Examples of content that converts at each stage of the marketing funnel
Your website has officially launched, and now, the billion dollar question is: “What should I do to increase my website traffic?”
Unfortunately, Kafen8 can’t help you win the traffic lottery, but we are here to make your life easier.
One of the best ways to set your business up for success is by creating content that converts within a content marketing funnel.
The four key stages of the content marketing funnel are:
Awareness
Interest/Consideration
Purchase
Advocacy
A person visiting your site might be sitting at any point in the funnel, and your goal is to convert them to the next stage. The further down the content marketing funnel you get them, the more customer loyalty you'll build.
To reach your goal of converting readers into buyers through your content marketing funnel, you need to create content that fits your readers’ needs at each stage.
What kinds of content should you use at each stage of the marketing funnel?
Great question. Let’s go through some examples of content marketing that converts at each stage in the funnel.
Content Marketing for the Awareness Stage
First up is the awareness stage of your marketing funnel—this stage refers to when a prospect has been exposed to your brand for the first time. Your content should be created with the idea of making a great first impression on your prospects, as well as providing answers to common questions they might have about your products or industry.
Here are a few content marketing ideas you can use for building awareness for your brand.
Brand Storytelling
Every brand has a backstory. It's the "why" behind how you build your business and go about your day to day operations.
Sharing your brand’s origin story helps you position yourself among your competition and share your “why”, increasing your brand recognition and reinforcing your mission and values.
Good examples of brands that do this exceptionally are Patagonia and Pura Vida Bracelets. Their storytelling content helps their brand resonate with its target audience, building loyalty to their company from the get-go.
Great storytelling can live on your About page, but you can also go in depth with your company’s blog.
Video Content
Video content is one of the most engaging and dynamic types of content. It often gives a new dimension and vision into your company’s personality. If your competitors aren’t using video, it can make your company look much more dynamic and open vs. your competitors.
Video attracts and shares your message in a faster - and sometimes - funnier way. The movement and noise can help you retain site users and educate them on your brand’.
In fact, if a site user has a positive experience with your video, it makes them 97-percent more likely to purchase. Think of your video content as the first impression that will help your prospects connect with your company at a higher rate.
The thought of producing video content seems daunting to so many–hiring a crew, writing a script, and setting aside the time to shoot your content–yikes. While professionally created videos are necessary in many cases, one of the best gifts given to us by Tik Tok and Instagram Reels is the acceptance of “amateur” video as a legitimate and effective way to tell your brand’s story. People don’t expect brands to share 100% polished, professionally filmed, produced and edited video content anymore. So buy a tripod and ring light for your phone, and sit down and tell us your story on video.
Content Marketing for the Consideration Stage
The next step is the consideration stage. It refers to when your prospects realize they’ve got a problem to solve, and are considering your brand as a solution. They're looking for reasons why they should purchase from you vs. your competitors. Here are a few forms of content that help you answer that.
Blogs and Articles
One of the essential things in the consideration stage is establishing your brand as a leading authority or subject matter expert in your industry.
If you do that, you will gain trust from your prospects, and they will rely on what you have to say and purchase your products to solve their most significant pain points.
Your blog content should answer your prospects’ most common questions. Think about your initial calls or conversations with prospects, or the common questions you see them ask in the comments section of your social media.
Write those questions down in a list. Do you have a blog to answer each of those questions? If the answer is no, then get to work on getting those blogs written.
Another great way to find out what your prospects are searching for is to use a tool like Semrush or Ahrefs. When you enter a topic or keyword commonly used in your business, they will provide you with other keywords or questions also frequently asked. Create content for your blog around those topics as well. (Note: At Kafen8, we use Semrush, and use of that tool is included in our content packages–ask us about it!)
Blog articles help you build your reputation in their eyes by answering all of their most important questions and positioning your brand persona. Through this kind of content, you give the chance to create intimacy with your customers.
