How to write content that converts strangers into clients on repeat

Creating content that speaks to every stage of the client journey.

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By Anna Wildau

You’ve probably heard a lot of tips and tricks like “post consistently,” “post more often,” “speak to their pain points,” etc., already.

I personally have a hard time reading advice like this.

Most of them aren’t wrong. But none of them tell you how to implement all of this into your posting routine in a way that you’re not just blindly throwing random posts at your audience, hoping to get a lucky shot this time.

Here’s the thing: When you’re sitting in front of an empty doc asking yourself, “What am I going to post today?” you’re already losing, and your post won’t help you market yourself sustainably.

Here’s the essence of how I teach my clients what to post, already knowing that what they are about to publish will have an impact on their audience.

They already know in advance what they will post - whether they’ve already written it or are writing the content on the same day they publish. Because they are posting with intention.

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Posting with intention - here’s how this works

Instead of looking at one post, zoom out a little. Your post is only one part of a puzzle that serves one purpose: to activate new clients to buy.

So, instead of posting about anything related to your topic or just throwing your offer at them, you need to realize that all the content pieces you’re publishing are working together, adding up on each other, and speaking to three different stages every person goes through until they buy from you:

1. Sees your content for the first time and gets activated to press follow.

2. Sees your content more often in their feeds and becomes more and more problem-aware, warming up through your content.

3. Self-identifies with your offer and gets activated to click on the link to your landing page or reaches out in your DMs to ask for more info.

Viewing these three steps as a journey, it becomes clear that your content needs to speak to all of these three stages.

So instead of thinking about what you’re going to post today, view it as a month full of content pieces, and think about which stage you’re going to speak to today and what they need to read in order to take action—either to hit follow, become more problem-aware, or get activated to reach out.

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How to translate the different stages into your posts

Stage 1 - Growth Content

The intention of growth content isn’t to sell. It’s to attract new people and activate them to hit follow.

Growth content should focus on actionable steps, relatable stories, funny posts, or anything else that they find valuable enough to want to see more of.

Stage 2 - Nurture Content

It’s funny how some marketers are always talking about having a “warm audience” or a “cold audience.”

In reality, you’ll always have both and some people in between. Your nurture content’s job is to warm people up and take them to the next stage. You’re literally preparing them to be ready to buy.

Your content needs to be hyper-focused on creating awareness around their problem. You can take them on your client’s journey or your own, or you can simply tell them what they don’t see yet.

Most of them just recognize symptoms but haven’t gotten to the root cause of their problem or simply don’t know why everything else they’ve tried so far hasn’t worked.

Stage 3 - Activation Content

This is content that’s designed to sell.

It doesn’t have to be the classic sales post a la “Join my new program.” Activation content speaks to their desire and addresses their objections. Storytelling is a good way to add emotions to your post, making your content more effective at this point.

How you end your post is crucial. You need a clear call to action. So decide what they are supposed to do after reading your post and tell them.

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How to balance the different stages

This depends on your overall content goal. If you want to sell, focus on nurture and activation content. If you want to become known and grow a huge following, you’ll focus more on growth and nurture content to build a community.

Either way, when you constantly speak to all three stages regularly, you’ll build yourself a sustainable marketing foundation that constantly converts strangers into followers, into clients. And the best thing: This also works if you have a small audience under 1,000 followers.

You can have the exact Content Cycle on Notion that all my clients work with. It’s super balanced between all three stages and contains 119 content prompts plus fitting CTAs for each stage, so you’re covered with content ideas easily for the next 4 months.

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Hi, I’m Anna Wildau, a marketing strategist and former brand designer. Over the past 2 years, I’ve worked with over 100 coaches and service providers in my own- as well as in external coaching communities. I’m specialized in writing converting content without the need for thousands of followers. 

Follow me on LinkedIn if you liked this post. There is more where this came from.

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