3 tips to create highly engaging top-of-funnel content.

 

Digital channels have become more saturated than ever before.  Customers are being bombarded with top-of-funnel marketing campaigns containing offers for analyst white papers, webinars, infographics and even solution briefs.  Problem is that the content in these offers is not written for a prospective customer that is at the top of the funnel i.e., someone trying to understand how your solution addresses their unique problems and if they should take a closer look at your solution. In addition, the content often tends to use too much marketing jargon.  It ends up consuming 5 to 10 minutes of your customer’s time without providing them any unique insights.  Each interaction at the top of the funnel is critical – once the customer feels they wasted their precious time consuming your content, chances are they will not come back again.   

Tip #1: Create a point-of-view on a topic of interest to a prospective customer.  Ensure it also happens to coincide with your marketing agenda.  For example, if you are a next generation ecommerce software company, then “What is headless commerce and why it matters?” may help you educate a prospective buyer on a new paradigm in ecommerce software.  If you provide high performance NoSQL solutions, then “How NoSQL technology helped a credit card company implement a high-performance fraud detection solution?” may help you engage prospects.   Pick the persona you are targeting and create a jargon-free content that articulates your point of view very clearly, but along the way, give them a nugget that will be relevant to them in their job. Point of view could be delivered through a 2 pager or a podcast.  In this era of PDF saturation, an engaging and well produced 5-to-7-minute podcast can do the trick.  People will listen to something interesting while they are eating lunch at their desk or taking a short break between meetings. I have seen Point-of-views as very effective top-of-funnel content pieces.

Tip #2: Customer case studies that highlight the unique problems and how customers creatively solved them using your technology also serve as very good top-of-funnel content.  But it is important that the case studies are jargon free and focus on the ‘early adopter’ solutions i.e., customers who are doing something that is innovative and on the cutting edge.  Remember, your immediate goal is not to sell software, but to sell the dream – the art of the possible, so they come back to learn more about you and your solutions.  

Tip #3: Follow the rules in my blog post ‘how can product marketing create more relevant content’.