A Content Marketing Funnel Explained A funnel for content marketing is a way to assist potential customers to learn about your brand, discover solutions to their issues, and feel confident about buying from you. Content is more appropriate for each stage of the funnel. Checklists, videos, and infographics are effective at getting attention, creating leads and keeping readers interested. Guides and templates that are gated work well at this stage. Awareness At this stage, consumers are simply aware of your brand and the services you offer. In this stage the content you create is intended to provide information and help prospects on the problems your solution addresses, as well as how it differs from competitors. Think about the keywords your customers use when searching online. You can conduct keyword research to find out what terms your customers use when searching online. This will aid you in determining if your product or service is needed. These information can be used to build a content calendar and decide which content pieces are specifically targeted to these terms. As a bonus, creating content for this stage of the funnel helps to build brand loyalty with consumers. If your customers are more informed about your brand, they will have more faith in your ability solve their problems. This leads to higher conversion rates for newsletter signups and purchases as well as clickthroughs on your website. A well-executed content strategy can also assist in closing the gap in conversion at this stage. If, for instance you discover that the majority of your content is aimed at increasing awareness, but not enough is influencing customers to make a purchase decision, then you could increase the amount you spend on ads that target middle-funnel keyword phrases. Another way to increase your bottom-of-the-funnel conversion is to use social media. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook enable you to engage with your customers directly giving you the opportunity to show off your customer care. This could include anything from retweeting reviews to promoting special deals. You can also make use of existing content to draw buyers to the bottom of the funnel like blog posts or case studies. If content marketing what is write a blog post explaining the reasons why your product is superior to that of a competitor, you can share it via social media and encourage your customers to join your email list to receive more information. You can also encourage conversions in this stage by asking users to include your name on their social media posts after they have tried your product. This will motivate other people to follow suit and spread the word about your brand. Consideration A good content strategy will include a variety of content types that capture consumers at each stage of the funnel. For instance, brand awareness campaigns might include ads however, they should also feature blogs and infographics that address common concerns and objections. These content pieces can be distributed via email or social media platforms to increase organic traffic. As consumers progress through the decision-making process and begin to look for specific characteristics of products that will help them make a purchase decision. This is a great time to make use of FAQ pages. Utilize keyword research tools such as Ubersuggest or search popular hashtags in your industry to discover the questions that your audience is asking. Find answers to these questions and then add them to your content funnel map. In this phase it is crucial to present a clear value proposition that demonstrates to potential customers how your product or service will solve their problems and earn them more money. The content should also demonstrate the distinctiveness of your brand compared to your competitors. This is an easy step to evaluate because the customer is making a purchase. To see if you're getting the job done, look for metrics like conversion rate as well as the number of transactions and click-through rates. As they reach the stage of advocacy and become advocates for your brand, it becomes more and more important to them. They will be sharing your content with their friends because they are so enthusiastic about it. This is a good way to increase your audience. You'll need to develop content that encourages people to share it, instead of only looking at engagement metrics. You might want to consider using a tool such as Sprout Social to track the social shares that result from your content marketing efforts. This will give you a precise picture of the impact you have. Decision They are looking for content during the decision-making phase that validates the purchase and explains how to use the product. At this point, they need to be confident that the solution will resolve their problem and will make their investment worthwhile. High-quality content is important at this stage, including product guides video, case studies and customer stories of success. Your customers also want to be in a position to ask questions and get answers from your support team. Offering them customized emails and 24 hour customer service is a great way to delight customers and encourage them to share their experiences with others. At this point you're hoping that your customer will become a brand ambassador and promote your product to their friends and colleagues. To convert these advocates into rave customers, you'll need to provide them valuable content that helps them make the most of your product or service. You can accomplish this by creating customized newsletters, tutorial video free trial offers, and loyalty programs. It's time to begin focusing on retention after your audience has transformed from leads to paying customers. Content marketing funnels tend to focus on revenue as the end goal. However, consumers will continue to interact and engage with brands after they make a purchase. It's essential to think of funnels as a dynamic structure that includes revenue, instead of a static model. The conventional content marketing funnels can be useful in creating your strategy however they do not take into consideration the complexity of the buyer's journey. Reimagining the content marketing funnel as a circular model will aid in developing a more holistic strategy. You can create content that captivates your target audience and increases conversions by planning for each stage of the process. Then, you can use the information from these conversions to improve your strategy and make sure that it is working effectively. Are you ready to see how this strategy will benefit your business? Contact us today to request a complimentary content marketing guidebook! Retention A funnel for marketing content is a useful tool that helps brands develop their strategy, execute it, and measure its effectiveness. It also gives them visibility into the gaps in their content strategy that need to be filled. For instance the case where a brand has a significant amount of content targeted at generating awareness and interest, but few pieces that are geared towards the middle of the funnel, they should focus on creating content geared towards this stage. An excellent way to determine how targeted your content is to use tools like Ahrefs to determine the average time spent on page and bounce rate of each piece. The higher these numbers are, the more effective your content is. It's important to keep up-to-date the content you create for the top of your funnel. This will ensure that your audience is interested and engaged in your brand and its products or services. The best method to accomplish this is to create fresh content that is focused on specific keywords, answers questions that are likely being searched by your audience, and highlights the most recent information on your business or product. When your target audience enters MOFU the audience will be looking for more details about your products or services, as well as solutions to their problems. It's important to build trust at this stage by providing honest reviews and demonstrating the value of your product. The final phase of the funnel for content marketing is where your audience will make a purchase decision. This is achieved through gated content that requires an email or other form of registration to access. This content is designed to convert the awareness and engagement that you've built at the top of your funnel for content marketing into qualified leads for your sales team to follow up on. You can still influence your customers' journeys through your brand, even though your support and sales teams are responsible for customer retention. Create content that is enjoyable for your customers throughout the entire process of content marketing. This could include helpful resources, behind the scenes details and special deals that only your audience has access to. If you can build loyalty with your audience, then they will become your best advocates and will help you reduce your sales cycle.
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