What is the Content Marketing Funnel?
A content funnel is a method to get as many leads as possible by following a step-by-step content flow. The funnel then converts these leads into customers who will pay for your products and services. These are the four stages of a content marketing funnel:
- Awareness
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Delight
These phases are not necessarily linear paths for most people, but a content funnel model can be a great tool to help you with your content marketing strategy. These are the questions that a content marketing strategy can help answer:
- What kind of content should you create?
- How can I determine success with this piece of content
- Do I need to repurpose the content?
- Is there a problem with my content strategy?
Awareness Stage Content
Awareness is the first stage in the content marketing funnel. This stage aims to educate and attract your audience about your topic.
Answer the following questions to determine if this phase’s content is successful:
- Are there many views and shares?
- Is your target audience made up of people who share and view the content?
- Are they interested in the content?
According to marketing resources, the best formats for creating content for this stage of the marketing funnel are ads, social media posts, and infographics.
These content types are great for awareness stage content. However, not all audiences will be the same. To determine which content is performing best at this stage, analyze your metrics. To determine whether your content is performing at the awareness stage, you can use these metrics: total shares, views, and time on page. Scroll depth, bounce rate, and scroll depth.
You can create content that answers the top questions of your prospects. Even if it isn’t read, it will still be valuable. You can also share it with any prospect who asks the same question.
We then identified which posts we should promote and optimize, what new keywords to target, and how to create content for the next stage of our funnel.
Evaluation Stage Content
The evaluation stage is where potential buyers assess your legitimacy, build trust and decide if your product is right for them.
Answer these questions to determine the success of your content at the evaluation stage.
- Is this content converting well with my contacts?
- Are these leads generated by this content?
- Does this content influence leads?
You need more leads
There is one common error to avoid when looking at metrics such as these.
White papers, templates, guides, and other forms of guidance are great tools for increasing leads and influencing others.
Learn more about lead generation, topics, and distribution methods to gain a better understanding of what was working, as well as how to promote your content.
Purchase stage Content
Next, convince your audience that buying is the smartest step in the content marketing funnel. It is important to create content that closes business. These are the questions you need to answer about your content during this stage:
- Does this content influence revenue?
- What kind of content is this content generated by?
- Does this content influence the pipeline?
Reviews, questionnaires, and self-assessments are the most effective formats for this stage.
Delight Stage Content
The delight stage is the last and most overlooked part of the content marketing funnel. This is particularly significant for B2B businesses that subscribe to our services. This stage has multiple goals.
This stage is suited for a wide range of content types. These include product guides, educational materials, member-exclusive material, forums, chat rooms, special offers, and giveaways.
Pardot Reporting is a great way to see how your marketing assets performed. You can view campaign overview, lifecycle reports, and email statistics. Pardot gives you all the information you need. These reporting tools cannot be optimized. They can only be filtered.
