How to Create Quality Content for Every Stage of the Customer Journey
In order for your content to have a better chance of converting your audience, you need to ensure that each piece is tailored to a specific audience segment. But that’s not all — you also need to tailor it to a specific stage of the customer journey.
Let’s explore what kind of content works best for each stage.
Stages of a Customer Journey
Depending on who you ask, you will be told there are three or five stages of the customer journey. We’ll go with five:
- Awareness: Potential customers are aware of a problem and are looking for ways to solve it.
- Consideration: Potential customers are considering different solutions to their problems.
- Purchase: Customers are ready to convert.
- Retention: You have converted a lead into a customer and now need to ensure they come back.
- Advocacy: A customer has become a brand advocate and is happy to promote your brand.
As retention and advocacy are more about lead nurturing than content marketing, we’ll focus our examples on the first three stages.
Leveraging tools for customer journey analytics enable businesses to track and analyze the entire customer experience, providing valuable insights to optimize interactions at every touchpoint and enhance overall satisfaction. Both customer journey analytics tools and creating quality content for every stage of the customer journey share a common goal: understanding and meeting the needs of customers at various touchpoints. Customer journey analytics tools help identify these touchpoints, allowing businesses to tailor their content creation strategies to address specific stages in the customer journey. By aligning content with the customer’s evolving needs and preferences, businesses can effectively engage and nurture relationships throughout the entire journey, ultimately fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Content for the Top of the Funnel
The awareness stage is considered the top of the funnel. It targets the largest number of users, most of whom are not experts and may be facing a problem or choice for the first time.
The best types of content for this stage include:
- Blog posts on more general topics
- Social media posts
- Newsletters
Content for the Middle of the Funnel
The consideration stage is the middle of the funnel, where leads have become aware of your brand and your solution. Now, you need to convince them that you are the best brand for the job.
The content types that work well for this stage are:
- Ebooks
- Guides
- Case studies
- Webinars
- Nurturing email campaigns
Content for the Bottom of the Funnel
The bottom of the funnel is your smallest audience segment in the purchasing stage, and it houses the leads who are ready to spend money. In case they need a bit more convincing, you should create the following types of content:
- Comparison posts
- Detailed guides and specifications
- Testimonials
Now let’s look at three examples for each of these three stages of a customer journey:
Evergreen Content for the Top of the Funnel
To attract audiences at the top of the funnel, create posts that cover a general, evergreen topic that will demonstrate your expertise and get you on their radar.
This is the type of post that will click continuously and that aims to be informative and valuable above all else. There should be very little to no sales pitch involved.
This list of penny stocks from MarketBear is a great example. It’s relevant to the brand’s services, it provides actionable advice and information to visitors, and the only sales-oriented element is the CTA they feature on every page.
General Listicles for the Top of the Funnel
Listicle posts are another great way to get noticed by your target audience. They should cover a general topic that is likely to be of interest to them, be written without the use of any jargon or complex terminology, and should be very easy to digest.
Let’s look at this post on the highest-paying business jobs. It lists eight jobs that people looking to pursue a career in business might be interested in, provides plenty of useful details, and is easy to skim through.
Since the brand offers a free resume builder, there’s a high chance the audience who have landed on this page will be eager to test it out.
Industry Podcasts for the Top of the Funnel
Another great format for the top of the funnel is the podcast. It can capture a large audience segment, it takes your content game to another level, it’s easy to promote across various platforms, and it can easily be used to demonstrate expertise and share valuable insight.
Oktopost has two great podcasts, both of which are geared toward marketers, especially those interested in social media. They have cleverly paired them with their newsletter, offering regular reminders delivered to your inbox.
They can use the newsletter to get leads interested in their solutions as well as to retarget their paid ad campaigns toward their podcast listeners.
“Why” Posts for the Middle of the Funnel
Once leads have reached the middle of the funnel, they need more in-depth, on-target posts to keep them interested. The “why” post is a great option, as it will answer a specific question and target a potentially very lucrative long-tail keyword.
This WebFX post is a good example of this tactic. It directly references (and sells) their services, at the same time offering plenty of concrete information that will be of use to the reader.
Note that this is a stage where you should assume your audience wants what you have to offer, so your task is to convince them to convert.
Strut Your Stuff for the Middle of the Funnel
A great way to boost conversion rates is to demonstrate what you can do for your middle-of-the-funnel audience. Write a post that clearly highlights how you solve problems and what makes you unique.
This Ahrefs post is a great example. It provides a list of tasks you can accomplish only if you use their tool. Since the post is geared toward people who already know what SEO is and why it is important, it allows them to be more specific and get down to the nitty-gritty of website optimization. And they certainly prove their point well.
On-Topic Guides for the Middle of the Funnel
A guide on solving a specific aspect of the lead’s problem is a great content piece for the middle of the funnel. It shows that you understand what they need, that you are aware of the challenge, and that you are able to offer a concrete solution.
Look at this post on hiring developers in Eastern Europe. It jumps right into providing helpful suggestions without going on and on about the challenges of hiring talent abroad. It prioritizes value over word count, and it’s a great resource for anyone who is not yet sure how to approach the hiring process.
Highly Targeted Questions for the Bottom of the Funnel
The audience at the bottom of the funnel is already knowledgeable, they have seen what’s out there in terms of solutions, and they may have already seen your offer too.
A great content format for attracting these leads is to answer a highly specific question. It will demonstrate your expertise and capture leads who are ready for someone to help them out.
This post on finding your Amazon seller ID is a great example. It will only be interesting to actual sellers, who will then also be interested in growing their FBA business. This topic instantly filters out all the top- and middle-of-the-funnel leads who may still only be considering starting an Amazon account.
Comparison Posts for the Bottom of the Funnel
When a lead is ready to shop, they want someone to tell them: This is the product for you. They are tired of doing research — they just want the solution.
This is where comparison posts come in, which are the closest thing to a clear-cut answer you can get online. This post on the best mattresses made in the USA is a great example. It saves you tons of time by spelling out all the specifics for you, so all you have to do is choose.
The fact that it was written and reviewed by an expert makes it even more valuable.
Client Testimonials for the Bottom of the Funnel
Clients in the purchasing stage often need just a bit of a nudge to convert. They are already on your website; all they still require is proof that you are legitimate and that you can solve their problem.
Testimonials are the best type of content for this type of lead. Look at Aura and how well they’ve chosen theirs. They highlight the community aspect of their business and quote customers who have already had major success with their tool.
If a lead is unsure, these testimonials will help them see the potential growth more clearly.
Wrapping Up
Consider each of these content formats for various stages of your content funnel. Remember that you also need to align them with your overall content marketing strategy, and ensure you have a clear path for driving leads further down the path to conversion.
