Are you tired of creating content that doesn't seem to go anywhere? It's time to stop wasting your time and start building content in context that drives results.
To make your content truly impactful, you need to understand the content funnel.
What is a Content Funnel?
The content funnel is a framework that helps you plan and organize your content to meet your business goals. It consists of three stages: awareness, interest, and consideration. By creating content that addresses each stage of the funnel, you'll be able to guide your audience through the buyer's journey and convert them into loyal customers.
Fast fact
Key takeaway
How can you create such content? Well, let's start by:
1. Treating your target audiences like a new friend
2. Aligning and measuring your content in the content funnel
3. Busting content myths
Recommended Tools List:
 Content Management system - Loomly | |
 Audience Intelligence Platform - Audiense |
1. Treating your target audiences like a new friend
Just like with a new acquaintance, you want to make a good impression, be relevant and interesting, and show your unique character. But the conversation doesn't end there - you need to follow up and build a relationship. Explore how to create content that speaks directly to your target audience and guides them through the buyer's journey, using the metaphor of making a new friend below:
What is your conversation starter with this stranger?
The easiest way in is to tell them some neat facts that perhaps not a lot of people know, and get them to become interested in you. And, logically speaking, you would want to appear relevant, nice, and with a unique character (authentic storytelling or content that answers their pain points). The worst way would be to flaunt your abilities and appear cocky and egoistic (salesy pitches and "me-talk").
But what's the next step after that initial conversation?
Don't leave them hanging - just like with a new friend, you need to follow up and build a relationship. In the context of content marketing, this means providing your audience with something they can do, watch, or interact with. Let them know that you remember them and value their interest in your brand. It’s kind of like texting them after the first night out. Until there is a good mutual understanding can you ask them to meet again.
So what's the best way to ask them to take action?
Online triggers are very similar to the ones offline. It’s particularly effective, say, you’re going out of town soon so you’d want to meet before you leave (urgency). Or, there is this special gig going on and you want them to go with you (promotion). Better yet, it’s simply because you can help them in ways no one else can, so they want to meet you (solution).
When you approach content creation with this mindset, it becomes clear that each stage of the buyer's journey requires specific content, and each stage aims for a different goal. You need to create content that speaks to your audience's needs and interests, and guides them through the funnel towards conversion. And, just like with a new friend, you need to keep the conversation going and provide value at every stage. By leveraging the right platforms and tools at each stage, you can build meaningful relationships with your audience and drive business growth.
2. Aligning and measuring your content in the content funnel
It's time to align your content and measure its effectiveness by learning the metrics to measure at each stage. Create content that aligns with the goals of each stage to measure its impact and ensure that your content is driving results and moving your audience towards conversion.
i) Awareness Stage
At this stage, your primary goal should be to increase brand awareness and reach a wider audience. To achieve this, focus on platforms with large audiences, such as social media. While your website is important, it may not be the most effective platform for this stage unless you already have high traffic. The key metric to track at this stage is reach, which measures the number of people who have seen your content.
Metrics to track: Reach
Benchmark: Look for growth in reach on each post.
ii) Interest Stage
Once you've reached a wider audience, your goal is to turn that audience into engaged followers. This is where retargeting tools can be useful, allowing you to expand from your initial reach and create content that resonates with your target audience. Engagement is the key metric at this stage, which includes likes, comments, link clicks, and followers growth.
Metrics to track: Cost per click/action/engagement, followers growth, engagement rate
Benchmark: Aim for a cost per click/action/engagement of less than USD$1 and an engagement rate of over 1%.
iii) Consideration Stage
At the consideration stage, your goal is to move your engaged audience towards taking action, whether that's making a purchase, booking an appointment, or sending a message. To measure the success of this stage, track metrics such as cost per acquisition/lead, customer lifetime value, and average order value. It's important to view these metrics as long-term investments rather than short-term costs, as they can lead to significant revenue growth over time.
Metrics to track: Cost per acquisition/lead, customer lifetime value, average order value
Benchmark: Ensure that costs are less than your profit, and that any revenue driven covers your cost. Aim for a 3% conversion rate from awareness to consideration.
Another overall benchmark here is that you wish to achieve a 3% conversion rate from awareness to consideration, meaning 3% of your reach ends up taking an action on your brand. Not to mention, all of the mentioned traffic is not only good for measuring organic content, but also paid.
3. Busting content myths
What often causes brands to fail isn't the quality of their content, nor the setup of their content funnel, but rather blindly chasing after shiny objects. This can manifest in various ways, such as thinking that one piece of content is enough or failing to listen to their target audience. These misconceptions can jeopardize the creation of effective content.
Here are some other common myths to be aware of:
i) People think it takes ages for a potential lead to travel down the funnel.
Many people believe that it takes a long time for a potential lead to travel down the content funnel. However, this is not necessarily true. With effective retargeting, a brand can re-engage with a potential lead in a matter of minutes.
Take yourself as an example, and think about the last time you were fed an ad on Facebook. Or, the last time you went to a website and clicked accept for cookies. How long did it take for the brand to appear again? Even if you did not end up buying the product, it took the brand as short as a day to figure out that you’re not ready yet, and have automation divert their ad money to another person who has engaged.
ii) People think what they need is just one viral post.
Can you gain brand awareness with just one post and no content strategy? Yes, but without a well-planned content strategy, this traffic will not convert. It's essential to have a content funnel in place to help guide potential leads towards conversion. Or else, all the traffic in the world won't benefit you.
iii) People think the most important thing is down funnel content.
While down funnel content is important for converting those who are actively looking to buy, it's not the only type of content that matters. Focusing solely on down funnel content means that you're only converting low hanging fruit. By neglecting awareness and consideration stage content, you're missing out on potential leads who are still in the early stages of the funnel (which is 90% of your target audiences!). It's important to have a balanced content strategy that addresses all stages of the funnel to maximize conversions.
Building a content funnel is one of the first steps in doing content marketing. It is an investment that generates growing returns over time. Content Marketing is capable of driving exponential growth, increase brand awareness and trust, convert prospects into leads, win over existing consumers, and foster a community of brand champions because it runs on a strategic framework. Without it, it'll be difficult to attract target audiences and convert them into loyal fans and customers through content.
I am passionate about this topic and I offer quality services to clients to build their own content marketing strategy. Check out my other blogs here and get your hands on the free ebook I have created for you!
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