How to Build a Content Marketing Funnel that Drives Conversions + Examples & Expert Tips

A content marketing funnel guides prospective customers from awareness to purchase using relevant content and distribution channels. Learn how to build a funnel to drive traffic and conversions for your site.

You want customers to learn about your business and make a purchase or sign up for your services. But every customer’s journey isn’t the same. Even if a customer or business clearly needs what you offer, it can take some nurturing before they pull out their wallets.

A content marketing funnel is a marketing strategy that creates content to help people discover your business, become interested in your product or service, and eventually become a new customer.

Throughout this article, we’ll discuss this content marketing strategy, why a funnel is important, what the different stages are, and the different types of content to create for each stage.

What is a content marketing funnel?

A content marketing funnel is a funnel-shaped strategy that depicts the customer journey. Its purpose is to align the stage your audience is in with the right content to guide them through to a final purchasing decision.

As consumers discover your business, they’re brought into the top of the funnel, which is the widest part. People will naturally drop off throughout after deciding they don’t need your product or choosing a competitor, so the funnel will narrow as it goes further down.

Look at this graphic below to get a visual idea of how the content marketing funnel works:

Source

To naturally filter consumers down the funnel, you need content that answers the questions they’ll have at each stage of the journey. And with high-quality content, you can keep people engaged with your business until they’re ready to buy.

The content marketing funnel stages

There are four main stages or phases of a content marketing funnel. Those stages break down to:

• Awareness: People are discovering your brand
• Consideration: Your target audience is learning more about your business and if it can solve their problems
• Conversion: Your customer has purchased or signed up for services
• Retention: You work to keep customers happy and coming back for more

This is the most bare-bones description of a content marketing funnel and how customers tend to shop.

However, we tend to focus on three main aspects: the top of the funnel (awareness/discovery), middle of the funnel (consideration/interest), and the bottom of the funnel (conversion/decision).

The top of the funnel (TOFU) is where you’ll create content that attracts attention. Free content that’s accessible, searchable, and discoverable online. Think SEO content, social media posts, and videos.

Ross explains, “For instance, at the top of the funnel, our content is more about general hair care and beauty tips. As customers move down, it becomes more product-specific, addressing questions or concerns related to particular products or hair types.”

The middle of the funnel (MOFU) is where you want to continue nurturing interested customers. You’ll want to aim for more opt-in based content (email newsletters, webinars, reports, etc.) to closely nurture these customers.

The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is where you’ll attempt to convert potential customers or clients. Share case studies and success stories. Aim to get customers to request a demo so you can pitch them your product.

Content creation will be a huge part of a successful content marketing funnel. But one key ingredient in your marketing efforts is understanding who your audience is and what types of content they want to see from your brand.

Rambod Yadegar, president at HawkSEM, explains, “Knowing your target audience like the back of your hand is essential when creating a strategy for a content funnel.  Without it, you cannot create valuable content for the reader, which will adversely affect the performance of your content marketing campaigns.”

Top of the funnel (TOFU) content

Your content marketing funnel relies almost exclusively on you using the right content. As we’ve mentioned, your TOFU content should bring people in the door. In other words, find your target audience where they browse online and attract them to your content through interesting topics.

Jason Wise, editor at resource discovery platform EarthWeb, suggests, “Share stories that are relevant to the audience’s wants and needs to make an instant connection, pique their interest, and set the stage for a deeper engagement.”

Wise shares that telling stories becomes a powerful way to attract customers and show the brand is an expert in its field. Building trust starts with telling interesting stories that show how knowledgeable and experienced the brand is in the field.

And there are several different pieces of content you can create to build that brand awareness and trust.

• Blog content
• Landing pages
• Webinars 
• Podcast episodes
• Infographics
• Video content
• Ebooks/white papers
• Tools
• Direct mail
• Quizzes
• Social media content

Blog content

Your company should have a blog, especially as part of a B2B content marketing funnel. This can bring in more potential customers through search engines and provide more content to share online.

While your blog can impact all stages of the funnel, top of the funnel blog content includes:

• How-to guides
• Listicles
• Tips posts
• Checklists

Look at Trello’s blog to get an idea of some of the content types to create to drive traffic to your website.

Trello isn’t creating blog posts about topics that have nothing to do with project management.

Alex Lindley, founder of Law Firm Content Pros, shares details of a content marketing funnel his team put together, called their “blog creation” funnel.

Lindley explains, “Our readers are primarily attorneys who want to get more clients for their law firms through their websites. We target top-of-funnel readers with an in-depth article titled ‘Does My Law Firm Need a Blog?’”

