A content funnel is essential to your content strategy.

What is a content funnel?

It’s a funnel that represents each stage of the buying / converting process.

Content funnels can help your business attract potential customers, guide them through a journey and ultimately convert.

Each stage of the funnel requires different messaging and clear signposting in the form of Call-to-Actions (CTA) to guide potential customers down the path to conversion.

This is where content comes in and why it’s so important. But before you think about getting your content out there you need to put the legwork in.

Getting started with a content funnel

• Decide what outcomes you want for your campaign to achieve. Is it conversions? Brand Awareness?

• Determine your KPIs

• Establish your target audience

• Analyse previous campaigns (and improve them)

• Research keywords and competitors

When you've dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s then you need to create pieces of content for each stage of the user journey, like a blog post, landing page or email.

This is when the elements of the content marketing funnel come into play. There’s a top, middle and bottom section. Each represents a stage in the buying journey. And each stage in the funnel aligns with the most effective content needed to achieve the funnel stage objective:

1. Awareness

2. Evaluation

3. Conversion

1. Awareness

When somebody enters the content funnel, you should assume they don't know anything about your business. This is where Top-of-Funnel content comes into play. Its aim is to build trust, educate your target audience on who you are and what you offer. Consider the following types of content:

• Blog posts

• Landing pages

• Social media posts

• Infographics

• Videos

• E-books

• Podcasts

• Print media

• Newsletters

2. Evaluation

The Middle-of-the-Funnel is where your audience evaluates the content you've created for this stage. This is where you continue building trust, authority and expertise to make the purchase decision easier. Suitable content for this stage includes:

• Case studies

• White papers

• Emails

• Resources/downloads

• Surveys

• Gamification

• Webinars

3. Conversion

Up to this point the content funnel has been about educating and generating interest in your offerings. The Bottom-of-the-Funnel is where your prospects should be ready to buy. Now you need to galvanise this by giving more reasons why your product or service is superior. Think about content such as:

• Demos

• Testimonials

• Resources/downloads

• Customer stories

• Surveys

• Webinars 

Working with Codehouse

Here at Codehouse we work content every day. Whether it’s our own or for our customers. If you want to make an impact with your content marketing strategy, get in touch and talk to our experts about a Content Optimisation service suitable for your business.