Bottom Funnel Focus EP 1: The Pain of Unstructured Content
- Joyce Tsang
- Sep 26
- 4 min read
Unstructured content is one of the most common and costly challenges I see across businesses—big and small.
Whether you're an SMB founder, a corporate marketer, or a communications lead at an enterprise brand, the lack of content organization can drain resources, confuse messaging, and ultimately fail to drive bottom-funnel results.
That’s why I’m kicking off this new series with a deep dive into this issue—because it’s universal, and it’s fixable.
Welcome to the first entry in my new blog series.
This is both a return and a reset—an ode to my journey back as a slasher (consultant, strategist, creator).
Now that I work closely with SMBs, entrepreneurs, and founders as a content marketing consultant, I’ve also gained deeper insights into business development initiatives and how enterprise brands struggle with marketing, communications, budgeting, and—most importantly—content allocation.
And this first topic runs across the board: the problem of unstructured content.
i) What Do I Mean by Unstructured Content?
While “structured content” is a familiar term in the SEO world—referring to sitemaps and web formatting—the concept applies just as powerfully to brand storytelling. But let’s keep it simple.
One analogy I often use with clients is socks.
Thanks to the accessibility of content creation—spontaneous stories, freelancers, influencers, vendors, in-house teams, or even the most social-savvy staff—everyone is pumping out content because they can. Not because they have a plan, research, rationale, or a bigger idea of how that content fits into the brand ecosystem.
So what happens? You end up with mismatched socks. Or worse, perfectly paired socks that get lost in the drawer and never styled with the right outfit.
The result:
Wasted effort and time
A messy content library
No ability to replicate what works
There’s no categorization, no standardization, and no clarity. Teams feel like they’re reinventing the wheel every time—and many of them aren’t even marketers to begin with.
ii) How Does This Affect the Bottom Funnel?
For this series, I’m skipping the top and mid-funnel discussions (which I’ve covered extensively before) and going straight to the bottom line—because that’s what most companies care about.
When content is unstructured, KPIs and objectives are often mismatched or nonexistent.
Without clear goals from the start, your content won’t magically drive conversions. If you haven’t planned for a piece of content to trigger action, it almost certainly won’t. It’s not about luck or virality—it’s about intent.
Now, you might say:
“But Joyce, what about brands that go viral online? Isn’t that unstructured content that still drives results?”
Yes—but those cases are usually user-generated content (UGC), not branded content.
The creators didn’t intend to drive business; they simply made something authentic. That authenticity is like a classic pair of socks—timeless, trusted, and powerful. It’s the extended version of a five-star review. That’s why the Michelin star system still holds weight decades after its creation.
(Not to mention, virality from UGC can also be detrimental to a business.)
So when brands rely on unstructured content, they often create great awareness but expect it to drive sales. That’s like wearing socks without shoes—it doesn’t complete the outfit. For content to work, it must be strategically organized from day one.
iii) What’s the Solution?
The textbook answer is: Start with a content strategy. Do your research. Define your brand messaging. Set up distribution channels. Allocate resources. Maintain a consistent content calendar. Track insights. Refine.
But that’s like telling a fresh grad to invest in a luxury closet system. It’s not practical for most businesses.
So, let’s go back to the sock analogy. At the very least, start with basic organization. Use bins, drawers—whatever works. Know where your content lives, how it performs, and how to reuse it.
Here’s a simplified framework that is an extention of my rule-of-three for content creation:
Resources – What do you have (time, budget, manpower)?
Selling Point – What are you offering (feature, benefit, pain point)?
Distribution Channel – Where are you sharing it (top, mid, bottom funnel)?
Success Metrics – What does success look like (content-to-lead-to-client ratio)?
With this, you can build a comprehensive drawer to organize your socks (content):
You can create X pieces of content per month
Your storytelling theme is X
Your best conversion point is X
You need to create X to impact the bottom funnel
Anything that doesn’t fit this framework? Shove it under the bed for now. Focus on the pairs you can find.
iv) Example: A Stationery Business
Let’s say you sell stationery.
You’ve created:
Announcement posts for new products
Thought leadership videos about features
Polished product photos
A checkout landing page
To impact the bottom line, your instinct is to run ads to drive traffic to the landing page. That might work—for three months. Then you’ll hit diminishing returns.
Why? Because your content isn’t structured.
Let’s break it down:
You have yourself and a freelancer
You can produce 12 posts/month
You have HKD 4,000/month to spend
Your main product is ball pens
You post on Instagram and have a basic landing page
You get one checkout per 24 posts, with 700 monthly page views
Insights:
You can only create 12 posts/month
You can only boost a few with HKD 4,000
Your cash cow is ball pens
You lack a middle funnel to guide users from awareness to conversion
It takes two months to land one client
So what should you do?
Focus all 12 posts on ball pens
Use the HKD 4,000 to improve your landing page into a proper website
Create content with the goal of converting one client in fewer than 24 posts
This shifts your perspective on what to create, what to say, and how each piece connects to drive results.
v) Conclusion
This isn’t a rare problem. I see it everywhere—from startups to global enterprises. While bigger brands have more budget to close content gaps, the core issue remains the same.
There are too many single socks lying around—unmatched, untracked, and underutilized.
I hope this blog helped you understand the pain of unstructured content and how a simple mindset shift can help you start small, spot gaps, and build content that truly impacts your bottom line.
If you want specific help from me:
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