The Beginner’s Guide to Content and the Sales Pipeline

Author: Nick Blazer
Published: July 22, 2020

Last Updated: March 18, 2021

Are you brand new to this concept called content marketing or someone who thinks all it is is creating blog posts?

I’ve got news for you: it’s much more than that. Content marketing is the engine behind finding customers and clients online and it helps sales professionals and marketers effectively do their jobs and hit their goals.

There’s one big problem that usually prevents content marketing efforts from succeeding: neither side tends to look at content as the driver for success, and the marketing side, specifically SEO specialists, are particularly guilty about this (I know, I’ve done it before). Odds are you or someone you know has heard someone in SEO blindly suggest that you need content on your website (this part is true); the reason I say “blindly” is because they usually aren’t strategic about it and their efforts aren’t tied to creating marketing- and sales-qualified leads – you know, building a pipeline and helping close deals. Keeping the lights on. Making payroll. Those sorts of things.

To help connect the dots and educate business owners, marketers, and sales professionals, I put this quick guide together. It will explain to you how content fits into your sales pipeline, how you need to actually approach creating content, and what order you should prioritize when creating things. Plus, at the end I walk you through how you can plan and map out your first content-driven sales funnel.

The buyer's journey

Not sure what the buyer’s journey is? New to digital marketing? Read on and learn the basics in only a few minutes.

What is the buyer's journey?

My quick way to describe the buyer’s journey to someone new to digital marketing is that when someone has a problem, they need to find a solution. To get to that solution, they go through stages where they need to see certain information to move on to the next stage.

If you come from other disciplines, you’ll often hear or know about the buyer’s journey and it’s stages by other terms. For instance, sales will use terms like prospects, leads, qualified leads, marketing-qualified leads, and sales-qualified leads and will refer to it as a funnel or a pipeline; they’re describing the same thing.

The buyer’s journey has three stages people move through, though if you’re in sales, you’ve probably seen this in six stages. It’s really all the same thing, but with a little more nuance and some different names.

What are the stages of the buyer's journey?

There are three general stages of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision.

Awareness Stage

You are aware that you have a problem. You may not know what it is and you may not know how to fix it. Regardless, you need to understand the problem to begin finding a solution.

Consideration Stage

You know about your problem and you need to find a solution. You need to know who offers a solution.

Decision Stage

You know who offers solutions to your problem and you need to find the solution that is right for you.

Why do these stages matter to content marketing?

In marketing, you reach people at each stage of the buyer’s journey with content (hence you’ll hear this often referred to as “content marketing”). The reason is because each stage that was just mentioned – awareness, consideration, and decision – has different information needs. Your delivery device for that information is content.

And that ultimately means one thing: your website will need content.

How content marketing and the buyer's journey align

Content needs and the buyer's journey

To return to the previous section for a moment, you will use content, on and off your site, to speak to your prospects and help them move toward an appropriate solution. These same prospects will need to see different kinds of information at each stage – it will evolve and change. That points to the one thing we haven’t touched on yet: content types. And to keep this simple, some types of content are going to be more suited for certain stages than other types of content.

Awareness Stage Content

Awareness stage content exists to help prospects learn about their problem, and so it is largely educational.

Consideration Stage Content

Consideration stage content exists to help prospects find a solution, and so it focuses on educating about services available, outlining the benefits and features of those services, providing comparisons between solution providers, and so on.

Decision Stage Content

Decision stage content exists to help prospects determine you are the best solution, and so it focuses on putting your best foot forward as the most appropriate solution. It focuses on highlighting your capabilities, demonstrating proof of your work, and closing the sale.

See what I did there with the bold words? What I wanted to do is draw your attention to what you’ll want to focus on at each stage because they naturally suggest the different types of content you’ll want to create.