They’ll then move them down the funnel with a series of blog posts sharing blog topic ideas for various legal practice areas, such as ‘## Personal Injury Blog Post Topics’ and ‘How to Write a Law Blog.’

Lindley continues, “At the bottom of the funnel, we offer service-oriented pages, such as ‘Law Firm Blog Post Writers.’ It works incredibly well — so well, in fact, that we get all of our clients through inbound leads through our website.”

The team doesn’t have to create a budget for ads or allocate time for social media marketing. Instead, content marketing handles it all.

“The lesson I learned from this content marketing funnel is that, done right, content can save you an unbelievable amount of money on advertising spend,” says Lindley.

Landing pages

Lindley mentioned that landing pages are a big part of his team’s content marketing funnel. And though he uses them at the bottom of the funnel, they can also be a great example of top of funnel content.

Take a look at this example from Descript. It’s a landing page explaining one of its software’s offerings.

While these pages are meant to sell, they’re also a part of a TOFU SEO strategy, generating awareness about a company’s services.

These landing pages have well-written copy that explains the benefits, features, and other necessary selling points—but customers can always come back to them throughout any point of the funnel.

Webinars

A webinar is like an online seminar — typically a longer, virtual talk that lasts 30-60 minutes and explains a topic relevant to your business or industry. At least, that’s what TOFU webinars do.

Your goal is to create an educational webinar that gets people in the door to learn about your industry and discover your business. We mention webinars later in the funnel — but those focus more closely on your product than educational value.

Podcast episodes

Creating a branded podcast is another way to reach your target audience. Share educational content that relates back to your business.

For example, Buffer’s Science of Social Media podcast shares weekly episodes covering topics relating to social media marketing with industry experts.

Infographics

Create infographics that accompany your blog content or that you share as standalone graphics on social media.

Well-designed infographics with interesting and data-backed information are highly shared across social media platforms and even in blog content with links back to your website.

Video content

Create educational video content on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok as another way to reach even more prospective customers.

How-to videos, educational videos, interviews, and more can be great content for the first stage of the content marketing funnel.

Ebooks/white papers

Ebooks and white papers are another great option to get people into your content and sales funnel. Consider this type of content to be like a longer blog post—more in-depth, more actionable, and higher value.

Many businesses exchange these types of content for email addresses so they can add interested consumers to their email list to nurture them through the funnel.

This ebook offer from HubSpot is a great example of what this option could look like for your business.

Tools

Free tools are a wildly effective content marketing strategy for the top of your funnel. They showcase the value that your business can provide while also bringing people into the door.

This selection of free SEO tools from Ahrefs is a great example of how to offer free tools that are still relevant to your business.

These options from Ahrefs are almost like lite versions of its paid software, giving its target audience the perfect taste of the service they could get by becoming paying customers.

Direct mail

Though not a digital marketing strategy, even direct mail like postcards and mailers could be considered a top of the funnel content type.

This is a great strategy for local businesses to make locals aware of their business and refer them to their website.

Quizzes

Quizzes are another great way to get potential customers in the door. This works especially well for ecommerce and subscription-based businesses. It gives companies an idea of the customer’s needs — in a way that’s fun and engaging for the consumer.

Clothing subscription box Wantable put together a style quiz to get an idea of what its potential customers would want to see in their monthly style boxes. This helps to excite its audience, enticing them to sign up for the service.

Social media content

The posts you share on social media can even be considered a type of TOFU content. These are great ways to reach your target audience online, make them aware of your business, and potentially lead them to other content.

You should share a lot of your TOFU content on social media anyways — your blog posts, videos, infographics, podcast episodes, and tools. Use the platforms that make the most sense for your business, whether LinkedIn for B2B content or Instagram for visual content.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU) content

The middle of the content marketing funnel focuses on the consideration and interest stage. This is where you showcase why your option is the best.

There are many content formats you can use to do so.

• Blog content
• Webinars
• Reports
• Explainer videos
• Email content
• Testimonials page

Blog content

Yes, we’re back with the blog content. We mentioned how important this can be to each stage of the marketing funnel.

But for MOFU content, your blog should focus on posts like:

• Tutorials
• Comparison articles
• Comprehensive guides

These types of blog posts can be accompanied by links to landing pages or sales pages that offer even more information about working with your business as a way to pull them further down the funnel.

Webinars

Another familiar content type here is webinars — but this time, we’re talking about product-led webinars. Webinars that talk about a problem and then introduce your product as the solution.

Here’s a great example from Veed sharing how its tool is the solution to create high-quality L&D videos.

