Why You Should Optimize B2B Content for Every Stage of the Marketing Funnel

Listen to this content! Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The estimated reading time for this post is 11 minutes

What if your content marketing strategy was inadvertently costing you leads and signups? 

If you’re a B2B business that hasn’t been getting optimal results from your content marketing strategy, you could be making one costly mistake  – you’re not creating content optimized for each stage of the buyer journey, otherwise known as ‘the marketing funnel’.

According to a 2020 B2B Content Marketing report, only 48% of B2B content marketers crafted content based on specific stages of the user journey. This was in comparison to 75% of total as opposed to 75% of respondents who characterized their content marketing as being among the most successful (top 2) on the participant list. 

Another key takeaway from this report is that only 52% of B2B content marketers provided customers with optimal experiences across their engagement journey as opposed to 83% of the most successful organizations on the report. 

What does this mean for you? The report supports, among other findings, a strong correlation between content marketing that generates results and content that has been optimised for different stages of the B2B marketing funnel i.e. optimize B2B content = increase ROI.

Why You Should Optimize B2B Content for Every Stage of the Marketing Funnel

To understand the need for optimising blog content for different stages of the marketing funnel, it’s necessary to get the fundamentals right in terms of knowing how a prospect moves through the buyer journey from initial contact all the way down to making a purchase. 

The AIDA model as a framework for the modern marketing funnel

The AIDA model is one of the most popular marketing models in use today that identifies the cognitive stages an individual goes through during the buying process for a product or service. Prospects typically go from stage to stage in order to determine whether they should go ahead and purchase the specific product or service.  

The AIDA model can be broken down into the following stages:

• Attention – At this stage, the business seeks to get the attention of the prospect. From the business perspective, for software companies, this would be about generating awareness of problems and the need for solutions which the business is uniquely poised to offer.
• Interest  – At this stage, the business seeks to engage the prospect long enough for them to start feeling interest in the relevant software products and services.
• Desire – In real-world B2B marketing, interest and desire often go hand-in-hand and can sometimes overlap because interest and desire are closely interlinked. Specifically, the desire stage can consist of the buyer evaluating the options that are available to make an informed purchasing decision.
• Action – After moving through the attention, interest, and desire stages, the prospect should ideally proceed to the action stage which is about taking the specific action the business wants them to take – which could be signing up for a demo or trial or making a purchase.

The key takeaway here is that software companies need to produce targeted content for each stage of the funnel so that the prospect moves seamlessly in an engaged manner from the awareness stage all the way to the action stage. Hence the need to optimize B2B content whatever the stage of the marketing funnel.

The 3 Stages of The B2B Content Marketing Funnel and The Types of Content Needed for Each 

The B2B content marketing funnel is a 3-step sequence that transforms a potential customer/prospect to a buyer through the use of targeted content for each of the 3 steps much in line with the AIDA marketing model. Here are the steps broken down one-by-one:

1. TOFU (Top-of-Funnel) for the Awareness Stage AKA “I don’t know what I want yet!”

Content here is for the purpose of creating interest through generating awareness. At this stage prospects are the least likely to convert as there’s only some generalized interest in what your business is doing and offering.

Your best bet is to come up with general topics of interest in your niche, package them to attract attention, and use them as a starting point to move prospects down the marketing funnel.

Traditional content marketers usually use blogs as part of their strategy to target TOFU-stage prospects. To put this into perspective. Statistics indicate businesses that prioritize blog content see 13% more ROI and 67% more leads than businesses that don’t. But there’s a lot more content you can push out to support your strategy of collecting more leads at the TOFU stage.

Optimize B2B content at this stage by using:

• Social media posts
• Infographics
• General coverage (overview-style blog content)
• Short video content (about  to 10 minutes long)

2. MOFU (Middle-of-Funnel) for the Evaluation Stage AKA “I’ve got a better idea of what I want, I want to learn more about options!”

This is the lead generation stage of the funnel where marketers focus on providing more detailed information on products and services, by positioning their offerings as the ideal solutions to the problems. 

At this stage, prospects have realised that there are specific solutions for the problems they have. Now all they need to do is figure out which of the options before them is the right choice. If you’ve successfully moved your prospect to the MOFU stage, it means that you have been able to establish a relationship, and it’s now time to strengthen and solidify it.

The content types that work for this stage are in-depth content with an educational/informational focus that provides value in terms of usefulness, and relevance.

Optimize B2B content at this stage by using:

• A very detailed blog post that covers information around a specific problem and offers solutions
• An ebook
• A checklist
• Guides
• In-depth videos or slideshows

3. BOFU (Bottom of Funnel) for the Purchasing Stage AKA “It’s Decision Time !”

The BOFU stage is where conversion from prospects or leads to potential buyers should take place. For this stage, B2B marketers focus on material that helps the prospect firm up their decision to buy.

If you’ve successfully done the groundwork in the previous 2 stages, your prospects will be ready to buy by the time they reach your BOFU stage. They just need that last little push to hit the ‘buy’ button.

Optimize B2B content at this stage by using:

• Case studies that show the successful transformation of life before buying product x and after
• Testimonials and reviews from happy customers
• In-depth product demos that show you how the product actually helps you do or achieve something with real results
• Product comparison content  that shows the prospect the many ways your product is better than your biggest competitor
• Free trial or demo

ROFU and Post-Funnel Considerations – Loyalty and Advocacy

There is one more stage that most modern marketers like to include in the marketing funnel – ROFU, which focuses on post-sales activities like loyalty and advocacy.

