A Beginner's Guide to Content and the Sales Funnel

If you are not familiar with the traditional sales funnel, this marketing concept can help you better get to know your target customers and what they need from you during each step of their buyer's journey. Though content marketing is often thought of as a top funnel strategy, different types of content can help you reach people during each stage of this process.

In our latest blog post, we give an overview of the sales funnel and explain where content fits into each stage so you can draw new leads and customers to your business.

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Excel xlookup

In our latest blog post, we give an overview of the sales funnel and explain where content fits into each stage so you can draw new leads and customers to your business.

About edocr

Get publishing now!

leadgen Content sale Funnel stage Customer buyer s journey make social media Content

 
A Beginner's Guide to Content and the Sales Funnel   
   
If you are not familiar with the traditional sales funnel, this marketing concept 
can help you better get to know your target customers and what they need 
from you during each step of their buyer’s journey. Though content marketing 
is often thought of as a top funnel strategy, different types of content can help 
you reach people during each stage of this process. Knowing what the sales 
funnel is and understanding where content fits into each stage can help you 
better provide targeted content that draws new leads and customers to your 
business.   
   
Sales Funnel 101: The Basics   
Imagine a funnel. It’s wider at the top and narrows considerably at the bottom. 
In many ways, this resembles your sales process. You begin with a large batch 
of leads, some who are right for your company and others who are not. As 
these consumers do their research and interact with your brand, the number of 
leads slowly decreases until those who are a good fit become customers and 
you work to retain them.   
   
This is the sales funnel, which has four basic stages:   
● Awareness – At this stage, individuals are in the very beginning of their 
buyer’s journey. They are seeking out education and new information to 
help them better understand the available solutions to their problems.   
● Consideration – During the consideration 
stage, consumers are looking for a 
demonstration of solutions or expertise. 
They are comparing solutions to find which 
may be a good fit for their particular need.   
● Decision – This is when the consumer is 
finally ready to buy and needs to make a 
final decision. At this stage, consumers 
want to experience some sort of 
confirmation that they are making the right 
choice.   
● Retention – After consumers become 
customers, they will continue to look to your brand for helpful information 
and insight as well as new products and services that continue to make 
their lives easier.   
  
These stages each represent a process that your leads go through on their 
journey to becoming customers. At each stage in the journey, these consumers 
need information from your brand to better understand if you provide a viable 
solution to their problems.   
   
Why the Customer Journey is Important   
When a customer buys your product or service, this is just one step in a long 
journey that is made up of all the moments that have led to this purchase. By 
understanding what your customer needs each step of the way, you can 
improve their experience by making the buyer’s journey simple, clear, and 
efficient. Ultimately, this will not only help empower the customer to make a 
smart purchasing decision, but it will help you move them through the sales 
funnel faster, which improves your bottom line.   
   
Once you understand the buyer’s journey, you can get to know what your 
target customers want and need during each stage. This allows you to create 
more useful and targeted content that helps answer important questions and 
demonstrate expertise early on and throughout the buyer’s journey.   
   
How to Use Content at Each Stage   
You might be used to creating brand blogs or social media content, but when it 
comes to the sales funnel, different types of content are needed at different 
stages throughout the buyer’s journey. For instance, when shopping for fuel-
efficient cars, you are probably going to do more research on the different 
types of vehicles and brands that offer these vehicles before you compare 
prices or apply for a car loan. Similarly, consumers at the top of the sales 
funnel are needing different types of information than those who are ready to 
make a purchase. Using Excel to track leads? The xlookup helps to know more 
short keys and functions for both vertical and horizontal ranges. 
   
Here is a simple guide on the types of content that are useful at each stage in 
the sales funnel:   
   
Awareness Stage – During this stage, you want to provide content that offers 
broad overviews of the problem or topic. Rather than delving specifically into 
your product or service, provide informational resources that address the 
problems that your product or service solves.   
   
Examples: Whitepapers, Guides, eBooks, Tip Sheets, Blog and Social Media 
Content, Checklists, Infographics, Videos   
   
Consideration Stage – During the consideration stage, individuals are looking 
for examples of how solutions work and other demonstrations of expertise. This 
is where you can start focusing on your specific product or solution and how it 
works to solve their problem.   
   
Examples: Webinars, Case Studies, Reviews and Testimonials, Product and 
Specification Sheets, Videos, Buyer’s Guides   
    
Decision Stage – Once the consumer is at this stage, they are ready to make 
a purchasing decision. They just want to make sure that they are making the 
right decision before they hand over their credit card. This is where you need to 
provide content that validates their decision.   
   
Examples: Free Trials, Product Demonstrations, Free Consultations, Price 
Estimates or Quotes   
   
Retention Stage – At this point, you have already made the sale. But if you 
want to encourage repeat sales or have the opportunity to upsell later on, you 
need to continue to nurture these client relationships.   
   
Examples: Free Trials, Product Demonstrations, Blogs and Social Media 
Content, Emails, Customer Retention Programs   
   
How to Publish Content During the Buyer’s Journey   
Once you have created content that is geared toward each stage of the sales 
funnel, it is important that you publish this content in places that allow you to 
get the most out of your content creation efforts. There are many outlets that 
you can use to reach potential customers, but let’s talk about a few important 
strategies.   
   
One of the best ways to get the most out of your content is by creating gated 
content. Gated content is free, quality content such as e-books and 
whitepapers that you offer to visitors in exchange for their contact information. 
You can create a lead form that asks for information such as name, 
occupation, and email address, and then automatically add this data into your 
customer relationship management (CRM) system for later follow up.     
   
In addition to gated content, you can also create SEO-focused content that will 
help you increase your visibility in the search engines and reach more potential 
customers. Publishing content on edocr is just one of the many ways that you 
can help improve your search engine rankings and expand your reach. The 
document viewer on edocr extracts text from your document so that they can 
be crawled and indexed by search engines. This helps improve your SEO and 
put your content in front of a greater number of interested leads.   
   
Want to take advantage of the opportunities that edocr offers to help you reach 
your target customers? Register for an account today and start publishing your 
content.