Just like a sales funnel, a content conversion funnel is meant to drive conversions. It starts off by creating awareness on a certain topic and ends with a conversion.
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your brand or products. In fact, 95% of B2B product buyers consider content trustworthy when they are evaluating a company.
This powerful statistic establishes the importance of content marketing. However, to make sure that content marketing helps you get conversions, you need to have a content conversion funnel in place. This can help you plan the journey of potential buyers better.
Before we get into the advantages of a content conversion funnel and how you can create one, let's take a close look at what it actually is.
Content Conversion Funnel
The content conversion funnel is the process through which you take your visitors that leads to converting them. You create the content flow to convert visitors into actual customers who will pay for your products.
When a website visitor arrives at your site, you'll want to grab those eyeballs with catchy headlines, useful information, and existing content that serves to support your legitimacy. According to the Content Marketing Institute, you'll also want to make your content source format accessible to all.
There are four stages to the content conversion funnel:
- Awareness
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Delight
Most people don't move through this process along the defined path. That is why you need to have a content conversion funnel in place. The funnel will not only help you drive the visitors to make a purchase but will also help you plan and create content.
Before we dive in any further, let's take a close look at each stage of the funnel.
Awareness Stage
The awareness stage is the first stage of the funnel and is meant to attract and educate your audience.
This content should add value. It should answer questions or solve the problems of your audience. It should essentially help generate brand awareness in the long run.
One way of figuring out if your digital content is working is to check the number of views and shares it gets. At the same time, you should also see if the people viewing and sharing it are a part of your target audience.
Evaluation Stage
This is the stage at which the leads that you've attracted during the awareness stage will start evaluating your brand.
They will look for content to determine the legitimacy of your brand and develop trust. Based on this stage, visitors will decide if they want to purchase your product or services.
This type of content should generate leads and also influence them. If visitors are converting from this content, then it is successful.
Nestle, for instance, released their Toll House Chocolate Chip recipes. These recipes included chocolate chips as the main ingredients. This helped build the brand's image in the minds of consumers. It validated the brand.
Purchase Stage
This stage involves convincing your leads to make a purchase from you.
The content should result in a conversion. It should influence the purchase decisions of your leads. It should also influence the content pipeline.
To analyze if this content is successful, you can conduct reviews or surveys. The survey responses and self-assessments can give you a fair idea of your success.
Delight Stage
Many companies overlook this stage. However, it is especially important for companies with a subscription model.
The delight stage will help you build a loyal audience that will help you grow your business going forward.
Customers abandoned as soon as they make a purchase will likely be only one-time customers. However, if you can delight them with your response and special offers, they may become repeat customers.
Why Should You Create a Content Conversion Funnel?
According to Kapost, content marketing produces three times more leads than paid search for every dollar spent. It also offers six times higher conversion rates than other methods.
The primary reason for this is that content marketing helps you improve your website's search engine optimization (SEO).
It can help you get more pages indexed and even get more backlinks. This can not only help improve your website's authority but can also help you create brand awareness.
Content marketing not only reduces your costs but also helps increase your conversion rates.
But if you don't plan your strategy well, your content marketing campaign can fail. Which is one of the main reasons you should have a content conversion funnel.
How to Create a Content Conversion Funnel
The first step in creating a content conversion funnel is to figure out who your target customer is.
You create a funnel for the purpose of selling your products. For this reason, it is important to know who your target audience is because you must tailor content to the requirements of your target audience.
You will need to figure out the challenges that they face so that you can solve them through your content. Is your product able to solve their problems? At that point, you will have sparked their interest in making a purchase. Then you tailor content according to each section of the funnel.
1. Awareness Stage
At this step, focus the content on expanding your reach to spread brand awareness. The goal is to get the attention of people who have an interest in your products. It's on you to create great content that would be of interest to a potential customer. You may need to create a buyer persona and conduct AB testing as you develop your digital marketing campaign.
The content marketing efforts of today's digital marketer will include some combination of Google Analytics, keyword research, email marketing, social media, and marketing automation. Social media channels, in particular, can help facilitate rapid distribution. Some of the best types of content that you can create for this stage fall into one of three categories.
Curated
This sort of content creation revolves around posts that are easily shared on social media. They are very easy to create and share easily. However, these sorts of posts can become spammy all too easily. You must also ensure that you add your own views to the content to give it a personal touch.
Infographics
Infographics are images with bundles of information. They show a variety of statistics and data that is very easy to interpret. Infographics can generate high engagement and views as well.
Blog Posts
A blog post is a great type of content when done correctly. Blog content can help improve your website's SEO and can also be highly informative to your audience. Your website traffic can increase dramatically if your blog posts are well-written. And when you can create and share blog posts, the overall reach will increase as well.
Other great types of content for this stage include videos and podcasts. These can dramatically increase your conversion rates and boost your lead generation as well.
2. Evaluation Stage
The content that works the best in the middle of the funnel should be educational in nature. Relevant content provides the key to the conversion process. Authentic interest and compelling content converts mere readers into customers. You'll want to make sure that your contact info is readily accessible at this stage of the average buyers journey.
The awareness stage concentrates on getting the attention of people. The evaluation stage should show them why they should purchase a product or service from you. The content should show why your products or services are useful for them. It is only then that they will continue through the funnel to make a purchase from you.
Ideally, you should get the contact information of consumers during this stage to convert them into leads. The main purpose of the content is to ensure that consumers who see this content will continue to the bottom of the funnel.
The most popular forms of content for this step include:
Case Studies
Data is the primary driver behind case studies. They showcase statistics and other data gathered during a test.
White Papers
White papers provide statistical data and academic style reports as well. They help convince your audience that the product or service you offer can solve their problems.
Ebooks and Free Guides
This form of content revolves around "How-to" get things done. Target these at providing solutions to the problems faced by your audience. This content should describe and show consumers how your product can solve their problems.
You can also include worksheets as a part of this stage. They can also help you with lead generation.
You should also take the time to build attractive landing pages and optimize them for conversions. Similarly, if you're an eCommerce business, a visually-appealing website is even more important for you.
You can leverage WordPress to build your eCommerce website or landing page. This platform provides the foundation for over 30% of the world's websites, many of which also sell goods.
3. Bottom of the Funnel (Purchase and Delight Stage)
These stages should be extremely personal. The content that you create for the bottom of the funnel should show your leads the added value that your paid product offers. This should be in contrast to the free value that you've already been offering them.
One of the best ways of distributing this content is through an email autoresponder sequence. These emails can be sent to people who have provided their email addresses to you. The sequences will build up gradually and bring the user to the point where you can ask for the sale. You can do this with a great call to action.
You can offer demos and trials of your products or services to your leads to give them a hands-on experience. Other popular forms of content for the purchase stage include discount codes, webinars, and testimonials.
For the delight stage, you need to ensure that your customers are happy with your products or services.
The best types of content for this stage include special offers, member-exclusive giveaways, and product guides. You then aim this content at making the customer experience better so that their renewal rates and product usage increase.
Final Thoughts
Having a well-charted content marketing strategy is essential for success. And that includes a well-planned content conversion funnel. You need to think up content ideas tailored to your target audience for maximum effect.
At each stage of the conversion funnel, your content marketing world should be based on the primary goal or target of that stage. This will ensure that you can succeed in your goals for that stage and, in turn, increase conversions. If your company does not have a content marketer on staff, you may find success reaching out to a sales conversion service or other digital PR agency.
If you would like to set up a time to speak to a Relevance strategist about content conversion, schedule an appointment.