Content Marketing – Thinking Out of the Funnel

For all B2B marketers the term content marketing is now very hot. Content marketing is the heart of B2B marketing today, and rightfully so.

But most of the conversations regarding content marketing are around the revenue funnel – that is, either lead generation or lead nurturing. Nothing wrong with that. For quality lead generation, we need quality content.

But what about building trust?

Before a prospect fills up a form, don’t we need to build up a certain level of trustworthiness in their minds? In my experience, we are seriously neglecting the value of non-gated content, the content before the revenue funnel.

Even for the gated content, there are thousands of pieces of advice floating around on how to write catchy headlines, how to optimise content for SEO, and how to trick your prospects to fill up that form and download your e-book. So what happens next? You get another row of names, emails, companies, and so on in your prospects database.

How much attention we are devoting to create a piece of content which is really of any value for our prospects?

I can totally understand the need for generating new leads and growing the top line for all B2B marketers. Most B2B marketers’ performances are evaluated quarterly, and they have to meet their numbers. And that’s why, for most companies, you will find that top-of-the-funnel content and sales enablement, or bottom-of-the-funnel, content gets the most attention.

What happens in the middle?

How can we ensure the quality of the content is uniform across the revenue funnel, and beyond that? How can we ensure our content works beyond the catchy headlines, provides some unique value to our prospects, and positions us as truly trusted advisors?

As content marketing, as a practice, goes through proliferation, we need to ensure we think beyond the funnel to avoid getting buried under mediocrity.