What Is Top Funnel Content Marketing?

Top funnel content marketing is a powerful approach to creating awareness and building relationships with potential customers who may have never heard of your company or product before. This marketing strategy This marketing strategy belongs to one of the best content marketing practices and relies on educational, informative, and entertaining content to attract potential consumers and convert them into returning clients. 

There are different types of funnels, but in this article, we will focus on content marketing specifically and explain why it's important for any digital marketer to understand and use it.

What Does Top of Funnel Mean?

Top of funnel is an essential concept in content marketing. It refers to the strategies and activities used to draw potential clients into the sales funnel, nurture their interests, and eventually convert them into paying customers. Basically, the focus is on creating awareness about a product or service, presenting its value, and generating leads that can later be nurtured.

Therefore, the primary goal of top of funnel is to identify leads that are likely to convert and get them into the sales process as efficiently as possible. To do this, marketers use a range of strategies such as content creation, SEO optimization, email marketing, social media campaigns, influencer marketing, and more.

Top of funnel is a critical stage of the customer journey, meaning it's the first point of contact with prospective clients. With the right strategies, marketers can create highly effective campaigns that will help them reach their desired audience and achieve their goals.

In recent years, top of funnel marketing has become increasingly important among businesses of all sizes. After all, regardless of whether you own a large corporation or are just starting out as a small or medium business, boosting conversion rates is essential. Luckily, you can rely on marketers to identify the right strategies for your business and create successful top-of-funnel campaigns that will help you reach your goals.

Now, we will focus on some top of funnel marketing examples to make things more clear.

Top of Funnel Examples

In the list below, you will find the most common ways to spread the word about your business or brand. You’ve probably heard of them before — you just had no idea they are called funnel marketing strategies:

• Social media — This is one of the most powerful top-of-funnel tools out there. You can use it to build relationships with potential customers, educate them about your products and services, and drive traffic to your website.
• SEO — Search engine optimization (SEO) is another funnel type that helps you boost visibility for important keywords related to your services. This means that potential customers can easily find your business when searching for relevant terms online.
• Content marketing — Content marketing involves creating blog posts, infographics, and videos, among other things, that provide useful information about your services or products. Top funnel content marketing is a well-known tool that helps build trust with existing and potential customers alike.
• Paid advertising — You can use paid advertising on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads to drive targeted traffic to your website. It is a great way to increase awareness of your brand and products.
• Referral programs — Word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals represent one of the oldest top-of-funnel marketing tactics. In fact, you can generate lots of leads for your business by offering incentives or rewards to those customers who refer their friends or family.
• Influencers — Nowadays, working with influencers or industry experts to promote your products is a must if you want to reach new audiences and build relationships with potential customers. These types of collaborations can enhance your brand's credibility and trustworthiness.
• Email marketing — Sending out newsletters or promotional emails is not dead yet. On the contrary, it’s perhaps the best way to keep in touch with existing customers and reach new potential buyers. Emails are great for boosting brand visibility and creating a connection with prospects.

By using these top-of-funnel strategies, you can reach new audiences and start building relationships with potential customers in no time. Before you know it, they will help you increase brand visibility and generate more leads for your business.

What Is a Content Marketing Funnel?

We will now focus on one of the oldest (yet still effective) funnels — content marketing responsible for successful customer journeys. This strategy is based on the idea that quality content can be used to generate leads, build relationships with potential customers, and, ultimately, maximize revenue. The content marketing funnel comprises five stages: awareness, detailed information, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy.

The first phase involves creating content that helps people become aware of your product or service. This top-of-funnel content could include examples like blog posts, articles, videos, and images on social media. The key is to create something that will intrigue your target audience and make them wonder what you have to offer.

The next stage in the funnel involves providing detailed information about your product or service. This will help your potential customers decide whether they are interested in purchasing what you have to offer. There are many ways to do this, such as white papers, webinars, or even case studies.

The conversion stage happens when your potential customer makes a purchase. At this point, you need to make sure your checkout experience is as smooth as possible. It is crucial to provide clear information so that they know what to expect — otherwise, they will back out of the purchase, and you will probably lose them for good.

The loyalty stage involves creating a content marketing funnel that keeps your customers engaged with your product or service and encourages them to purchase again. For example, this could include newsletters, blogs, or even loyalty programs.

Finally, there is the advocacy stage, which is all about getting your customers to spread the word about your product or service. This can be done through referrals, reviews, or even social media campaigns.

As you can see, creating content that appeals to each stage of the funnel ensures that your potential customers have all it takes to make an informed decision and choose whether to become your clients.

Now, let’s check out some tips and tricks on creating the perfect top-of-funnel content that will help you attract new customers.

How to Write Top-of-Funnel Content

As we’ve already said, creating high-quality content is an essential part of every effective top funnel content marketing strategy. That is why we’ve listed some practices that may help you with this, making your business more successful in the process.

• Focus on building relationships — When creating top-of-the-funnel content, it is crucial to focus on building relationships with your target audience. Make sure that what you post resonates with them, reflects their interests, and solves some of their pain points.
• Cater to a wide audience — Your top-of-funnel content should be broad in scope, which will enable it to appeal to a wide range of potential customers. Don’t get too specific or niche with it, as this can limit its reach.
• Keep it concise and to the point — Whatever you post should be easy to digest, so keep it short and sweet. Don’t try to cram too much information into a single piece of content; instead, break it up into smaller chunks.
• Include calls to action — Every piece of top of funnel content should include a call to action. This encourages people to continue their journey with your brand and can lead to more conversions down the line.
• Measure results — Tracking the performance of your top of funnel content is essential. Use analytics tools to measure how many people are viewing and engaging with what you’re posting so that you have a better idea of what’s working and what needs improvement. The top-of-funnel metrics are particularly important for businesses trying to convert visitors into purchasing customers.

Summary

By now, you should have a clear idea of what you can use at the top-of-the-funnel stage to generate new leads for your business. Even though creating perfect content is not an easy task, following the recommended practices we have discussed will help you get started on the right foot. Needless to say, don’t be afraid to experiment and try new top funnel content marketing strategies — that’s how you will find out what works best for your business.

If you need help with creating top of funnel content, our team of experts is here to help. Don’t hesitate to contact us.