139: How to use the stages of awareness to craft copy and messaging that drives more sales
What if the reason you're struggling to attract high-ticket clients isn't your offer—but your messaging?
In this episode, we're diving into the five stages of awareness and how they shape your marketing success. If you're frustrated by attracting the wrong type of clients, struggling to sell your premium offers, or wondering why your messaging isn't resonating with your ideal buyers, this episode is for you. I'll break down the legendary Eugene Schwartz’s five stages of awareness and show you how to align your messaging to meet your audience where they are—so you can move them seamlessly toward a confident "yes." Plus, I'll share how a simple shift in positioning helped one of my clients start attracting the high-level buyers she truly wanted.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The crucial mistake that’s keeping high-value clients from seeing your offer
Why your entry-level products might be working against your premium sales
How to move potential buyers from “just browsing” to “ready to invest”
The five levels of awareness and how they dictate your marketing strategy
Why most sales pages follow a specific structure—and how you can use it to your advantage
The surprising way “champagne clients” differ from “box wine clients” (and how to speak to the right one)
A simple shift you can make today to start attracting premium buyers
If you think there's a disconnect in your messaging and positioning, let’s fix it! Book a complimentary Sales Strategy and Success Call to refine your message and start attracting the right clients with ease.
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Welcome to ill communication, copywriting tips and sales strategies for small business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist, and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and changemakers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts, and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soulmate clients. Let's get started. If you want to work with premium high ticket clients, you must get this right Eight when you can wrap your head around the concept I'm about to share with you and deploy it in your marketing, you'll begin to attract the right fit clients who pay top dollar to solve their problems or create an outcome. Hello, hello and welcome back to the Ill Communication Podcast. If you're struggling to get your ideal buyers to engage with your content, if you have the wrong people signing up for your offers, or if you're just not even selling your offers, then this episode is for you. Now, I was inspired to record this episode because I've been working with a client to develop a messaging and sales playbook, and I'm also writing some new website copy for her. Now, she shared with me that she's really great at selling her lower ticket entry level offers, but the wrong type of clients are buying.
[00:01:54]
You see, her top tier program is for a very experienced level of coach or business owner, someone who's already done some of the mindset work. Someone who's been around the block, been in business for a while and has proven offers and knows that they create an outcome for their clients. Now my client wants to sell, of course, more people into her 15 K top tier offer, but those aren't the people who are buying her lower or mid tier offers. Well, some of them are, but she
tends to attract more beginner level clients who aren't ready to matriculate into that top tier offer right away. Might take a year or more for someone to join at that lower level to grow their business, do their work, and then be ready to invest at the top level. So she wants to shorten that path. She wants to give her premium level clients a faster way to experience her genius, build trust, and then jump into the top tier program. And when I looked at her offer suite and her ideal clients, I could see that her entry level offers were solving beginner problems. They weren't solving the problems. The top tier client has. A lot of her messaging and positioning was talking about solving problems for more of the beginner level business owner, as opposed to someone who's further along in business. And what it really came down to is my client wasn't paying attention to the five stages of awareness, which is an important concept in marketing and sales.
[00:03:37]
And this phrase or concept is attributed to Eugene Schwartz, a legendary copywriter whose book, Breakthrough Advertising is one of the most powerful resources for understanding how people buy and how to write copy that sells when you Understand how to assess the stages of awareness of your audience and ideal buyer. Then you'll be able to share the right content and messages and craft offers that sell. Now, according to Schwartz, your buyers come to the market with five different levels of awareness unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware, and most aware. Now let's break it down. Grab a notebook. Grab your pen. Because we're gonna get nerdy here. Someone who's unaware doesn't even know they have a problem. They don't know there's a solution. They're just going about their day to day business thinking this is just the reality of my life. Now to illustrate some examples throughout these different five stages, I want us to imagine that there's a business coach for other coaches who is offering a fictitious offer called the Joy of coaching Prospects who are in the unaware stage are total newbies to coaching. They have very inconsistent revenue, but they just think that's the way it is when you're an entrepreneur. They don't even realize they have a problem that could be solved. Selling to unaware markets is the hardest. You need to do a lot of education to bring your audience up to speed, to know that there is a different way to live or be or sell or have your business.
[00:05:25]
So unless you're launching a never before seen service or product, I don't recommend creating any content for unaware audiences. It is just so difficult and time consuming and not recommended. So let's really focus on problem aware and up. The next stage is problem aware. Your prospect knows they have a problem, a pain or a frustration. They are actively Experiencing the problem, but they just don't know how to fix it. They know they should be able to fix it, but they don't know how. They don't know what the solutions are. They just know something isn't working. Now in your marketing, your goal is to mirror and empathize with the pain and the problem and build awareness around why this is happening, and introduce the idea that a solution exists. There's still a good amount of education that happens at this stage, but less so than among audiences who are unaware. So in our scenario here of being a coach for other coaches, if your audience is problem aware, you want your marketing to focus on the pain points and problems they have, because this shows you understand them and you want to let them know there's a way out of that pain or beyond the problem. So your marketing might sound something like even though you're working with clients, you're on a revenue roller coaster, some months are up and some months are down.
