If your marketing content isn’t helping you land the kind of business you think it should be, it’s time to review how your marketing funnel leads to sales and why your content isn’t generating enough leads, so you can fix it.

How A Marketing Funnel Works

Your marketing funnel is a framework for understanding people’s decisions as they consider becoming your customers. Marketers use this shorthand for the consumer buying process to create a content marketing funnel, which is a more effective strategy for inbound content marketing.

How does your marketing funnel lead to sales? First, it gives you actionable clues on attracting them to your offerings and inspiring them to buy. Each stage of the funnel is identified as each business sees fit; however, a common model is Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA).

While AIDA is most helpful in describing a buyer’s behavior, dividing the funnel stages into the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel is most helpful in describing a marketer’s behavior related to where your prospects are in their buyer journeys. Here’s a closer look.

Top of the Funnel (ToFu)

During this stage, people become aware of a challenge you can solve for them as a business. This is the time when you:

• Get to know your target audience and understand their struggles.
• Introduce them to your company and offerings.
• Focus on the audience that is most likely to buy from you. 
• Engage as many qualified prospects as possible, so they’ll enter your funnel.

Middle of the Funnel (MoFu)

During this stage, people realize they need a solution, so they start to research options. This is the time when you:

• Educate prospects about your business and nurture them through your funnel.
• Help them learn which of your products and services are right for them.
• Answer questions they have about your business, products, and services.
• Make sure they know what distinguishes you from your competitors.

Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu)

During this stage, people decide what they want and are ready to buy. This is the time when you:

• Inspire them to move from prospects to buyers with your solutions.
• Ensure your marketing messages use transactional and navigational keywords to answer their queries, such as “grocery store near me” and “Whole Foods market.”
• Build website landing pages with compelling calls to action.

4 Reasons Your Content Is Not Generating Leads and How To Fix It

1. Your content topics aren’t hitting the right notes.

If you’re writing about the wrong things, you’re not addressing the audience’s pain points, answering their questions, and offering relevant solutions for their needs. You want to ensure you understand your target audience and relate to them on their level. You want them to trust you as you guide them through their buyer journey.

Consider focusing your content topics on what your audience cares most about when they’re shopping for something, such as:

• How you can solve something for them or how you’re a leader in the field.
• What it costs and how you price it.
• How do your solutions compare to the competition?
• What do other customers think of your business and offerings?

2. You’re leaving out the one next step to take.

If your audience doesn’t know what to do after consuming your content, that’s on you. You should always provide them with one clear next step, so they’ll know exactly what to do.

This is all about including a call-to-action (CTA) in every piece of content so they don’t miss out on something more, and you don’t miss an opportunity to convert them into customers. You only need one CTA to be effective. Otherwise, you’ll confuse them with too many options.

Build in one appropriate next step for each of your content pieces:

• Read the full article now
• Download your guide
• Schedule a demo
• Talk to a product expert

3. You’re always selling, selling, selling.

If you equate marketing content with a sales pitch, you should rethink what marketing content means for your business. Selling too hard is often the worst turnoff for prospective customers. They want to know and trust you without all the pressure. They’re looking for honesty about delivering promises rather than the hard sell.

Work on your company’s voice and tone:

• If your brand were a person, how would you sound?
• What does your customer base mean to you?
• How would you categorize your products and services?
• What words describe your actions as a business?
• What values do you own, and how do you express them?
• What are the “do’s” and “don’ts” of your content style?

4. You’re not publicizing your content.

If you’re producing content that your audience can’t find, it will be difficult to generate any leads from it. Businesses need to actively drive traffic to content for it to do its lead generation job. You want to:

• Make sure your content ranks organically to drive traffic to it.
• Share content on the social media platforms that your target audience uses.
• Create content for the industry journals, newsletters, and podcasts your existing customers subscribe to.
• Advertise your business where your audience buys.
• Provide links within the new content you’re creating to your best content, additional information, and other resources, which makes stronger connections and helps people find more of your content faster.  

11outof11 Knows Funnel Marketing

When you’re ready to work your marketing funnel and create marketing content that generates lots of leads, connect with 11outof11. Request a complimentary call with an 11outof11 expert. Contact us to learn more.