Content types and the buyer's journey

Now that you’ve been exposed to the information needs at each stage, I’ll connect the dots between them and the various content types. The list is by no means completely exhaustive, but it should give you an idea of how things line up. Also, the word content is pretty abstract – technically, it includes any sales calls and meetings you do, as well as things you post on social media and email exchanges. Literally everything is content because everything conveys some kind of information.

Awareness Stage Content Types

Blog posts / articles
Infographics
Videos
Podcasts
Newsletters
Quizzes
Guides / how-tos
Tools
eBooks
Webinars
Courses
Research reports
Slideshows
Etc

Consideration Stage Content Types

Whitepapers
eBooks
Tools
Webinars
Research reports
Testimonials
Case studies and use case examples
Free trials and demos
Product / service comparisons
Email drip campaigns
Sales pages / landing pages
Etc

Decision Stage Content Types

Testimonials
Case studies
Free trials and demos
Product / service comparisons
Proposals and quotes
Email drip campaigns
Sales pages / landing pages
Etc

Having said all of this, I have one last section I want to go over before I show you how you can plan and map out your own content funnel. If you’re familiar with the subject, it may seem out of place, and odds are, it probably is.

However, I feel that before I get you feeling really optimistic about what you’ll do next (you’ll probably think about a few things you should change or create immediately), I should manage your expectations about the level of effort involved in content marketing and how much you’ll need to invest in your content. The tl;dr takeaway is that everything needs to be high quality.

The laws of content

Because content marketing involves reaching certain people and because you ultimately want them to buy your products or services, there are some obvious realities about your content to be aware of. I call them “laws” because the more you think about them, and the more you do content marketing and become exposed to the reality surrounding it, the more you realize that there is no way that these rules can not ever be true.

Each piece of content has three goals it needs to fulfill.

You want to move your prospect from stage to stage using content.
You want to demonstrate your expertise with that content, as well as build trust and familiarity.
You want to be helpful with that content, which ultimately means it needs to explain a subject or solve a problem.

Each piece of content implicitly has an audience in mind.

That is, each piece of content speaks to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of problem. The better off you can define this kind of person and speak to this person, the better off your content will be (the term underlying this is the buyer persona).

Each piece of content is not good enough on its own.

Because it is designed to move prospects along from stage to stage, it presupposes it is one part of a giant chain of breadcrumbs. You will want to make the existence of these other breadcrumbs obvious in your content.

Each piece of content is competing against other pieces of content.

Many people presume what they created is the only thing that exists (or it’s more like they don’t realize that other competing pieces of content exist that attempt to explain and solve the same things). Nothing in content marketing exists in a vacuum. Because content creators don’t realize the full reality around what they’re marketing, they tend to end up doing questionable things that hurt them, like churn out low quality content, churn out a lot of content, neglect or forget the existence of the past content they created, not update past content to improve it’s competitiveness, and so on.

Each piece of content needs to be occasionally updated.

Nothing in life is static and problems change and evolve. The businesses you compete with will create and update their content, which will present a competitive challenge to yours. If neither of the two apply, there exists a third reason to update your content – getting better engagement and conversion rates from the people who read it.

And if neither of those three things apply, there still exists a fourth reason, which I will cleverly call selection factors, that will help hinder or help your content. You’re likely getting traffic from Google and Facebook, and one thing you should know is that they update their criteria for what they prioritize to show from time-to-time.

For all four of these things (and the fact that you already invested time and resources into creating what you have), you should be updating your content from time-to-time.

Each piece of content is likely a landing page.

Due to the nature of email, social media, and search engines, most people will not enter your site through your homepage, and if they do, it’s because they already know about you. Which is to say they probably stumbled upon your article while searching about their problems. Because of that, your content is the first page of the site they will see – it’s your first impression. It had better be a good first impression, because if it isn’t, you probably lost that business opportunity to someone else.

Each piece of content must be high-quality.

While I’ve already mentioned two primary reasons why each piece of content must be high-quality (it’s likely a first impression and it’s competing against other stuff), I instead want to focus on the mathematical “law” aspect of it.

