Create your own content marketing funnel!
- Taylor Micheal
- Jun 15, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 2, 2020
Creating a Content Marketing Funnel!
Stop listening to fake internet gurus and learn the absolute basics of creating a successful content marketing funnel.
Let's be honest: you just started this new online business; you have invested a ton of your time and maybe even a crap ton of money building this beautiful site and finding the perfect products/services to sell. But because you just can't seem to get the marketing funnel thing down you literally aren't moving or going anywhere. There are so many articles online about creating a marketing funnel and your ADHD brain has information all scattered throughout making it so hard to really buckle down and understand the info.
Well, let me tell you, my friend, you have definitely come to the right place. I am about to tell you my stupid easy tricks-and-tips on creating the PERFECT content marketing funnel for your new online business that you will be so frustrated in how easy it was to understand all along.
But first!
What the heck is a content marketing funnel?
Simply put, a content marketing funnel is simply the breakdown of the checkpoints a customer goes through, through their journey from the awareness stage to the purchasing stage.
The "content" or checkpoints in the marketing funnel are all the things that you brilliantly create to take your customer or client through different points in the funnel.
What exactly are these checkpoints you are making statements about?
These checkpoints are steps in which the buyer takes to educate themselves on the product/services, so they eventually make an informed decision to buy.
The steps are as follows:
- Build Awareness
- Build Up Interest
- Evaluation
- Commitment
- Purchase!
Damn! That's a lot of steps, can you break those down?
Okay, so first the customer begins their research and they come across your company. They begin looking around your website for information related to the products, any reviews, and videos with product explanations.
It's your job to catch the leads attention by providing uniquely designed EBOOKS, blog posts, online ads, videos, direct email marketing strategies, etc.
You may consider offering a freebie at this stage, like a free mini eBook, mini-course, free pintable’s, or maybe a free sample, where all they may pay is shipping and handling. The main goal here is to attract the buyer to your product and get them to "opt-in" to your email marketing campaign where you then provide them a freebie or incentive to joining.
Moving onto the next step, Interest.
Now that you've created interest and have gathered the lead's email, and contact info, you are now ready to help build the interest by offering a series of solutions.
During the branding stages of your business, you probably created an avatar and figured out what your target audiences’ goals and problems were. Using that information, you should be able to Tailor your products to create solutions for your audiences’ deepest wants and needs.
First, you must help your audience identify the problem, they must know that they have a problem, they just need help realizing it. Once they realize that they indeed also have that problem, you have now grabbed their attention. Or maybe they realized they needed a solution and they googled the problem and since you used SEO keywords your website came right up.
Ways to build interest:
-Case Studies
- Reviews & Video Testimonials
- Email Newsletters
- White Pages
As you continue to build interest eventually you capture the bait and they decide to see the action in "real life."
They sign up for your webinar, online email drip campaign, join private social media groups, sign up for VIP newsletter, or sign up for a demo call/coaching.
They are now in the evaluation stage, and this is one if not the most important stage.
You now have the chance to REALLY wow your buyer show them what you got and give them the best of the best.
Sink, line, and reel them in!
The marketing funnel is much like fishing, if you think about it, in many different ways. You throw out the bait (the ads, the SEO, the FREEBIE), the buyer takes the bait (signs up for email marketing list), and then you with all your strength reel the buyer in. At this point, you either catch the buyer, or you lose them and will have to try again. Also, fishing takes a lot of patience and effort of the fisherman because it can be a long waiting game, sometimes they come without a fight, and other times you have to go back and forth a couple times before they decide to come in the "boat."
We are not done just yet though.
Once the buyer comes to say our webinar, we need to get a confirmation, or a commitment to purchase. They either purchase right away, or maybe you need to offer a discount or an additional freebie. Or maybe they are just not quite ready yet, so you have to take a step or two back and win back the client.
This is known as the commitment stage.
This is where they decide okay, I am buying this product/service and I can buy either now, or whenever I get paid (whatever the plan is) you now need to make sure to get them to the last stage which is the purchasing stage and you are going to do this by the power of follow-up.
If they didn't buy right, then and there then it is your responsibility to follow up on the planned upon date to make sure you increase the chances on the purchase actually following through.
Once, you have successfully followed up it’s just a waiting game and then….. finally!
Finally, they purchased!
Now that you understand the purpose and function of content marketing funnels, let's learn how to create our very own content marketing funnel!
Below are the steps to follow to create your very own content marketing funnel!
Step 1) Get Organized
Step 2) Content Creation
Step 3) Build the funnel per the steps in which the end-user may take to get to the purchasing stage.
Step 4) Learn the power of a great follow up and actually follow up, if needed, and guarantee the sale.
