For content marketing to succeed, your target audience should see value in your content. But creating the right content for your business is not an easy task. If the content does not resonate with your target audience, then all of your effort will be wasted. 

A B2B content marketing funnel plays a very important role in this process. Marketers need to understand it to create a successful content marketing strategy. It has three stages that help convert leads into sales. Here are the three stages of a B2B content marketing funnel:

1. Top of the Funnel: Awareness Stage

The first stage of the B2B content marketing funnel is to create awareness of your business. The content of this stage is all about attracting and educating your target audience. 

Advertisements, social media posts, blog posts, videos, and infographics are the various formats of content that are used in this stage to create awareness. 

You need to understand the requirements of your target customer before choosing any of these formats. Different kinds of content will strike a chord with different audiences.

Your content in this stage is successful if it generates a high number of shares and views from your target audience. 

2. Middle of the Funnel: Evaluation Stage

The middle part of the B2B content marketing funnel is when your potential customers determine the authenticity of your business and whether or not to trust you.

Webinars, whitepapers, templates, guides, and ebooks are a great way to create leads and to influence your target customers. This type of easily accessible content creates deeper customer engagement. 

The success of this stage will be determined if the content is generating and influencing leads.

3. Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase Stage

The last stage of B2B content marketing funnel is where the leads convert into sales. This is the stage the determines the success of your entire content marketing campaign. 

The content in this stage needs to develop trust amongst your target customers and convince them that buying from you will be the smartest move.

Reviews, self-assessments, questionnaires, product demo videos, and phone consultations are effective types of content for this stage. During this stage, your potential customers understand your business and how it can help them even more.

Creating and optimizing your B2B content marketing funnel will help you use content marketing to its maximum potential. It will help you gain a clear perspective of your content strategy and improve your return on investment (ROI).

If you want to understand more about B2B content marketing funnels, check out this infographic from UTM.io.

Author Bio: Dan McGaw

Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is the founder and CEO of Effin Amazing, marketing technology and analytics agency, and the creator of web.utm.io.

Gravatar Profile Email: danm@thinktanks.co