Understanding the consumer buyer’s journey: Your key to selling smarter

As a local media sales professional, you already have the trust of your audience. Now’s the time to leverage that position to help your clients navigate the modern marketing world. You elevate the conversation when you can explain how and why a complete marketing strategy works — not just sell an ad.”

Shannon Kinney, founder and client success officer, Dream Local Digital

If you’re still selling your clients digital advertising the same way you sell print, radio or TV advertising, here’s your wake-up call: It’s not enough. While selling digital advertising campaigns can be easier than selling more complex marketing services like social media, SEO, email marketing or websites, that type of selling simply won’t work as well for your client. In today’s competitive marketplace, it takes multiple tactics to drive results. Advertising alone is not enough.     

Today’s local businesses are facing a far more complex customer landscape than ever. That means your approach to selling them marketing solutions must evolve, too. To truly increase your digital revenue and become a trusted adviser, you must understand how different marketing tactics work together to help your client grow.

The easiest way to visualize this is to think like a customer and understand how people discover, research and make buying decisions. Marketing geeks like me call this the buyer’s journey.

Let’s break it down.

Why the buyer’s journey matters

The buyer’s journey is the path someone takes before making a purchase. In the digital world, the journey from awareness to purchase is rarely linear. It often bounces between stages and revisits content and is filled with searching, scrolling, comparing, reading reviews, asking for recommendations and clicking around — often across multiple platforms. For your clients to capture the attention of these highly distracted potential buyers, they need to be where the customer is at each stage of their journey. Your client can’t just rely on ads to build brand awareness. It’s critically important that they provide valuable and relevant content at each point of the journey.  

It unfolds in three key stages:

• Awareness: When the buyer realizes they have a problem or need. Example — “I may want to buy new patio furniture this summer.”
• Consideration: When they start researching solutions. “What style, size, color and shape of patio furniture should I buy?” “Who should I buy it from?” “What should I expect to pay?”
• Decision: When they’re ready to make a purchase. “Do I fill out a form on a website or go to a store?”

Understanding this journey — and how different digital and traditional media marketing tactics fit into it — is what separates average reps from top-performing digital consultants. Even if you don’t sell all these services, you must understand how they work together to advise your clients properly.

Let’s break down what marketing tactics work at each stage to understand how this works.

Awareness: Get on their radar

Tactics that work here are about visibility, and this is where traditional media reigns supreme. Think newspaper, TV, radio and magazine ads, billboards, social media ads, display and streaming advertising, YouTube pre-roll, sponsored and branded content, search engine optimization (SEO) and digital OOH (out of home)

The goal? Introduce the brand, product, and concept and plant the seed. And typically, you’re selling this at a frequency level to resonate with potential customers. You’re helping your client show up where people spend time — even if they’re not ready to buy yet.

This is an area where nearly all media sales teams are very comfortable — selling their highly engaged audience to advertisers. But we all have those clients who say their primary goal of the campaign is to “make the phone ring” or “increase sales,” right? That means we must go further into the buyer’s journey.

Consideration: Inform and build trust

At this stage, the buyer is actively researching options and comparing. They’re searching options, reading reviews and browsing websites. They may be checking multiple stores for pricing and availability. They could be trying to learn more about the industry, product or potential company to work with. Do you know how nearly every advertiser will tell you that word-of-mouth works the best for them? That’s because when the customer gets to this stage in the buyer’s journey, they ask their friends for recommendations.

Other key tactics also fuel this stage, including SEO (helping your client show up in searches like “best patio furniture options” or “patio furniture near me”), retargeting ads, social media advertising, email marketing, content marketing (social media posts, blogs, videos, case studies, white papers, lead magnets, webinars), Google Business Profile optimization to show information about the company and what it’s like to work with them, reputation management and reviews, testimonials, recommendations and social proof and websites that allow you to make lists, save favorites and/or leave items in a cart.

These tools educate and nurture the prospect, helping your client stay top-of-mind. It should be designed to empower and inform the client. The best content at this stage helps compare options. Examples are "Top 10 patio furniture sets of 2025," "Choosing the right patio furniture for you," or "Most durable patio furniture options." One important tip — you can also use traditional and display advertising at this stage, but write the copy and hook to capture a prospect in the consideration stage.

Decision: Seal the deal

Now, the customer is ready to act. It’s up to you to help your client be in front of them and be the best choice. Traditional media and display advertising can work at this stage if they create a sense of urgency for the client to buy now (sales, offers, coupons and QR codes to a lead form). However, other digital marketing tactics typically play a larger role here in a customer’s conversion. Examples include SEM (search ads, typically Google Ads, social media advertising with lead forms, SEO (helping your client show up under that product or service and have a call to action on the page), email marketing with offers or prompts to revisit what’s in a shopping cart, retargeting, strong landing pages on websites that are specifically about that product or service, clear calls to action and offers in advertising, online booking or e-commerce tools and inventory searches

This is where clicks turn into customers. If you don't sell these services, how can you change the creative, offer or call to action to capture people when they're ready to buy?

Why it takes a mix

No single tactic can carry the whole journey. You can certainly change your advertising creative to capture people at each stage, but typically, you need some combination — display advertising, email marketing (or newsletter sponsorships), and SEO, for example. If your client only invests in search ads, they’re only showing up at the end — and missing the chance to influence earlier. If they only boost Facebook posts, they may build awareness but never convert. It’s like trying to win a game by playing only one quarter.

Educating your clients about the need for a strategic mix — one that supports the entire buyer journey — is how you demonstrate value. It’s how you move from being “just another ad rep” to being a revenue partner and trusted adviser.

Your role as a trusted adviser

As a local media sales professional, you already have the trust of your audience. Now’s the time to leverage that position to help your clients navigate the modern marketing world. You elevate the conversation when you can explain how and why a complete marketing strategy works — not just sell an ad. And guess what? That builds long-term relationships, bigger contracts and more renewals.

I discuss the buyer’s journey with my prospects in my needs assessments and sales presentations. I use a graphic like the one below and walk the prospect through it. Then I’ll ask, “Did I miss anything?”

This engages the client in the process and sets the expectation that just leveraging one tactic won't help them capture and convert customers. Think of these three phases and how to best place your client before potential customers, even if you don’t sell them all yourself. The future of local media sales isn’t just about ads. It’s about adding insights and value and being their trusted adviser. And understanding how marketing tactics influence the buyer’s journey is where it all begins.

Recommended book of the month: Each month, I’ll share one of my go-to resources for mastering your craft in sales. I want to share “Cracking the Sales Management Code” by Jason Jordan this month. I first read this book many years ago and returned to it repeatedly. It completely influenced how I measure success — the activity it takes to hit a revenue goal.

Dream Local Digital Founder and Client Success Officer Shannon Kinney brings over 30 years of experience in leadership roles, developing scalable digital marketing strategies and supporting and training media companies with scalable digital revenue growth. She played a vital role in the development of internet giants such as Cars.com, CareerBuilder.com, Knight Ridder Digital, LinkedIn, Google, eBay and Microsoft. She worked with media companies worldwide until pivoting to Dream Local Digital. Since Dream Local Digital's creation in 2009, Shannon has served on the Local Media Association board, been awarded the LMA Digital Innovation Award, appeared on hundreds of stages as a keynote speaker, and has helped media companies transform their business model. She currently also serves as a project lead for the Local Media Association Branded Content Project Cohorts, helping media companies transform through new revenue streams. Shannon can be reached at shannon@dreamlocal.com.