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What kind of content is most effective for prospects in the AWARENESS stage of the funnel?

If your goal is to get more traffic to your website and grow your sales funnel, think of ‘great content’ as the ‘magnet’ that is going to draw them in.

Content and offers that your prospects need, want and are looking for, will PULL them toward you and they will enter into the first phase of the sales funnel. Eventually these become leads and finally customers of your products and services.

As with any relationship, at this early stage you are introducing yourself. Particularly if your business is B2B your goal with content should be to educate and inform. This establishes you as a thought leader in your industry and it builds trust. Content has many different forms; here are some of the most popular.

• Blog Posts
• eBooks
• Articles
• Worksheets & Templates
• Newsletter emails
• Social Media Updates
• Pod casts
• Video
• Quiz or survey

A ‘lead magnet’ is something that you would ‘give away’ in exchange for an email or contact information. This is typically very effective and good practice.

However, if you are trying to increase traffic you may want to provide the gift ‘upfront’ in the beginning to build trust. This will not turn them into a lead right away but you can learn a lot through pixeling so not all is lost. For example, by pixeling you will learn more about what topics your audience is interested in and what sort of offers they want etc.?

So if you’re starting to get the idea that content (and lots of it) is KING, you may be wondering what to write about? This is one of the toughest challenges for most teams, large and small.

If you are having trouble coming up with content, here is a quick and easy hack.

What two words define your brand? Pick only two and write them down.

For example let’s say your business is Corporate Health and Wellness. Two words that may define the brand could be:

Wellness & Productivity

First step is to think about each one of those topics individually and create content around each one.

Educational content on Wellness could include things like ‘wellness & sleep,’ ‘wellness & stress reduction,’ ‘wellness & nutrition.’ The possibilities are endless. Your list is already starting to take shape.
Next try to come up with several topics that relate to Productivity. ‘Techniques to improve productivity after 3:00 pm,’ ‘increase productivity by getting organized.’ “Simplify the process leads to increased productivity.”

By the time you have exhausted those possibilities, come up with content ideas by combining the two words. How they relate and complement each other.

Why not involve your whole team by having a pizza lunch to brain-storm several months out in advance.

Once the content ideas (or titles) are plugged into a ‘content calendar’ you are halfway there. We recommend working 6 if not 12 months out.

If you have limited resources, your challenge may be actually “creating content”. This is a time consuming task, particularly for small teams.

Source: Brand Awareness: Creating the Most Effective Content