People are making content – TONS OF IT. If we frame this as a kind of math equation, that means the denominator is perpetually growing. Yet the primary way we’re going to get noticed by people – through search engines – artificially gates access by limiting the number of things people see on one page of the search results to just a handful of recommendations, and those recommendations are usually selected on the basis of quality (is this the best answer?).

That ultimately means that as the volume of content (most of which is probably crap) increases, the necessity for high-quality content increases.

Each piece of content has an ascertainable ROI.

This last one is a bit more obscure because most people are not used to actively thinking that blog posts eventually lead to sales, even if they passively expect it. They won’t immediately, but they eventually will. And because of this, you’re better off if you include ways to put people in your sales pipeline, even if it’s just a slight foot in the door.

That means when you create content, you want to find a way to either get them to give you an email (sign up for a newsletter, download some document) or outright download something or access a tool for free. In the former case, you’re getting something highly valuable that lets you further qualify them and/or continue to contact them directly; and in the latter case, you’re giving them something highly valuable that they’ll use, which will help build a relationship with them.

How to build a content funnel

I’ll be honest: I’m not a fan of blindly telling anyone they need to add content to their site. That is a recipe for disaster.

People who blindly make this recommendation tend to focus on one stage (awareness), one type of content (blogs), and one channel (search results). This is not practical; your business has bills, rent, payroll, and so on, and so you need money coming in the door continuously. You aren’t a charity.

The reality is you do need content on your website, but much like investing in stocks, your best approach is to diversify. This means you need to build a content funnel that speaks to each stage and has a defined purpose. This also means you’ll need to map out your website in an abstract way that you may not be comfortable with initially.

Don’t worry – I’ll keep it simple and walk you through the steps. You won’t need to create a spreadsheet to do this exercise, but once you feel comfortable with it, I’ll encourage you to take it to the next level with one.

Step 1: Draw a simple table with three columns and a row with headings and name each heading Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Placeholder	Placeholder	Placeholder

Step 2: Pick one service you want to sell to someone.

Add it under the Consideration column and write “sales page” after it.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Placeholder	Sales Page	Placeholder

With this step, I am presuming you have a dedicated page on your site that pitches this service – that’s what I’m referring to.

Step 3: Write the titles of any blog posts that talk about things related to that service under the Awareness column.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3	Sales Page	Placeholder

If you do not have any blog posts that educate people about the problems you solve, you will want to consider making them.

Additionally, when you write these blog posts, you need to focus on explaining and educating about the problems; do not focus on talking about what you do.

Step 4: Find out if your site sends out a newsletter or sends out an email every time you put up a new blog post related to this service.

Write “Newsletter” under the Awareness column.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3 Newsletter	Sales Page	Placeholder

Step 5: Find out if your site has any case studies about that service.

If you do, write the titles of them under the Decision column and write “case study” after it.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3 Newsletter	Sales Page	Case Study 1 Case Study 2 Case Study 3

Step 6: Find out if you have any testimonials on your website that endorse what you can do with that service.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3 Newsletter	Sales Page Testimonial 1 Testimonial 2 Testimonial 3	Case Study 1 Case Study 2 Case Study 3

Step 7: Find out if you have any downloadables or white papers on your website related to this service.

If you do and you collect things like an email address in exchange for access to that resource, write the title of that resource under the Consideration column. Write “download” or “white paper” or whatever it is after each title.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3 Newsletter	Sales Page Testimonial 1 Testimonial 2 Testimonial 3 White Paper 1	Case Study 1 Case Study 2 Case Study 3

Step 8: Go look at how you entice someone to contact you.

If you offer a free quote, estimate, audit, or something like that, write that under the Decision column.

Awareness	Consideration	Decision
Blog Post 1 Blog Post 2 Blog Post 3 Newsletter	Sales Page Testimonial 1 Testimonial 2 Testimonial 3 White Paper 1	Case Study 1 Case Study 2 Case Study 3 Free Estimate

Step 9: Review your makeshift chart and define your key performance indicators.