[00:06:57]
Wouldn't you love to find a way to have consistent, scalable income without the feast or famine stress and without working harder? That is the kind of messaging that you position to a problem aware audience. They need to know solutions to their problems exist, and you focus on empathizing with their problems while introducing the possibility of change through different solutions. Now let's move up the ladder from problem aware to solution aware. And this is my favorite kind of messaging. This prospect has been around the block. They have educated themselves and they know solutions exist for their problem. They are actively searching different options. They may be comparing different approaches, different providers or different methodologies. So your goal when you're marketing to a solution aware prospect is to differentiate your solution from the others. You want to showcase your credibility, and you want to highlight why yours is the best fit in your messaging. You want to focus on positioning yourself as the best choice. Highlight your unique differentiators your framework, your methodology, your unique philosophy. You want to use social proof and testimonials to build trust. You want to overcome some of the objections and myths they might have about themselves or your offer. If we look at our example of the coach coaching other coaches, the solution aware message might sound like this. There are a dozen ways to grow a coaching business, but not all of them will work for you. Maybe you've tried launching a digital course or showing up seven times a day on social media, but all that leaves you with is burnout and an empty bank account in my new program, the Joy of coaching, you'll find out how to build a sustainable, high profit coaching business without burnout by leveraging a business model that truly grows with you.
[00:09:02]
When you market to the solution aware audience, your goal is to demonstrate why your solution is the best fit for their problem. You want to focus on what makes you different and unique. Leveraging social proof and credibility. And you also want to tackle objections. You also want to paint a picture of that desired future. You don't want to languish in the problems. Now you want to showcase what's on the other side of the solution. Now let's continue moving up the ladder.
We reach the product aware stage. This is the prospect who is actively considering your offer, service or solution. They know exactly what you're selling. They're just not 100% convinced to buy it. They may be comparing your offer with others, but at this point, your goal is to build trust. Highlight the benefits of your solution and reduce risk. So your messaging focus here is showcasing how your offer works, not just what it is you want to highlight. Specific results or transformations really paint that picture. Definitely use case studies and testimonials. Address objections head on and use some ethical urgency or bonuses to nudge your person to act.
[00:10:19]
Really paint that picture of the future they want, and then give them that little extra boost to move toward it. So in our coaching scenario, our messaging might sound like this. If you want to hit consistent ten K, 20 K, or 30 k months without burning out, the Joy of coaching program is a great fit for you. You get the tools, the structure, and the support to finally build a business that works for you. But more than that, you will have the momentum, clarity and confidence that you're doing it right. When you have that kind of peace of mind, it changes everything in your business. You'll know exactly how to launch an offer and how to sell it in a way that feels effortless and ethical. And you'll become one of those annoying people who says, I can't believe I'm working so much less, but making so much more. And my clients are having incredible success too. Your product aware audience needs clarity about what the offer is. They need proof and trust, so focus on the benefits. Provide social proof. Talk about results and tackle objections. And now we reach the final stage most aware. Now this should be the easiest prospect to sell to. They believe your offer will solve their problem. They just need a reason to act now. They need that extra nudge to go all in. If someone is on a sales call with you, they're probably at the most aware stage when you're marketing to most aware audiences, you focus on the when and the why now? Now this is why you see offers that have a deadline to join a limited number of seats, or a expiring bonus, or a promotion that disappears for this audience.
[00:12:02]
You focus on what they want, their desired future, and then you tap into any ethical urgency or scarcity that exists. When you're marketing to someone who's almost ready to buy, you need to give them a reason to act now. Doors close tomorrow. When you join today, you'll unlock a private coaching call with me. Doors won't open until 2026, so if you want to solve these problems and create this dream coaching business, you don't want to wait another year to do it. You're not talking about the problems and pains anymore. It's just more about closing the deal ethically, of course. So my friend, that's your crash course. In the five stages of awareness unaware, problem aware, solution aware, Product aware and most aware. What you might realize is that most long form sales pages are structured from top to bottom, in an order that walks you from problem aware to most aware. When I write websites, I typically frame the home page for that problem to solution aware audience. The about page is very focused on solution aware and moving them into product aware. And then services pages are for product and most aware audiences. You can also keep this flow in mind when you're structuring your email sequences too.
[00:13:17]
But always keep in mind what the problem really is for your ideal buyer. If you're working with more advanced clients or you offer a more premium product, focus on the problems that level of clientele has. Don't talk about beginner problems like finding your first clients and how to close sales. When you're dealing with a more sophisticated audience. Who's looking for a more sophisticated solution, like how to launch a high ticket mastermind or host your first luxury retreat. Mariah Carey is an online marketer who talks about creating content for your champagne client, and I just really love thinking of that champagne client. This is the dreamboat client in your top level program. Your champagne client has champagne problems, whereas the box wine client has box wine problems. They are different. You can't talk about box wine problems and hope to attract champagne clients. And that's really where the disconnect is for the client that I'm working with that I mentioned at the top of this episode. Her lead magnet and her small bite offers are not designed with the champagne clients and their champagne problems in mind. And I know that when we solve for that, she will attract more of the top tier clients into her Small Bite offers, where they will experience my client and her genius. They'll get a quick win. They'll develop the trust and confidence to step into her top tier programs in less time and with less effort and confusion. So if you're finding your sales are sluggish or you're not attracting your ideal champagne client, please take a look at the stage of awareness of your customer and take a look at the content you're sharing, the offers you're selling, and the promises you're making.
[00:15:15]
You want to meet your buyer at whatever stage of awareness and level of sophistication that they are at. And if you need help with this, please book a complimentary 30 minute sales strategy. Call with me. We'll take a look at your offers, your ideal client, and your messaging, and we'll see if it's a message match or if there's anything you need to adjust the link to book your call is in the show notes. That is it for me today. I'd love to hear what you think about the stages of awareness, and whether you're going to start deploying it in your marketing. I'll see you next week. Bye for now. Hey, thanks for joining me for today's episode. But before you go, I want to make sure you've grabbed a new tool to help you assess the effectiveness of your sales copy. It's an easy to use tool that will help you identify what's working well, and what could be improved among all of the copy assets you have in your business. Grab the Sales Copy scorecard right now to find quick and easy ways to improve your sales copy and boost sales. Get your free scorecard over at khimki.com/scorecard. I'll be back next week with another quick tip writing prompt or sales hack for you. See you then.
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