Conversion-focused content starts at the top of the sales funnel. Who is your target audience? What are they struggling with? How can your product solve their problems? Once you know this, you can craft top of funnel content that addresses their pain points and provide valuable information.
Top of funnel content is content that is created to attract attention and generate interest in a product or service. This type of content is typically high-level and general, and is designed to create awareness of a problem or need that a potential customer may have.
Top of Funnel Content Ideas
Here are a few ideas for content that will attract new visitors to your site, teach them about your product, and move them down the sales funnel.
- Using tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush, research your keyword phrases and look for the long tail variations. These will be less popular but will be easier to rank for.
- Search for more long-tail keyword phrases using tools like the Keyword Planner and Google Suggest.
- Research what issues your target audience is struggling with on sites like Quora. These don’t have to be directly related to your solutions, just topics that they care about.
- Help your users solve their problems, even if they have nothing to do with your product. At leadfeeder.com, we know that salespeople are often struggling to send out a cold email. So, we polled our team to find out what template they used and packaged it together in a blog post.
- Ask your sales team and customer service team what the most common questions are that they receive. Also, see if any of those could be turned into top-of-funnel content for your blog.
Top-Down Marketing
Top-of-the-funnel marketing is all about creating awareness for your brand and engaging with potential customers who may not know much about what you have to offer. By creating compelling content and running targeted ad campaigns, you can reach new audiences and introduce them to your products or services.
At this stage, your lead has most likely established a problem that needs solving. They’ve likely started looking for solutions to that problem.
You may have come across a potential customer who seems interested in what you have to offer, but they’re not quite sure if you have the solution they’re looking for. Converting leads into customers doesn’t happen on its own – you have to put in the effort to make it happen.
96% of visitors who come to your site are not ready to make a purchase. However, what they find there could determine whether or not they eventually do.
At this stage, your content marketing should primarily be educational. Yes, you want your content to ultimately inspire action, but at the top of the funnel, your primary goal should be to inform.
Your top-of-the-funnel content is all focused on answering common questions, establishing yourself as an expert, and solving a problem.
Who your content is created for is just as important as what it’s about. The leads at this stage are very broad, so your content must be specifically targeted to attract the right people to your business.
The top of the funnel is where you cast your wide net. You do this by making it more about your reader and less about you.
How to Write Top of Funnel Content
When it comes to creating content for the top of your funnel, you have a lot of options at your disposal.
As your audience is expansive, it’s important to publish content on various platforms to reach as many potential customers as possible. By publishing on your website, social media pages, and emails, as well as other reputable platforms, you increase your chances of reaching those who are most likely to convert.
As a guest contributor, you will be able to access the online publication’s readership. This will allow you to put your brand and expertise in a prominent position.
As a business owner, it’s important to get your brand name out there as much as possible. One way to do this is through press and news features. By getting your company mentioned in these pieces, you’ll help build brand awareness and make a great first impression.
Industry backlinks are also helpful for building brand awareness. These are links from other trusted sources in your industry that mention your company or brand. They can help you gain credibility and trust from potential customers.
Third-party endorsements from sources that are already reliable and trustworthy are a great way to gain credibility and trust.
Building a company website with useful, informative blog posts is a great way to generate new contacts. This, in turn, will provide more fodder for your email campaigns.
Create a video that shares how to do something related to your business. Put it on a resource page on your website so your prospects and customers can learn what you do.
When placing top-of-the-funnel content on outside sites, always make sure they’re sites your key audience members visit. This way, you can focus on publications that are aimed at the industry and professionals that align with your buyer personas.
Doing so will help increase the chances of turning a stranger into a customer.
If you want to be seen as a solution to your lead’s problem, make sure the content you create is focused on both brand awareness and education.
By providing informative and engaging content, you’ll be more likely to convert leads into customers.
Top of Funnel Marketing Strategies
Top-of-funnel marketing tactics are all about helping your audience to better understand their problem. By providing informational and inspirational content, you can help them to see the issue from a new perspective and gain a greater understanding of what they need to do to solve it.
Because your prospect is in the early stages of the sales funnel, you don’t want to be too forward by serving them content that’s only appropriate for later stages.
When you teach this group of people, you build brand awareness and credibility.
When visitors are ready to purchase, you want them to think of you first.
With so much information available, today’s consumers have too much to choose from.
90% of consumers said that the quality of the information that they found during their purchasing process was high quality and 50% were overwhelmed by the amount of information that they saw.
The beginning stages of your sales funnel can either go nowhere or somewhere, depending on the way you approach your lead.
Top of funnel marketing ideas:
- Newsletter email marketing
- SEO
- SEM
- Landing page
- Blog post
- Social media post
- Event/trade show
- Cheat sheet
- Press release
- Infographic
- Interactive quiz
- Explainer video
- 101 webinar
- 101 podcast
- 101 e-book
- Interactive tools
- Direct mail
- Account-based marketing
Conclusion
To grow a business, you need to fill your sales funnel with high-quality, targeted leads. That’s why top of funnel content is so crucial in the sales process. If your top of the marketing isn’t filled with people, neither will your bottom.