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) are the things that tell you if something is working. For example, is your phone ringing? Tracked phone calls are a definite KPI. The same thing goes for form submissions.

Your typical KPIs at the Awareness stage are subscriptions occurring on your site. By this I mean someone signed up for a newsletter. Subscribes and follows on social media are great, but these really aren’t KPIs because you don’t have any control over that audience and what they see you share on that social media platform. What you want to aim to get here is email addresses in exchange for something simple.

Your typical KPIs at the Consideration stage, and also at the Decision stage, are contacts: emails, phone calls, and form submissions. These also include any time they share their info with you to gain access to something, like a download or a webinar. Your telltale sign that it is a KPI is that the information they are handing you allows you to qualify them as potential business.

Your primary KPI at the Decision stage is closing the actual business, and so anything that directly contributes to that (like calls, emails, form submissions, requests for proposals and quotes) are included.

Step 10: Start looking for ways to improve what you have.

Initially, you want to make sure you have content at each stage; it is not enough to add a few blog posts.

Here is a small snapshot of the minimum content you want on your site:

Make sure you have a sales page that pitches this service.
Make sure your sales page contains at least one testimonial. This type of content is called “social proof” and is an essential part of your sales pitch on this page.
Make sure your site contains at least one case study related to this service, though 2-3 are preferred.
Make sure your sales page makes the visitor aware of the existence of one of your case studies – preferably the best – and links to it.
Make sure you have a clear method of contact (this is typically referred to as a conversion method, rather than a contact), and if you can (and only if it applies to what you do), offer a free quote/estimate/audit/etc.
Make sure you have 2-3 blog posts that discuss the essentials related to that service. Ideally, you’ll want 4-5, and they should follow a certain kind of formula. I’ll try to highlight some formula types here:
- You’ll need a definition post that talks about a core concept, defines what it is, and talks about the basics.
  - Example: What is time management?
- You’ll need a list post that talks about the benefits of something or reasons why something should be done.
  - Example: 5 benefits of installing solar panels for your home
- You’ll need a list post that talks about the downsides of something or reasons about how things can go wrong.
  - Example: 8 ways hard water can damage your home
- You’ll need a post that talks about how to do something.
  - Example: How to choose the right vinyl siding for your home
- You’ll need a post that offers tips about something.
  - Example: 20 tips for working from home
- And so on. You don’t necessarily need the exact formulas above, but that is to get you thinking. The point is to be practical, actionable, and educational.

After you have the minimum content highlighted above, try to improve the pitch of your sales page and try to get up to 3 case studies that speak to different scenarios. Then turn around and focus on putting together 10 of the best blog posts you can offer.

For these blog posts, you do not need to focus on quantity and you do not need to add something new to your site all the time. Instead, you want to focus on quality, and this will involve updating what you have repeatedly. You want to continuously improve your content because it can help with ranking in search results, because they can be shared on social media over and over again, and because you can pay ad dollars to promote these resources to new people.

Ten posts might seem like a lot initially, but ten posts focused on one topic area will allow you to build something called a hub page, which works like an end cap in a grocery store or a list of recommended reads in a bookstore or a museum exhibit. All three of these things have three things in common: a unified purpose (they want to pitch you on something interesting or useful), a form of curation (they are deliberately selecting, organizing, and displaying something), and a prominent location. Your hub page will do the same thing, but instead will lead with your best / most useful content to the visitor, sort of as a way of saying “start here” as well as a way to make the best first impression. They also work a lot better than using the standard blog page that shows blogs from newest to oldest.

Step 11: Repeat with other services on your site.

If you offer more than one service, you’ll want to plot this out for the other services.

Conclusion

And that’s it. That’s your simple content funnel. That should be all you need to know to get started.

If you have any questions or you need assistance building your content funnel, feel free to reach out.