You want to position your product as the perfect solution for various needs covered in this webinar.

Peter Michaels, CEO of parental monitoring company Yeespy, also incorporated webinars into his company’s middle of funnel content strategy.

Michaels shares, “We developed a webinar series for the consideration stage. By addressing specific pain points, providing valuable insights, and subtly introducing our solutions, we saw a significant uptick in engagement. The key lesson was the importance of delivering content that genuinely helps the audience, fostering trust and positioning our brand as a reliable resource.”

Reports

Reports or original research can bring people to the next stage of the funnel and increase your conversion rate. These often take a lot of time to create, using customer surveys and market research to compile highly relevant industry data into a single report.

The State of Work Report from Slack is a great example. It shares original data relating to work and Slack’s product — a team communication tool.

This report is another example of a piece of content that requires an opt-in to access, helping boost your brand’s email marketing list in one fell swoop. (More on that shortly.)

Explainer videos

Are you sensing a pattern here? Your blog content, webinars, and video content should be educational at the top of the funnel. They should be more product-focused in the middle.

And explainer videos are one of the best ways to do that. Create explainer videos that showcase how your product, software, or service works. Or those that cater to a specific product or subset of your audience to appeal to as many people in your target audience as you can.

Email content

Email marketing is a key aspect of your marketing funnel, and though you can create email content for each phase, most will be in the middle of the funnel. But, it typically takes a piece of TOFU content to get someone to subscribe to your email newsletter.

Krittin Kalra, founder of AI tool Writecream details a content marketing funnel he implemented targeting individuals interested in fitness and wellness.

Kalra shares, “We created a series of informative blog posts and videos, addressing common fitness challenges and providing valuable tips. We then offered a free downloadable workout plan in exchange for email subscriptions, which helped build a subscriber list.”

He explains that his team could then use those captured leads and nurture them through personalized email campaigns.

Email content gives you a lot to work with. You can repurpose blog content, share links to videos or landing pages, share quick tips, and ensure your messaging aligns with the content shared to move people to the bottom of the funnel.

Testimonials page

Finally, customer reviews and testimonials are great examples of MOFU content. Showcasing happy customers proves your business is the better option amongst competitors.

Consider creating a testimonials page with reviews and ratings from happy customers. We’ll cover case studies and success stories in the next phase of the funnel, but testimonials can still have their own home on your website.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) content

Finally, you’ve worked a segment of consumers down to the bottom of the funnel — the decision and purchasing stage. BOFU content centers around getting potential customers to finally pull the trigger and decide to buy.

• Product pages
• Demos
• Pricing pages
• Case studies 
• Templates 

Product pages

Ecommerce companies should use product pages to share all of the necessary product information customers need — size, color, features, specs — to make the most informed buying decision.

Here’s an example of a product page from Solo Stove. It shared product images, pricing info, color options, and more so that potential customers have all the information they need.

Demos

Demos are great for software products. A demo often entails a salesperson or customer success representative sitting down — in person or virtually depending on the company’s model — and walking potential customers through use cases for the company’s product.

This is the perfect BOFU strategy designed to make a sales pitch, hopefully ending in the person or team signing up after the demo.

Pricing pages

Customers check out pricing pages of a software or services if they’re really interested in signing up but need to make sure it’s in their budget.

Here’s a great example of a pricing page from Hootsuite. It includes the different pricing tiers and a comprehensive list of the features available for each.

Case studies

Case studies showcase success stories your company had with past customers and clients. The more specific, the better. If you helped a client increase XYZ by 250%, share those results with potential future clients.

Look at how graphic design company Visme created a section on its blog just for case studies and success stories.

Consider adding case studies to your blog. Or, create PDF one-sheeters with highlights of your work for each client/customer, then make them accessible on your website or by request.

Templates

Templates are useful tools for customers looking to DIY something right now. Products like Canva do a great job of this by developing various templates to make creating various types of images easy for beginners.

Why is a content marketing funnel important?

A content marketing funnel helps you reach your target audience, providing them with answers about your business and industry, so they can make the best purchasing decision.

Kate Ross, SEO Specialist at hair extension retailer Irresistible Me, shares, “Using a content marketing funnel transformed our approach, allowing us to create more targeted and effective content. It helped us move beyond just attracting visitors to our site, focusing on nurturing those visitors through their decision-making process.”

A content marketing funnel can provide several benefits to your business:

• Mapping out your customer journey
• Helping people learn more about your business
• Improving sales and retention
• Increasing website traffic
• More brand visibility and share of voice
• Increasing lead generation and nurturing

Language learning app Ling saw its own success story by creating a blog as its top-of-the-funnel content marketing strategy.

