Why Great Top-of-Funnel Content Matters for Lead Generation
By Joshua Nite
When a storm is on the horizon, everyone battens down the hatches, boards up the windows, and hunkers down to wait it out.
Right now there’s a recession on the horizon for B2B businesses, and we can see the storm preparation starting. Budgets are getting leaner, new requests met with more scrutiny, and marketers are under more pressure than ever to prove the effectiveness of their work.
This is when many marketing departments focus on lead gen, throwing everything they’ve got at the bottom of the funnel.
It’s a common response. But it’s a mistake.
Here’s why top-of-funnel marketing matters for lead generation, even if — especially if — the economic future is uncertain.
1 — The vast majority of your audience is out-of-market
What percentage of your audience is actively seeking a solution, ready to make a purchase? According to the B2B Institute at LinkedIn*, it’s about 5%.
In other words, lower-funnel content will be lost on 95% of your potential future customers. If we ignore 95% of the audience, we’re robbing the future to pay the present. Top-of-funnel content is an investment in future revenue.
Image credit: The B2B Institute at LinkedIn
The people who aren’t in the market right now are still consuming content. They’re looking for ways to do their job better. They’re researching industry trends. They have concerns your brand can help them resolve. Now is the time to serve up high-quality content that keeps your brand in their recent memory.
2 — There’s an ideal mix of brand and demand marketing
This doesn’t mean, of course, that you should give up on bottom-of-funnel content. It’s important to strike a balance between marketing intended for your out-market (‘brand’) and that intended for your in-market (“demand”).
Research suggests that for B2B, a 45% brand, 55% demand mix is most effective at reaching both markets without sacrificing one for the other. While it seems tempting to increase the demand side of the equation in a downturn, that would mean throwing off the mix for the foreseeable future. Even if you need to scale down your marketing operations, preserving that mix is the best way to prepare for the inevitable upswing.
How much does the brand/demand mix matter? Data suggests that brands that have a robust brand and demand strategy see 6x the performance, compared to those who are focused on acquisition.
3 — Memorability is the key for long-term success
Top-of-funnel content is ‘brand’ marketing, a crucial part of the mix, as we’ve seen. The goal of this type of content should be securing mental real estate with …read more
Source:: Top Rank Blog
