we specialize in crafting marketing strategies that make a lasting impact. Looking for someone to help guide you through your strategy session? Let us know. We’d be happy to help.