Hey everyone!
Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
And in this content marketing strategy guide, you're going to learn these seven steps to
creating your own content marketing sales funnel.
So we'll go into what the difference is between a content marketing sales funnel and a normal
sales funnel, how they work together to generate leads and sales for your business.
So, make sure you check out the timestamp table of contents in the description to skip
around the seven steps, along with some other helpful links as you develop your content
sales funnel strategy.
So before we dive into these seven steps, let's take a look at the whole sales funnel
and see how content fits into the process of growing your business.
So taking a look at this diagram, there are four steps of taking someone from, they have
no idea who you are to, they are a customer of yours.
So we start at the prospect level.
And prospects are people, who find your content helpful, but haven't necessarily followed
you yet.
And still aren't quite sure if you're worth listening to.
Then audience is, where we have prospects who have followed or subscribed to your content
in some form.
And then audience members become leads, when they give you their contact information, when
they join your email list or you get their phone number.
So you can give them a follow-up call.
And finally, of course, prospects and leads turn into customers when they actually purchase
a product or service.
Now, when it comes to content marketing and specifically your content sales funnel, we're
only going to be talking about the top two, right?
Because the content marketing sales funnel is all about transforming a prospect into
a lead.
And once they become a lead, then your traditional sales funnel process takes over.
So an easy way to think about this, is the first part of your funnel is the content marketing
funnel.
This is the strategy where you're warming people up and you're getting them to opt-in
to your email list.
And once they're on your email list, then you can take a look at the backend, which
is the actual sales funnel process, where you're taking leads and turning them into
customers.
Now, the first step to developing your own content marketing sales funnel, is choosing
a platform.
And you really just have three options in terms of choosing a platform.
And it's going to be based upon the medium of content that you want to communicate with.
So of course we have written, which is going to be a WordPress blog.
Then we have audio, which is going to be a podcast.
And finally we have video, which is going to be YouTube.
Now there are a lot of other platforms you can publish on, right?
And there's a link in the description to a video that can actually walk you through how
to create a syndication strategy.
So you can take a podcast or a video or a blog, and then put it out on other platforms.
But here the three main platforms are WordPress and podcast and then YouTube, all the other
platforms are what are going to be syndication platforms.
So essentially you're going to have your core pieces of content, you put all that hard work
into.
We'll get to how to put together that content and figure out what to talk about in that
content.
But once you've created that piece of content then you'll cut it up in a little itty-bitty
pieces and you'll put it on the secondary platform.
So we have our primary platforms and our secondary platforms.
This is going to be important as we move forward with the next step.
So the next here is your customer, right?
We have to figure who the heck do you want to attract with all of your content?
Ultimately, who is it is your ideal customer?
And so there's a link in the description, to a full video that it was through all of
this.
I'm going to rapid fire through these three main questions and then zero in on the bottom
one, because it's going to help us put together our content.
Now, the first part of putting together your ideal customer profile, is simply just looking
at what are they doing instead?
What businesses are they already buying from?
What influencers and media are they already consuming?
And then what are the top five brands in your niche?
You essentially want to know, what content are they're already consuming, in relation
to your niche or industry, and who are they already buying from in your niche or industry.
Then the next part is just understanding basic demographics of their age and their gender
and their location.
And you can use Facebook and Google analytics for this.
Link in the description, to a video that walks you through how to do that.
Now the final two questions or the final question, that's actually broken up into two parts is
What we're going to use to actually figure out, what type of content to make?
So when we're looking at, what do they care about, we want to know what results they're
after and what is it they believe is getting in the way of their success.
So let's go ahead and make this concrete.
So from here on forward, I'm going to be using the example of creating content for someone
who's trying to grow a YouTube channel.
So if we look at what results is somebody after, who wants to grow a YouTube channel,
this is our next step.
We're going to assume that they want to grow their channel, make some money.
And I don't know, eventually quit their day job or something.
Then we have the perceived roadblock, which is they're not getting enough views.
They're not getting enough subs.
They have bad video quality and poor ranking.
So what these two sets of questions are going to do, is it's going to give you insights
as to what type of content to make.
So now we know, that we should make contact about how to become full time on YouTube,
or we should talk about poor rankings, or we should talk about how to improve video
quality.
Now, obviously this is just an example.
You'll have to fill in these two questions for your ideal customer, but this is the fastest
way to figure out, what type of content you should make for your content marketing sales
funnel.
Now here's a couple of examples that we could do, for whatever type of content medium we're
going after.
So I could do a blog post, about how to use playlists to rank videos.
I could do a podcast talking about, how to rank your first YouTube video, or I could
just make a YouTube video about, how to improve your ranked videos and video ranking.
So now you can see from our diagram here, we've chosen one of our primary platforms
and all those other ones are going to be secondary.
We won't worry about them right now.
Then we figured out who our ideal customer is.
And based upon those last two questions, the perceived roadblock and what they’re after,
we've come up with a couple ideas, of types of content we can serve to them.
So at this point, you really just need to figure out, what type of content to make.
There's a link in the description to a video that dives in how to take, these content ideas
and actually turn it into a full-on content and how to structure that for maximum conversions.
So the next step in the process, speaking of conversions is the call to action.
So something that's unique when you're creating content, that's going to drive traffic to
your sales funnel, versus just creating content for the sake of content, is your content we'll
have a call to action.
So while someone's watching your video, listening to your podcast or reading your blog post,
you want to think about what's something you could offer them, that's more valuable beyond
the content they're already consuming.
So for example, there are two ways we could do this.
