A common trap I see small businesses fall into on social media is relying on ‘content pillars’ as part of their strategy. And then they wonder why they’re not growing their account or converting their followers into sales.
This is because creating content around your marketing funnel is so much more important than your content pillars.
Let’s understand why….
What is the Marketing Funnel?
Simply put, the ‘Marketing Funnel’ (also known as the ‘Sales Funnel’) is that journey that takes complete strangers who have never heard of you or your brand through to becoming loyal customers/clients.
The funnel can be broken down into three key stages:
Top of the funnel: This is where you need to be reaching people who have never heard of you before. This is done by creating engaging, relatable content that your ideal audience is going to resonate with. At this point, you’re not even mentioning your product or service - just connecting with your audience.
By getting this right, you’ll get in front of people who don’t already follow you and start to grow your audience.
Middle of the funnel: Next stage is nurturing those new followers and building a relationship with them. You need to give them a reason to trust you, see you as the expert in your field and understand what problems you can solve for them.
Bottom of the funnel: Once your audience are warmed up to you, then they will be open to buying your product or service. This stage needs to focus on key selling techniques, such as creating ‘scarcity’ through a time-limited offer. You can read more about psychological tricks to influence your audience here.
The trouble with content pillars.
Don’t get me wrong - content pillars ARE helpful for organising your content into key themes that stop your posts from feeling scattered and inconsistent.
For example - if you’re a personal trainer, it’s helpful to group your content into key themes, such as ‘workouts’, ‘nutrition’, ‘mindset’ and ‘building habits’. This means that you can create clear posts that focus around one area at a time.
However….
Without focusing on your marketing funnel, you might only be creating content at one stage of the funnel. If you’re only putting out ‘middle of the funnel’ content, you might not be growing your audience or converting them into sales.
Let’s look at this Personal Trainer’s content plan for the week based on their content pillars:
‘7 exercises to increase core strength’ - Workout
‘Takeaway recipes you can make at home’ nutrition series - nutrition
‘5 eating habits to focus on’ - habit building
‘Simple steps to get back on track after Christmas’ - mindset
These ideas are spread across this PT’s content pillars, but are all stuck at that middle of funnel stage. With this type of content, you’re unlikely to grow or convert.
Making the shift from Pillars to the Funnel
Moving from a pillar-centric approach to a funnel-based strategy doesn't mean a complete overhaul of your social media content. Rather, it's about bringing your content pillars into harmony with the various stages of the marketing funnel.
Here’s an example for the same Personal Trainer:
Relatable meme about trying to walk the day after a tough leg-day workout - Top of funnel
‘7 exercises to increase your core strength - Middle of funnel
‘Book 10 PT sessions with me and get 2 free’ - Bottom of funnel
Can you see the difference? These are still fitting around one content pillar (in this case ‘workouts’), but are spread across all stages of the funnel. So you’re creating content that’s going to bring a new audience (the relatable meme), providing valuable content and showing your expertise with middle of funnel of content and talking about your paid service and encouraging sales at the bottom.
In Summary
By carefully curating your content to cater to each stage of the marketing funnel, you keep the essence of your content pillars whilst making sure your message hits home at the right time.
This fusion of consistency and strategy can result in a dynamic social media marketing approach, poised to inspire, educate and engage your audience - all whilst gently steering them through their purchasing journey. It’s not about choosing between content pillars or the marketing funnel, but rather merging the two for an enhanced social media strategy.
Having a Social Media Manager to create and execute your social media strategy can be key to seeing success. If you need help crafting your social media strategy, please get in touch. You can book your free discovery call with me to find out how I can help take your social media to the next level!