Client Transformation Arc: A Marketing Framework for Shifting Beliefs & Behaviors
Empathy is at the core of marketing. Understanding ideal clients gives you the ability to speak to their challenges and aspirations throughout your content, on your website, and in your sales copy. While many folks think that storytelling puts the emphasis on the founder or organization, implementing customer-centric marketing boils down to viewing the story from the lens of who you’re trying to reach.
Whether you’re a coach, consultant, strategist, or wellness provider– you make big transformational changes in clients’ lives, health, relationships, or business. If you sell a product or service that requires extensive research, buyer education, or weighing different options, learning this client transformation arc can benefit you.
This arc consists of 7 steps (not necessarily linear):
Symptoms
Red Flags
Crisis
Catalyst
Epiphany
Turning Point
Transformation
Uncovering the Psychology Behind Behavior Change to Create Memorable Marketing
This doesn’t come intuitively, but it’s a part of my own story. Before I started doing content marketing, I studied and received my health coach certification in 2017. I learned the technique of motivational interviewing and the transtheoretical model of behavior change. For both behavior change and marketing, we can’t (and shouldn’t) try to force what we think someone should do on them, but help them uncover their deeper reasoning for wanting to make a change.
People don’t weigh buying milk at the grocery store. They just do it. No changes in thinking or feeling need to happen. And even though buying a car or computer requires research on the customer’s part, we’re typically choosing them based on functionality and price. But when it comes to providers for our health, hiring a coach or consultant, choosing an author/speaker, enrolling in a course or mastermind, our folks may not be ready right away. And they probably won’t.
Your story will mirror but not necessarily be exactly the same as the journey your clients go through. Pick and choose to use yourself as an example when it feels relevant. Messaging and brand story are related to this but also separate. You can infuse your personal narrative in marketing throughout the customer journey. This enhances connection and empathy by making the reader or listener feel seen and understood.
In other marketing circles, you’ll hear very similar concepts but in different terms: before picture, after picture, dream state, pain points, point A, or point B. Most people focus on the pain and the solution, but I have noticed that stories, even the ones we’ll tell in our marketing or sales copy, have more nuance than just before and after.
And when you get started thinking through what’s going on with people, the blank page can feel overwhelming. Think of these as prompts to consider when you create content, whether it’s short-form video, podcasts, website copy, or even sales pages.
Surface-Level Struggles: Ideal Clients Seek a Bandaid for their Unidentified Problems
This is the very tip of the iceberg. This is what people will think of first when they consider your industry or the problem you solve. For a designer, this would be not having a logo.
Symptoms are usually not bad enough for most people to take action but there’s dissatisfaction and a gnawing feeling something is wrong. In copywriting speak, they’re currently problem unaware. They may be Googling or searching for symptoms, unaware it’s signaling a larger problem. Maybe they’re not yet ready to admit it to themselves.
Think through your own life. Often, the symptoms are more obvious in hindsight. What were the first indications that there was a larger problem? What comes up FIRST for your clients/customers? What are they searching or trying first?
Let’s use relationships for an example. People reach out to a couple’s therapist as a last resort, but we notice an uptick in arguments, lack of intimacy, or unequal domestic labor way before it gets to that point. The reality is that our human brains can rationalize and normalize most unpleasant situations to preserve the inner status quo.
What this means for marketing— people are often not yet ready to take action at this point, but if you can illustrate the symptoms people who are further along will see themselves in that. This can serve as ideas for social media or bullet points in sales copy.
Recognizing Red Flags: When the Signs Become Unignorable
Ever hear of red flags in relationships? That’s not the only place in life where there are signs that are pointing toward a bad outcome. Think of this stage as the check engine light of your life, relationships, or business. There are often bigger, external problems that we’re now being forced to acknowledge and (hopefully) deal with.
Just like you’d take your car to get looked at if the light came on or it started making strange noises, this ought to be the case for clients or customers once they hit this stage. In copywriting speak, they’re now problem-aware. But here’s the thing— they don’t yet know what the solution would be.
If you’re in physical pain, do you see the doctor? Get a massage? Get physiotherapy? Take CBD? Put ice on it?
It’s not always obvious to the customer as it is to us who have been through the journey already. You may not think about personal styling until you book a major speaking even or brand shoot and you’re not thinking about parenting styles until you’re pregnant.
This is where they need in-depth content that first diagnoses their problem (like taking the car to a mechanic) and then helps them weigh their options on dealing with their problem.
People who are at this stage may or may not be ready to take action. We all know the folks who keep driving their car with fifty lights on the dash. Sometimes with our health we feel low energy or in pain but keep pushing through.
I’m not saying you need to scare these people or make them feel bad. They deserve to feel seen too. Helping them to understand what’s going on with them, whether or not they take action yet, is important.
I don’t know about you but I’m not in the business of forcing or manipulating folks to work with me.
And let’s face it— it doesn’t work anyway. I can’t think of a single smoker, myself included, who looked at one of this gross diseased lungs in school and quit on the spot. I did eventually quit, but it was when I was ready.
If you want to nurture leads with empathetic content, the arc helped me to see the big picture behind how people make decisions and change their lives. Give them the content that will get them ready to take action and help them feel seen. They’ll thank you for it, even if it’s months or even years later.
