How To Build a Content Strategy You Can Be Proud Of

It’s 2016 and the internet is full of content; everyone consumes lots and every business wants to create some. But the real question is: why? Why do businesses want to create content? Do they want to sell? Do they want to increase their reach? Do they want to increase retention? Do they want to generate leads?

The answer is all of the above. So, if businesses want to sell, grow their reach, increase retention and generate leads, why are all of them creating blogs when there are so many other forms of content?

Don’t get me wrong, blogs are great! I love blogs, I even have my own… but the main function of blogs is to increase traffic and engage people. As business owners, we cannot expect blogs to be the sole and best tool to increase our leads and sales. Instead, we need to learn about the different types of content we can create to reach each of our goals.

The first concept you need to familiarize yourself with is called the 3-step funnel. Every business has one, even if they don’t know it yet. Understanding this can help us create the right content for each step.

###Top of the funnel: Greeting time

At the top of the funnel, which is the first step, we’ll find people who don’t know us yet, or just a little bit. They might have searched for specific keywords and landed on our site by chance, or decided to click on one of our display ads. It doesn’t matter where they came from, the important thing is where they are now: on our site.

As they are just getting to know us, we cannot expect to sell them anything, and we shouldn’t not try. Before anything else, we need to communicate that we are best placed in our market to solve the problem we are addressing. With that in mind, the kind of content we need to create for this “first date” includes:

• Blog posts;
• Social media updates;
• Infographics;
• Podcast episodes.

These broad content formats are the best fit for the top of the funnel, as they increase awareness of your brand and traffic to your site while helping you build your retargeting list.

###Middle of the funnel: Giving time

On the second step of the funnel, people already now know your business and the problem it is trying to solve, even though they haven’t bought from you. But wait, the goal is not to sell them anything… yet.

We first need to confirm whether they are willing to give up something for us; it might be giving us their email in exchange for a free download, or giving us some of their time to attend an event. Now if they are willing to do it, we have to deliver amazing content: let’s not forget to always be helpful.

To generate qualified leads, we can create content such as:

• Templates;
• Checklists;
• Quizzes;
• Webinars;
• Events.

People love this type of content because it is both very helpful and completely free. On your side, you will be growing your email and contacts list, which is awesome.

###Bottom of the funnel: Going the extra mile

Once people know and trust you because you’ve given them helpful content for free, the time has come to sell your products or services to them. If you need to give them an extra push to turn them into customers, you must rely on things such as:

• Tutorials;
• Free screenings;
• Demos;
• Free trials.

Congratulations! You’ve made the sale, the customer is yours and you did it with very little effort. These types of content not only help you increase your conversion rate but they can also maximize your customer value and increase customer purchase frequency.

Now that you know which type of content goes along with each step of your funnel, you should stop worrying about the conversion rate of your blog posts. You have a bigger task: build a content strategy you can be proud of and makes the best use of each format to help you reach your goals.

Any comments or questions? Feel free to reach out to me below, through my blog or any social network.