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Ultimate List of Delight Stage Content Ideas

by Article by Molly and Hannah Molly and Hannah | March 9, 2023 at 12:00 PM

About Delight Stage Content

Remember all those promises made by marketing and sales throughout the buyer’s journey? All of those benefits and comparisons and examples and other talking points used to nudge leads down the buyer’s journey become expectations once a lead becomes a customer and you transition from acquisition strategy to delivering and delighting.

You’re now entering the customer’s journey.

At this stage, you know so much more about your audience than ever before and are quite literally invested in their success. 

Now is your chance to thoughtfully personalize your experiences and content — and the way you deliver it — to customers and show you are partners

Here are a few reasons to love the Delight Stage:

  • “In my experience, the larger the contract is, the higher the potential for buyer's remorse. It is increasingly important for the delivery and delight stage to inoculate those objections and to push those opportunities for someone to have remorse to the side and get them excited about the purchase.” - Remington Begg, our Chief Remarkable Officer. 

  • Delighting customers starts by establishing your baseline processes for service delivery and communication. Aim to give customers a consistent and gratifying experience starting from day one. Bonus points when these processes remove friction for your service team too.

  • Building on this baseline really pushes you from a customer

    satisfaction focus   —  where your goal is to meet expectations — to a customer delight focus where you are exceeding expectations and surprising and exciting customers.

  • Here you get to put on that razzle dazzle and live out fulfilling your brand promise in all kinds of ways.

If your brand promise is all about consistency - focus on hitting the mark every single time. If your brand promise invites in an element of surprise, whimsy, and wonder - then let the creativity fly in the delight phase. 

Whatever your strategy is for the delight phase, you should measure your success in data. Start with a customer satisfaction score, because, after all, you can’t delight a customer who isn’t happy to begin with. Other metrics such as lifetime value (LTV), churn, customer retention rate, net promoter score, and engagement in loyalty programs can help benchmark the success of your Delight Stage efforts. 

Need a refresher on where Delight Stage content fits in your content strategy? Read our Customer Journey vs Buyer’s Journey blog.

Customer Delight Content Types

Your audience in this stage has purchased your product or service, but that doesn’t mean their relationship with your company has necessarily ended. 

Instead, these people transition to the Customer Journey where opportunities refresh to appreciate, understand, and value. As your customers’ loyalty increases, you have new entry points to solve their problems with new purchases. 

Delight Stage content can show up in a variety of formats including:

 P.S. All of this content can be created, tracked, and managed in HubSpot!
  • Emails and other 1:1 communication
  • Blogs
  • Explainer/how-to videos
  • Educational webinars & courses
  • Infographics
  • Customer portals
  • Progress reports or “pizza tracker” timelines
  • Support articles
  • Interactive experience
  • Tip sheets and checklists
  • Personalized reports and dashboards
  • Quizzes/assessments 
  • Referral or loyalty program
  • Customer feedback opportunities 
  • Community forums

Not only is the format important in the Delight Stage important but consider your delivery as well:

  • Speed. Even if you don’t have an immediate answer, timely acknowledgment and communication go a long way. 
  • Personalization. There is no excuse for making a customer repeat details they have already given (or worse…getting their personal information wrong in an interaction!). 
  • Consistency. Establish a regular cadence for updates and communication. Maintain a dependable tone and attitude across all employee interactions with customers, so users know what to expect.
  • Empathy. Again, your customer is a partner; not a stranger. Express emotion and real concern for their issues and challenges.

Customer Delight Examples

  1. Customer thank you content - After the initial purchase or any upsells, send a sincere thank you. This can come from management or the service team in a variety of formats. There are many options a customer can choose from, so expressing your gratitude will emphasize the human-to-human touch. 
  2. “Setup/Onboarding Guide” content - Your customers shouldn’t feel like they are on their own once they receive their product or service.  A thorough onboarding guide, course, portal, or other interactive experience will make them feel supported by your company even after the transaction has been processed.
  3. “Creative ways to get more from [your product/service]” content - As the creators of your product or service, you know how to maximize it to achieve the best results.  Give them 1:1 and self-driven tutorials, classes, tip sheets, community forums, and more.
  4. “How-to” videos for your product/service - Videos that show various applications, environments, settings, and approaches will show your customers the various pathways of use. 
  5. Customer success stories - Show off the positive impacts of your product or service on customers. Spotlighting your customers will not only show your success but theirs. This can be as in-depth as a video interview or blog or simply resharing social media posts or user-generated content. 
  6. Troubleshooting FAQs - When and if human error or problems arise, you want your audience going to you to work through a challenge instead of another source. Bonus points for an active chatbot that can answer questions and point to answers in real time! 
  7. Thought leadership - Your unique approach and values provide the lens through which you can respond, reflect and interpret breaking news and trends for your customers. This provides more content for them to interact with and see your philosophy, expertise, and proactivity in action. 
  8. “If you liked x, you’ll love y” content - Let that personalization come into play with specific recommendations of what other products and services you provide based on past purchase history and conversations with your sales team. 
  9. Sneak preview content - Reward your customers for their loyalty with an exclusive look at upcoming features, products, or services you will provide before the general public knows. You can also offer insider access to try or buy the product first.
  10. Anniversary/celebration content - Because you know more about your customer through their previous interactions, you can create personalized content revolving around their anniversary using your product/service or any other salient celebrations worth mentioning such as their birthday or a career milestone.
  11. “State of the company” content - Invite your customers into how your company is doing, how you’re responding to challenges or mistakes brought up by customers, and new offerings. Looking for inspiration? No one does this better than Apple’s annual live event. 
  12. Disruption of service/product content - If there are issues with your product or service, timely announcements, and follow-ups are crucial to show you take the inconvenience and frustration of your customers seriously. Afterward, you should try to share why the disruption occurred and how it will be prevented in the future. 
  13. Stellar sales-to-service handoff content - What, how, and when you communicate during the immediate post-purchase phase shouldn’t really ever feel like a handoff if you are dedicated to delighting customers. Showing a growing team of partners from sales and service/operations teams through emails, kickoff calls, intro packets, onboarding portals and more can make the “handoff” feel more valuable. 

Other Resources and Tips to Help You With Customer Delight

The mantra of Delight Stage content is to dazzle. 

You’ve set the stage through your brand promise and previous interactions that you are educated, helpful, and proactive. This is what they’ve been promised in their buyer’s journey, so don’t drop the ball in the customer journey. 

If you maintain their trust, this can lead to upsells and cross-sells, which will start the buyer’s journey once again. 

As mentioned in the ideas, feel free to create Delight Stage content for customers only to create a sense of community and exclusivity. 

If you are itching for more ideas for your buyer’s journey, take a look at our comprehensive 75+ idea cheat sheet to get you the ideas you need for free!

Download Now: Content Marketing Ideas Cheatsheet (75+ ideas for topics, types, and more)

Read our other blogs in the series!

14 MOFu Content Ideas - read blog articleNew call-to-action