You know that content is king, don’t you?
Nevertheless, what you do not know is that content is only king when it succeeds in enticing its audience.
When you publish a piece of content without a predetermined strategy, whether it’s a blog post, a social media post, or anything else, your efforts are likely to go awry.
You will learn more about a content marketing funnel in the next section, but for now, you just need to know that it plays a major role in making people trust and like your brand.
A content marketing funnel also helps people make a purchase decision about the product/service you are selling.
The importance of a content marketing funnel has always been vital for businesses, and it is now becoming even more crucial, so we have written this post so that you can learn more about it.
In this article, we intend to inform you about what a content marketing funnel is and also about its phases.
As well as discussing a content marketing funnel, we will also cover other relevant information about it that might help you expand your understanding.
Content marketing funnel – An overview
What exactly is a content marketing funnel?
The content marketing funnel depicts the journey potential customers take from knowing nothing about a brand to becoming loyal and trusted customers.
Ultimately, a content marketing funnel guides the potential customer from being uninformed about the business to become its loyal customer.
It is the content marketing funnel journey that enables potential customers who are unaware of the products or services of a business to learn about them, then build trust and relationships with the business, then become customers, and ultimately become loyal customers.
From being unaware of a business to becoming a loyal customer, potential customers go through three stages.
The three stages are TOFU (Top Of The Funnel), MOFU (Middle Of The Funnel), and BOFU (Bottom Of The Funnel).
The TOFU stage focuses on making your brand known to potential customers.
During the MOFU stage, you build strong relationships with people who have shown some interest in your brand or its products/services during the TOFU stage.
After having built a relationship with people in the MOFU stage, the BOFU stage focuses on converting them into customers.
A final objective of the BOFU stage is to increase loyalty toward your brand among those who have already been successfully converted as paying customers.
There are four phases that fall under the TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU stages: Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, and Delight.
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Four phases of content marketing funnels
Awareness (TOFU)
Overview
This is the first phase.
You will be totally unknown to those potential customers that are going to encounter your business during this phase.
It is your duty to inform them that your business exists to meet their needs.
Your goal is not to shout at people loudly, “Hey, we exist; buy our products/services ”.
It’s not the right way to do it. You do this instead by delivering highly educational content that relates to your product/service and potential customers’ needs/desires.
In the awareness phase, you deliver the following types of content to potential customers:
A) Blog posts
B) Video tutorials
C) Infographics
D) Social media posts
Suggestion
Blog posts are the most important type of content in the awareness stage.
Despite the fact that social media posts and infographics are also quite effective, blog posts yield the best results.
For this reason, make sure your blog posts for your potential customers are thoroughly keyword-researched and well-written.
You should also write your blog posts with the intention of providing people with the highest level of knowledge possible while keeping self-promotion to a minimum.
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Consideration (MOFU)
Overview
Phase two is the consideration phase.
In this phase, you try to win the trust of those who showed interest in your business, product/service during the awareness phase.
The consideration phase is crucial because people’s trust in your business is one of the major factors influencing their buying decision.
You can deliver the following types of content to people in the consideration phase:
A) How-to guides
B) Webinars
C) Case studies
D) Landing pages
E) E-books
Suggestion
Feel free to self-promote your product/service during the consideration phase.
During this phase, people are aware of your business and have started to trust it, so you can start self-promoting.
It is important to ensure self-promotion of your product/service is limited and not overdone.
Conversion (BOFU)
Overview
Since this is where consumers buy their products/services, most businesses consider this the last phase of their content marketing funnel.
It’s here that potential customers become customers.
In contrast to most businesses, we will not consider this to be the last phase since there is one more phase to come.
The purpose of this phase is to give your customers the information they need to make an informed decision about investing in your product/service.
During the conversion phase, people become highly confident in their decision to purchase your product or service.
Conversion phase content includes:
A) Questionnaires
B) Reviews
C) Product Manual
D) Customer review
Suggestion
You are converting nurtured potential customers into paying customers in this phase.
This is where content writing just won’t cut it, and you’ll need to shift your focus toward copywriting.
Using words to sell is what copywriting is all about. To sell your product/service to your audience, make sure you write very well-written copy in this phase.
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Delight (BOFU)
You have reached the end of your content marketing funnel.
Ideally, you want your existing customers to become loyal customers who spread the word about your brand, products, and services.
Furthermore, this is the phase in which you try to turn your customers into repeat customers. In order to achieve this, you can use content such as:
A) Member-exclusive content
B) Special offers
C) Giveaways
Suggestion
Many businesses make the same mistake in the last phase of the content marketing funnel.
Rather than segmenting their audience, they share the same content with every customer.
It’s not a good idea, you should segment your audience by their levels of loyalty and deliver content accordingly.
An effective content marketing funnel strategy addresses the following questions:
Creating your content marketing funnel strategy involves answering these seven questions.
1) Who are our potential customers?
2) How can we get the attention of our prospective customers and make them aware of our business, products, and services?
3) What can we do to make our products/services more appealing to our potential customers?
4) What can we do to encourage our audience to take some action, such as signing up for our newsletter or clicking on the like button?
5) How can we convince prospective customers that our product/service is the right choice?
6) In what ways can we help our audience make a purchase decision?
7) When our potential customers become our customers, how can we use our content to generate repeat business or brand advocacy?
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When you have a content marketing funnel ready, what should you do next?
The one thing you don’t want to do after getting your content marketing funnel ready is to stay with it forever.
Your content marketing funnel strategy should change with the changing preferences, tastes, and behaviors of your customers.
As you research your audience’s changing behavior patterns and tastes, your content marketing funnel will also be optimized accordingly.
Constant research into your audiences requires time and effort, but this is a way to outdo your competitors in every aspect of content marketing funnels.
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Conclusion
Thank you for completing this article.
As a final note, we just want to remind you from experience to make sure you have all of your content marketing funnel material ready.
Many people only develop material for the first or second phases of their content marketing funnel, leaving everything else behind.
Your efforts will not yield the most effective results if you do this.
It is also important to have all your content ready for each phase of the content marketing funnel to remain confident about your results.
Taking inspiration from your most successful competitors can help you determine which materials would be best for your content marketing funnel.