What is ROFU and why is it important?

The B2B business environment of today is a lot more competitive. Customers also have a lot more choice. Essentially this means the industry will have to do a lot more to go beyond surviving to actually thriving. And for this to happen, the importance of factoring in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and after-sales activities that build loyalty and promote customer advocacy to optimize B2B content cannot be over-emphasised.

Let’s review some statistics about customer retention:

• The average American company will lose 23% to 30% of its customer each year due to a lack of customer loyalty.
• The probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60% and 70% while the probability of selling to a new customer is only between 5% to 20%.
• Existing customers are 50% more likely to try your business’s new product.
• Existing customers are also 31% more likely to spend more on their average order value with your business.
• Increasing customer spending by 5% can raise profits by 25% to 95%.
• 58% of customers belonging to a brand’s loyalty program buy from that brand at least once per month.
• Customers who have their complaints resolved promptly have a purchase intention rate of 82%.
• 97% of customers say salespeople don’t ask enough about their needs.
• 92% of individuals trust word-of-mouth recommendations, making it one of the most trust-rich forms of advertising.
• 76% of individuals surveyed say that they’re more likely to trust content shared by “normal” people than content shared by brands.
• Earned media (press, word-of-mouth, peer-to-peer referrals) drives 4x the brand lift as paid media.

Here’s where ROFU comes in as the last stage of the modern marketing funnel – Retention of the Funnel.

Practical Applications of ROFU

• Retention Considerations to Optimize B2B Content: According to Zendesk, “customer retention refers to a company’s ability to turn customers into repeat buyers and prevent them from switching to a competitor.” Some practical strategies for B2B business to consider for customer retention include:
  • Create a customer-focused onboarding experience: Many B2B businesses use account/relationship managers to give customers personalised experiences that show investment in the customer’s success. At any rates, it’s now an industry standard to provide a handholding experience through the customer lifecycle through education, support, and consultation.
  • Track and measure the customer journey: Implement systems to trace customer touchpoints and measure satisfaction. This is an ongoing journey and can help you contribute to developing effective customer retention strategies.
  • Provide a knowledge hub: Provide resources at every stage of the product experience so consumers have easy access to resources for help whether it’s a knowledge base, regular webinars, or onboarding video content.
  • Openness to consumer feedback: Provide channels for consumers to provide feedback, display genuine interest, and implement suggestions wherever you see benefits for the customer.
• Loyalty Considerations: SendPulse defines customer loyalty as, “a measure of a customer’s likeliness to do repeat business with a company or brand.” It’s a combination of many different things including customer satisfaction and the perceived value of the products or services received from the brand. Here are some strategies to consider implementing here:
  • Customer tiers – Create products and services in a tiered manner so that your consumers are able to access value services based on their budgetary and other considerations. I’m going to be controversial here and say you should not skimp on customer service. Just because a basic level customer pays less than your premium customer, it doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to sterling customer service!
  • Provide ongoing resources, advice, and tips – This involves showing paying/paid consumers that you are vested in their success. Create and optimize B2B content that shows customers how they can solve their most pressing problems using your services or technology – dispense with the fluff as consumers can see right through that. Focus on constructive, useful, relevant, step-by-step instructions that show your customers how to go from where they are at ‘x’ to where they want to be at ‘y’.
  • Points and rewards schemes (gamification) – In essence, this rewards your customers by promoting brand evangelism or vice versa.
• Customer Advocacy Considerations: According to Wikipedia, customer advocacy, ” is a specialized form of customer service in which companies focus on what is deemed to be best for the customer.” It simply means doing whatever you can to positively influence the customer’s experience of your brand. It can involve both retention and loyalty strategies as well. Think about, among other things, positive communication and interactions with your customers, a prompt and engaging social media and brand experience, as well as developing loyalty programs with incentives and points/rewards schemes.

How to Choose and Evaluate Topical Relevance for Optimizing B2B Content

Here are some practical tips to help you choose and evaluate topical relevance when you create content for your B2B company:

Research: This requires you to research and identify your target audience’s interests, desires, and most pressing pain points. You then create your content based on understanding the types of topics that would address these needs. Google Trends is a great starting point for research and insight.

Brainstorm keywords that are associated with your services or the technology you’re selling and type these into Google Trends, to get among other things, search volumes (how many times these keywords are being queried on search engines i.e an indicator of the popularity of the terms), expand your keywords list with related terms, and discover local search trends – all helpful for SEO (search engine optimization) for your website.

Also, check out my blog post which gives you a number of different options to research topic ideas perfect not just for blogs but any other type B2B content.

Stalk Your Bigger Competitors: Another strategy to deploy is to look at your biggest, most successful competitors to get ideas into what’s working and what’s not.  This will help you develop topics that are proven to be engaging for readers or users to maximise the way you optimize your B2B content.

Widen Your Circle of Influence: Connect with influencers in allied services to create content that can be of use to your customers. Conduct interviews with industry experts, for example, who can provide a fresh perspective or specialised knowledge that could be of benefit to your customers.

And that brings us to the end of this article detailing why you need to optimize B2B content for every stage of the marketing funnel. What is your biggest challenge with creating content for your B2B brand. Lemme know in the comments below, I love to hear from you!’