Social Media Presence
If you've ever come across a new brand online, then your natural reaction might be to visit their social media - Why? Because you're trying to feel out their brand. If they don't impress you within a certain time window, you won’t follow them and may never return.
Social media is an imperative piece of any marketing funnel. It helps you connect with your prospects and clients on a person-to-person basis.
Think about a first date: if you’re not feeling it in the first few minutes of meeting someone, your brain might be thinking, “NEXT...”. Your social media content should be created to stop the scroll or the
You can use your posts and stories to establish your brand's knowledge and personality. You can show behind the scenes content so prospects see what your team’s day to day is all about. Prospects can see your product at work - clothes being modeled, people opening a box of your barbecue sauce, or a snippet of your training videos.
Social media is also a great way to stay top of mind. Sometimes a prospect isn’t ready to buy when they first come across your brand. But, if you stay top of mind with frequent, useful and entertaining social media posts, your content may just help convert them to the Purchase stage.
Content Marketing for the Purchase Stage
As the name would imply, this is the stage where your prospect becomes a client. Your content in the awareness stage and consideration stage convinced them that they need to purchase. However, the work isn’t done - content in Purchase stage of the content marketing funnel is all about driving purchase from you, and not from a competitor.Here are some ideas and examples of great content in the Purchase stage of the funnel. Infographics
Too many brands use copy-only content to persuade the customer to purchase one of their products. However, copy by itself can be hard to interpret and in a time when attention spans are being compared to that of a goldfish, it can be helpful to serve up your information in bite-sized, visually pleasing pieces.
That’s why we love infographics. Your customer doesn’t want to work to buy. They want easy and good content to consume. Give your customers an infographic that highlights various surveys that your previous customers have on their product satisfaction.
Here’s a great example of an infographic that we use as a marketing tool at Kafen8 - a downloadable guide to infographic sizing. (inset - click on image for downloadable version)
Buying Guides, Comparison Blogs and Charts
When choosing between multiple options, it can be helpful to have all the features and benefits (or even drawbacks) listed visually so that buyers can make an informed decision.
Consumer Reports comes to mind - when comparing cars, vaccuums, or refrigerators, I look there first to see how products stack up against each other.
This same idea translates to your content. Putting out comparison charts that honestly compare your product, but that highlight the features and benefits that your product or service has compared to your competition can help buyers make their decision.
Here’s a great example from Hubspot. In this post, they compare Hubspot to Wordpress as a CMS, both in long form blog copy and with a comparison chart.
Content Marketing for the Advocacy Stage
Last but certainly not least, we have the advocacy stage of the content marketing funnel. This stage is essential for building customer loyalty so they too, can spread the word for your brand. This stage is key, because it’s here that customers make and share their reviews. This is your opportunity to turn them into evangelists for your brand, so that your marketing efforts become amplified.
Here are some of the most effective types of content you can use to build advocacy among your purchasers.
Email Subscriptions
As soon as your customer enters their contact information to purchase your product, they can elect to subscribe to your emails.
This action provides the gold mine for your business. Knowing how to use it will help to build your brand recall with each client and allow you more opportunities to increase sales.
You can then use these emails to introduce new products, additional purchases, blog articles, new customer promotions, and so on.
Customer Surveys and Customer Reviews
Customers want to work with brands that are listening to them. They want their voices to be heard.
You can use customer surveys and reviews as a way to get valuable feedback.
Analyzing this material gives you the opportunity to better understand how to improve. What should you keep doing? What needs to change? What’s the best way to stay in sync with your customers?
Surveys give your brand the chance to track in the right direction. They make your brand more approachable, and they make your customers and clients feel valued.
Be sure to respond to customer feedback and reviews - no matter the tone.
Strengthen Your Content Marketing Strategy Today
Now that you've seen examples of content to use at each stage of the content marketing funnel, it is time to use them to your advantage.
Take the time to go through your current content marketing strategy and see which of these techniques you aren't currently using.
For more on content marketing and energizing your business, be sure to browse through other articles on The Grind.
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