Getting Organized
The first step of getting organized is to create an actionable plan that sets clear and cohesive goals that are easily achievable. This will help start you off in the right direction.
You will want to include goals like “I will increase my social media engagement by 20% within 30 days,” or “I will close 5 sales or set 5 appointments each week.”
Once you know what your goals are, list the steps it takes for you to achieve these goals, from start to finish. Really give details to all the steps you take to get through the whole process. Not just bits and pieces. If someone who did not know your plan looked at your plan, they should be able to tell and explain what you are saying.
What do you need to do to improve your SEO keywords? How can you increase traffic to your page day after day? How many times will you post to your social media accounts per day? How do you get users to opt-in to your email campaigns?
These are all just some of the many things you need to ask yourself while you are organizing your information.
You also need to organize your desktop, I’m talking about your computer desktop, lol.
If you have everything unorganized and not grouped accordingly how will you ever know where to find things when you start creating the content. Think about the folder names you’ll need and what type of images need to go where. When grouping your images together don’t forget to organize by pillar content categories Taylor Micheal is a small business online organizational coach and she can help you get organized if you are having a little chaos in your business right now. You can check out her blog right here. She has a ton of free information on her blog but in addition, she has courses too!
Now that your space is organized it’s time to organize your funnel, start with your freebie and work your way up to your largest offer.
For example, you use ads and SEO keywords to optimize your ranking only google search engines and to make sure you appear within search results.
You should have a website/landing page that people can click on to get to the initial content marketing piece.
Meanwhile, your potential customer is surfing the web for a solution to their problem.
You come up in the search results and then they are on your page.
They click and come to your landing page.
You should have some amazing content there that attracts the buyer into giving you’re their information, this is usually a pop-up or some kind of subscription request in exchange for a free product. Examples of products: niche-specific calendar/planner, audiobook, journal, swipe file, webinar, mini-course, eBook, etc.
And you organize each step, the ones discussed above, into a plan that you will now create the content for.
Content Creation
You can create content in many different ways, but it is important that you create good content. Often, I find myself lacking in the design portion of the content creation process and find it easier to source out this to people on Fiverr.
Additionally, if you love creating your own content check out Canva and Visme, they both have some amazing templates that you can follow to get some great ideas!
Putting the Funnel Together
Lay everything out in a nicely organized template, you can even create an infographic, which will help you get an overall better understanding.
Make sure the funnel makes sense and don’t forget the have two paths, a path if they ever stop responding to the email marketing, and a path if they continue on.
So, says they decided they wanted to free eBook but then you sent out a low-cost mini-course and got no response, so what will you send next? Will you try again with the same product or will you move on to the next product. Or will you send a few regular newsletters and then attempt the sale again. Will you do the same thing for everybody? Or will you create email marketing segments so you can track each stage people are in?
Learn the Power of Follow Up.
You should create a strong follow-up plan for your clients so that you ensure that you close more and more sales.
Creating a powerful follow up is the trick here, I find it easier to actually pick up the phone and call my prospects at this time because it’s the best way for me to remind them how powerful our initial call was. I also give them the chance to ask any follow-up questions.
You can check out these awesome videos on creating a follow up:
Following up can be easily done if you have already created a relationship with your client!
But there’s nothing like a good follow up call that’s is genuine and well hearted.
You should use statements like, “I just wanted to confirm that you didn’t have any further questions for me? Is there anything I can clear up that may be lingering in the back of your mind?”
Making the customer feel valued and important is what’s going to set you apart from the crowd, a good salesperson has immaculate customer services skills. They always go above and beyond to explain their products and services to their customers to make sure that the customers take advantage of all their benefits. They use suggestions as ways to create upsells and get the best clients who are 100% informed and also customers that are comfortable with speaking up if they don’t quite understand something.
Asking someone to buy isn’t rude, it’s the way you say it,
While having a conversation with someone when they tell you something they need, write it down, bring it up in the follow-up, and provide points on how you can help them with those specific problems.
You should approach it like this:
Thelma: I feel like my content is not reaching the appropriate target audience, I wish I knew how to attract the right clients so I can provide the best products.
Coach during follow up:
Thelma, you mentioned you are having a hard time reaching your target audience. Allow us to rebrand your content for you and curate samples of strong content that reaches your specific audience. Our team if educated on finding targeted leads and we will create your content you can reuse over time to talk specifically to that audience.
That sure does sound good!
In conclusion….
I’ve taught you what a content marketing funnel was and then the basics on how to create one. Now, it’s your turn to take the information I have offered and run with it and let it provide success for your company.
Thank you again for reading please be sure to subscribe for more great content like this!
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