Content creation can be a powerful way to educate and build trust with your audience. However, creating content can also be very challenging, especially when developing content that advances your company’s growth goals.
In this blog post, you’ll be introduced to content creation ideas, examples, and tips that you can use for each stage of the marketing funnel.
Creating Content for Your Marketing Funnel
Every content strategy starts with identifying buyer personas, buyer's journey stages, and the job to be done.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal client based on actual research and select educated speculation.
The buyer's journey is the active research process an ideal client goes through between identifying a goal to achieve or a challenge to solve and making the actual purchase decision.
To have greater clarity on decision-stage content, especially product marketing and sales enablement content, you also need to truly understand the job-to-be-done your product or service does for its ideal client. Then and only then will you be in a position to create helpful, educational content for each stage of the buyer's journey and your marketing funnel -- while that content educates and builds trust at scale.
Content Ideas and Examples for Each Stage
During the awareness stage, blogs, podcasts, eBooks, downloadable reports, and guides tend to be very effective at attracting and engaging strangers looking for content that answers their questions about a big goal they're trying to achieve or problems that they're trying to solve.
During the consideration stage, webinars, calculators, and case studies tend to be quite effective for the person comparing their options and weighing the pros and cons of different solutions categories.
And finally, during the decision stage, product- and service content (product marketing) and content about your company tend to be a perfect fit.
Tips on Avoiding Common Mistakes Content Creators Make When Designing Content for their Marketing Funnels
All too often, companies new to content creation only have content built out for decision-stage buyers -- and effectively end up alienating the 70%+ of buyers who could be great fit clients but aren't anywhere near that stage of the buyer's journey. In much the same way that you wouldn’t propose marriage on a first date, unless you’re an actor in a cheesy romantic comedy film, early on, most prospects are just researching and learning. If you’re earning mindshare as a great educator in the early stages, you’ll be top-of-mind when that same prospect becomes closer to their purchase decision.
Second biggest mistake:
Many severely underinvest in content creation and content promotion because of some wildly misguided notion that "our clients don't buy that way," "our clients don't read blogs," "our clients don't watch videos," and "our clients won't attend webinars." That can be like talking to a wall when you’re speaking with a company leader that's truly living in 2005 and waiting for dial-up modems, fax machines, and printed phone books to make a comeback.
Third biggest mistake:
Some companies, especially startups, scaleups, and small businesses, put their sales leaders in charge of anything having to do with marketing, especially content marketing. While sales leaders are focused on getting deals closed this month and this quarter, content creation requires playing the long game: building a brand before tapping into demand: two completely different goals, objectives, and timeframes.
And the most vital bonus tip for content creators that want to be effective throughout the buyer’s journey and marketing funnel:
Invest in customer insight so that you know your ideal clients better than they know themselves.
What’s your favorite content creation idea, example, tip, or best practice for supporting your whole marketing funnel? Let me know in the comments section down below.
And if you're serious about using content to power your funnel growth, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.
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