Marketing writing offers many avenues for attracting visitors to your website or landing pages. However, not all marketing writing is the same, and it is important to write not only for your target marketing, but also for the position in the funnel. Top of the funnel marketing content is what will drive new prospects to your website to begin the qualification process. Therefore, it is necessary to write as if people are asking you the questions that your best customers ask when they are in the beginning stages of discovery.
What are Your Prospects Looking for?
You know better than anyone what your best customers are looking for. You can even ask them to fill out a survey as to what brought them to your company in the first place. Examining your metrics for keywords, queries and indicators of what brings the most qualified customers to your “door” will help you narrow down what to include in top of the funnel content.
Other suggestions are to look at your most successful competitors’ marketing efforts. What tools do they use to attract their best customers? You can look at both regional and national competitors. While you may not be able to spend the same amount on marketing as a national brand, you can still glean information that will help your own campaign.
Use every resource you have at your fingertips to mine for those gems of information. One resource that often gets overlooked is your sales team. Your sales team is in the trenches with prospects and customers every day discussing your products or services. They can probably recite the most common questions by rote, because they get asked so often. You may find that your marketing team is missing vital clues that your sales team can provide to find your best prospects. By interviewing your sales staff, you can add to your list of marketing ideas for your next campaign.
Creating Personas
You have probably heard this before, but creating in-depth personas based on the information you learn through the exercises suggested above, will help you direct your top of the funnel marketing to the right crowd. You need to define every nuance of your target customers including what they look like, their jobs, family life, hobbies and lifestyle. Knowing them inside and out will help you laser focus your marketing directly to them, and they will recognize that they are being addressed.
Creating a Content Calendar
Content needs to be planned to be released within specific time ranges of your product release, television announcement or like the recent Star Wars trailer, during the best possible moment for maximum exposure. Work with your team to plan your calendar for best promotional value, and you will find that your top of the funnel content is highly successful.
Paula A is the mother of two young women in high school and college, and enjoys spending time with her family.