Co-founder Simon Bacher shares, “We optimize each blog title with a ‘power word’ and a focus keyword included based on our in-depth keyword research. Google’s ‘People Always Ask’ and ‘Related Searches’ help us determine what users want in the content or the search intent.”

Bacher continues, “We also offer Buyer’s Guides or how-to types of articles for our mid- to bottom-of-the-funnel audiences. We help them make more informed decisions on what languages are in demand for travel, business, and migration purposes and the best learning tools to use.”

This funnel-based content marketing strategy brought Ling the following milestones:

• 282 pages ranking #1 on Google
• Increased monthly active users (MAU) by 489%
• Increased sessions by 454%

How to build a content marketing funnel that converts

Now that you know what content to create for each stage of the content marketing funnel, let’s pull it all together. Discover how to build a funnel that converts with these four tips.

1. Understand your target audience

First things first, you need to know who your target audience is. This is the only way you’ll be able to create the right content that really resonates with them and draws them in.

There are a few ways to make sure you know who your audience is so you can properly target them:

• Social media and website analytics: If your business and online presence has been around for awhile, use your analytics to get an idea of the demographics of the people following you and visiting your website.
• Create a buyer persona: Put together a profile based on your target customer and the people/businesses who are most likely to need your product or service.
• Market research: Conduct surveys and interviews with a wide range of people to confirm which ones are most likely to need your business and what their demographics, interests, and overall purchasing behavior is.
• Analyze competitor audiences: Make sure your audience aligns well with your competitor audiences. While your audiences may not fully overlap, there likely will be a number of similarities.

More than simply knowing your target audience, you also need to know how they’ll behave throughout each stage of the content marketing funnel. This can help you decide exactly which types of content to create in order to maximize conversions.

Think about it like this—if you’re targeting Gen Z or Millennials, their buying journey will look different from if you’re targeting Gen X or Baby Boomers. They use different technology and view technology in different ways.

2. Conduct keyword research

Nearly every content type within your funnel should be based on a focus keyword. This helps ensure that your content appears in search results at the exact point of the funnel that it should.

There are TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU keywords. These keywords are also given different names, based on the type of keyword it is:

• Informational: Informational keywords are TOFU keywords, and they satisfy searches where people want to learn about something.
• Commercial: Commercial keywords are MOFU keywords, and they consist of branded searches where people want to learn about a company.
• Navigational: Navigational keywords can fall in the MOFU or BOFU stage, and they happen when people are looking for a specific webpage.
• Transactional: Transactional keywords are BOFU keywords, and they help people complete actions, like making a purchase or signing up for service.

For example, “what is the content marketing funnel” is an informational keyword at the top of the funnel. From there, “content marketing agency” would be a commercial keyword to help someone learn about their options. And “content marketing services” would be a transactional keyword someone searches when they’re ready to buy.

Each of those keywords would bring up different types of blog posts or landing pages to help further the buyer’s journey and increase the chances of a sale.

3. Analyze competitor content

Taking a look at your competitor’s content and how they’re managing their own content marketing funnel can be a great help for informing your own funnel.

Look at things like:

• Keywords they’re missing: Can you capitalize on content gaps? What keywords can you quickly create content for that your competitors haven’t yet? This can give you an edge in the SERPs.
• Competitor performance: How well is their content doing? If they’re sitting at the top of search results, why? And how can you try to outperform them? If they’re not, what can you do better?
• Content types: What types of content are your competitors creating? And how can your brand differentiate itself to further stand out?

Knowing what your competitors are doing—and how you can do it better — is key to ranking higher on search and finding keywords they may not be targeting yet.

4. Create a mix of content

Your content marketing funnel should have a healthy mix of various types of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content. Start with your BOFU content first—after all, you need the necessary transactional landing pages to lead people to once you’ve created your TOFU.

One clever way to do this is by creating keyword clusters. For example, if your business offers five different facets of its services, focus on one facet at a time. Creating transactional landing pages and informational blog content, along with other funnel content.

Do this for each cluster, one cluster at a time, to make sure you’ve covered all of your bases for that service focus. This can help you ensure you have a balanced mixture of content across each stage of the funnel.

The takeaway

A well-planned content marketing funnel will generate awareness around your business, entertain your target customers, and pull them through the different types of content you offer until they become paying customers.

But this requires experience and ongoing testing to see what works. If you don’t have the time to develop a strategy and want fast results, consider working with HawkSEM’s team.

Reach out to us today for a free consultation and to learn how we can help grow your business’s online conversions.