A content marketing funnel is a great way to get leads for your business and content marketing is still one of the best ways to grow your online presence
Lead generation is another important aspect of content marketing. Without lead generation, you’re really just publishing and promoting content, hoping that people are going to buy or sign up for your products!
While occasionally some people will buy things on the spot, the truth is the majority won’t.
You need to have a lead capture system in place, so you can continue reminding your target audience that your brand exists. You can get in touch with them later on to share your news and updates, and to persuade them to move down your content marketing funnel.
The Content Marketing Funnel
What funnel you may ask?
In case you did not realize it, just throwing content up on your blog or social media sites is not true content marketing. If you want this to work, your content marketing plan must include a funnel, a slippery slope if you will, to get the lead.
Otherwise, you are really just wasting your time and money.
Generally speaking, a content marketing funnel has three broad levels:
- Awareness stage – this is when your target audience first becomes aware of your brand. They become your leads.
- Evaluation stage – this is where your lead evaluates whether your product or service is good for them or not. At this point, your lead turns into a prospect.
- Purchase stage – this is when your prospect decides to subscribe to your service or product. Your prospect finally becomes a customer.
When you plan out your content marketing strategy, your end goal is basically to put your brand in front of people who’ve no idea who you are and turn them into customers. Sounds like a pretty tall order, right?
That’s because it really is, but it’s very much doable.
Content marketing is basically a numbers game. You want to get your brand in front of as many people as possible (belonging to your target audience, of course). This is because only a small percentage of your leads will turn into prospects, and an even smaller number of prospects will turn into customers.
I’ll have more tips and info about a content marketing plan in my next blog post.
