By improving your content at each stage, you can guide a customer smoothly through the content marketing funnel. Here’s what you need to know.
You’ve identified your prospective customers’ target demographics, are consistent in your content creation, and use various types of content to promote your services or products. So, your content strategy appears to be solid enough?
The truth is that your content marketing efforts can and should constantly evolve.
Content marketing, like marketing strategy best practices, should shift and adapt to existing consumer preferences. Your sales team has most likely already created a sales funnel to understand better what your target audience is feeling and doing at every stage of the buying process.
You, too, can build a content marketing funnel to steer your potential customer from the initial moment to the conversion stage, where they become paying customers.
In this post, we’ll look at what a content marketing funnel is, creating an effective content marketing funnel, and what kinds of content to include at each stage of the funnel.
A Content Marketing Funnel?
A content marketing funnel allows content marketers to picture how they can use content material to draw in new and potential customers and guide them until they achieve their goal.
This can be a sale or any another kind of conversion. Each stage of the funnel serves a specific function, such as creating interest, generating leads, and converting customers. You should first assess your current content inventory, which includes all types of content you create, such as blog content, lengthy content (such as ebooks), and much more.
When analysing each piece of content, determine which stage of the buying process it corresponds to. These stages will be as follows:
The awareness stage is at the Top of the funnel (TOFU). Potential customers are looking for information at this point.
Middle of the funnel (MOFU) is the stage of interest and consideration. Prospective clients look at your services or products and reading reviews during this stage. They might also share this information with key stakeholders.
Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) the stage of intent, evaluation, and conversion. Consumers are ready to proceed with their purchase decision.
As you can see by looking at each stage separately, your target audience requires different types of content based on where they are in the process.
Your funnel content cannot be one-size-fits-all, or you will not effectively reach out to potential buyers. At each stage of the funnel, relevant content must always be presented.
Let’s look at the most efficient forms of content for each stage of the funnel.
Top Funnel Content
Customers gather information at the top of the funnel to help lead them through into the buying process. At this point, a customer is most likely just learning about your company and what it has to offer.
Here, you want to create a positive customer service to demonstrate to the buyer that you are worth getting involved with further. You’ll want to respond to their inquiries, educate them on their concerns, and convert these prospective consumers into warm leads.
According to a Semrush study, the following types of TOFU material work best for attracting traffic.
- How to guides
- Landing Pages
- Infographic
- Checklist
- Ebook and Video tutorials
As you can see, the majority of this content is educational, with the goal of providing more information during the awareness phase. The main objective of your content at this stage should be to provide assistance, and it should not be overly sales-oriented.
Content for the Middle Funnel
When your ideal clients reach the middle of the funnel, they are no longer looking for introductory content on the surface.
You should instead focus on creating content that supports and encourages potential buyers further down the sales funnel. They might be looking for customer testimonials, product reviews, or instructional videos.
According to the findings of the same Semrush study, the following types of MOFU content are most effective at attracting traffic.
- How to guide
- Product overview
- Case study
- Landing pages
- Webinars
- Success stories
Because these potential customers were most likely introduced to your brand during the forming phase, they should not be exposed to discovery stage content. Individualized content for your audience is part of an effective content strategy. According to research, 71% of consumers expect the company to provide personalized interactions, and 76% are frustrated when this does not occur.
Bottom Funnel Content
Bottom Funnel Content When a potential customer reaches the bottom of the funnel, they’re looking for content to help them finalize their purchasing intention.
They want to know how your service or product will make their investment return worthwhile and why you’re the better choice than your competitor.
Because these customers are well beyond the initial moment and are looking to possibly convert, the type of content you present to them is critical to building trust and, ultimately, having finish the purchase.
The material you present during the consideration stage can determine the difference between a conversion and a fallen sale. Top-performing content types in the BOFU stage include:
- Product overview
- Customer review
- Success Story
Consider sharing success stories from current customers who are equivalent to your prospect at this stage.
Email campaigns with satisfied customers testimonials and product collateral are other examples of content to be included at this stage. Include special offers, free samples, or live demonstrations as well.
What to Do After You’ve Evaluated Your Content
Once you have a complete picture of the content which already exists for each phase of the journey, it’s time to identify the gaps.
You’ll also need to decide what kinds of content assets you’ll need to create. For example, you may have discovered that you lack how-to content for buyers in the perception phase. Perhaps you lack sufficient customer success stories.
After you’ve identified content gaps, create a content calendar to prioritize what you have to address first and when.
Your editorial agenda should be checked on a daily basis to keep track of what’s in the pipeline, what’s coming up, the intended content crowd for the piece, and where the article drops in the content marketing funnel.
It may also be worthwhile to carryout a competitive analysis of your competitors’ content marketing strategy in order to identify opportunities for fresh additional content materials and ways to improve your own content.