If someone's reading our blog posts, we could say, “Hey, if you want to learn more about
growing your YouTube channel, check out our webinar or advanced guide”, right?
And we can just add links through our blog post.
Or we could tell people in our podcasts, that the link to the webinar is in the description,
or if you don't have a product that you're trying to sell, and you're trying to generate
leads and you need to get them on the phone, then you can offer a free discovery call or
free consultation.
What's important is, your content is built around one of those roadblocks or helping
them see how they could achieve the result.
You don't have to do a whole A to Z like hour long video, right?
You can choose micro problems to solve.
And then while you're helping them and giving them those “Awe-Ha” moments like, “Oh,
I didn't know I could do that.”
“I didn't know that was possible.”
So while they're in that space of, “Oh, this is actually pretty helpful”, you say,
“Hey, I have something else that could be helpful.”
And this is where you, this is how you integrate the call to action.
And this is where you drive people from your content, over to your landing page, where
you're offering a lead magnet.
So first I'll go through the landing page and then we'll jump into the next step, which
is the lead magnet.
Now, when it comes to your landing pages, we don't need to get super complicated.
All landing page is a webpage that doesn't have any other links and allows people to
only do one thing, enter their name and email or phone number if you need it.
And so they could get the free offer, the guide, the webinar.
I'll talk more about what you can offer in the next step.
What's very important with this page is, all you need is a headline saying what they're
going to get.
And of course, you want the headline to talk about one of the results.
And one of the roadblocks, that you already identified when putting together your customer
avatar, and then a couple of bullet points to talk about how wonderful this offer is.
So here are a couple of examples, for our case study.
We have how to rank your videos on YouTube search.
We have how to use YouTube ads to accelerate your channel growth.
Or we could just have a generic page saying, how to grow your YouTube channel.
And what's great about landing pages, is you can try different ones.
Maybe people don't want to learn about ads, and they just want to learn about ranking
videos.
Maybe they don't care about ranking videos.
And they just rather have a guy that talks about general YouTube growth.
So there's no cap on how many different ideas, that you can test and figure out people who
are engaging with your content, that are looking to take that next step, turning themselves
from an audience member into an actual lead, trying to figure out what they actually want.
Now, speaking of leads, what we're going to be offering, in order to get people on that
landing page to enter their contact information, is something called a lead magnet.
Now all lead magnet is, is a piece of valuable information that is worth a name and email.
So it's very important that this is valuable.
What you don't want to do is, fall into the trap of creating a piece of content, looking
at it and going, you know, what, “What if I pulled this part out and then ask for people's
name and emails?”
Well, you can do that.
But if someone reads your blog post and they go, “This is missing where, where where's
this, where's this part?”
And then they see at the bottom, they have to enter their name and email.
That's a no, no, the content needs to be complete and stand on its own.
And whatever you offers the lead magnet, needs to be a legitimate bonus or a legitimate value
add.
You don't want people reading through your content or watching your videos and feeling
like, “Oh man, that, I was just swindled into getting, they just want my name and email.
They're not actually going to tell me what I was trying to learn here”
So here are a couple of examples of what you could do, for lead magnets with our example
of people trying to grow a YouTube channel, we could offer a video tutorial of how to
get more views.
We could offer an audio recording of a YouTuber sharing an inside story of how they were able
to grow from nothing.
We could give them some diagrams, or we could just give them a PDF checklist.
Whatever it is, it's important that it's valuable and typically it works best, if it's a different
medium from your content.
So if you've chosen video, it would probably may make more sense, to have a PDF or a diagram.
Just like if you're doing a blog, it would probably make more sense to have an audio
or a video.
And that's just because when the medium is different, it makes a lot more sense, that
they have to opt-in to get it.
If you have a video and then you say, “Hey, check out this video.
And now I have to enter my name and email for that.
You go, “Well, if it's a video and this is a video, why didn't you just include that
there?”
So it's a very simple way to make sure that people who are engaging with your content,
don't feel like you're pulling out golden nuggets or hiding something from them.
When lead magnet and your content are different mediums of content, even if they include the
same type of information.
I know this is a little wordy, but it's just a little tip there to make sure that your
content is able to be seen and stand on its own, which is critically important.
Now, at this point, you've done a tremendous amount of work and your template is complete.
This is all you need, to put together your own process for your content marketing sales
funnel.
Now there's one key difference, between running ads and doing paid traffic versus this content
marketing approach, that ties into your sales funnel, making the content marketing sales
funnel.
And that is engagement.
When you have a comment section, you need to reply to your comments.
I know that seems simple, but it's incredible to me, how many small YouTube creators and
how many blogs I go to, where the comment section is just crickets from whoever's putting
out the content.
And guess what, the comment section is where you're going to actually be able to create
a feedback loop and start learning more about your ideal customer.
And that's really where you're going to figure out which landing page and what offers are
actually going to resonate.
Because if you make something that you think is complete, and then you keep getting questions
about a particular topic, then you'll know either that's the next piece of content you
should make, or that could be another potential lead magnet because you know, people are interested
in it.
But if you don't engage in dialogue, with people who are engaging with your content
and keep that engagement cycle going, you're not going to learn anything.
And you're just going to spin your wheels guessing when you could be learning directly
from people, who actively want to consume your content and want to opt-in to your email
list.
So thank you so much for watching.
I sincerely hope you got some value out of this video, hit that like button and subscribe
for more in-depth content marketing and sales funnel tactics, just like the ones covered
in this video.
Comment below, if you have any questions and as always, keep building the business you
love.