How to Write Great Content for Digital Sales Funnels
What are Digital Sales Funnels?
Digital sales funnels are persuasion sequences that motivate buyers to make purchasing decisions. The content used is not all about asking for a sale. Great content is about empowering your buyer to help them solve their problems, providing advice and solutions, handling objections and making it engaging, at times entertaining and shareable. In this article, we will provide tips on how to write great content for digital sales funnels.
Quick Reference (jump to specific sections below)
- Know Your Audience
- Content Used Down the Digital Sales Funnel
- Creating Content that Gets Read
- Seven Main Types of Content
Know Your Audience
First and foremost is knowing your audience before you can begin to write great content for your digital sales funnel is a must. Having said that, writing credible, unique and thought-provoking content is essential in persuading buyers to buy. Releasing industry-specific and enriching information helps position your brand as an industry leader among competitors. Knowing how your buyers and industry influencers search and the keywords they use is also a vital part of your content strategy.
Determining the content deemed most valuable is also based on where your buyers are in the sales funnel, the complexity of the sale, whether it’s at the top of the sales funnel (TOTF), middle of the funnel (MOTF) or the bottom of the funnel (BOTF) when they are ready to purchase.
Content Creation Across the Digital Sales Funnel
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Creating Content That Gets Read
Buyers value their time and guard their personal information. Although many tools can be used to gauge who, where and when they read your content, the critical step in filling your sales funnel is your potential buyers’ willingness to exchange their contact information for your content.
People can instinctively tell the difference between good and bad content. You don’t want to lose leads by being caught with irrelevant, poorly written or inaccurate content. This is why you have to continually work on it and know the secrets behind what makes great content. This is important no matter the size of your audience or your chosen niche. Here are some of the essential things that make great content for your digital sales funnel.
Find Your Style
As part of your brand, your style is one of your most important assets to engage your buyers. Your content should be written in a style that is unique to your brand or personality. It is your brand’s voice and you cannot afford to copy someone else’s. If you keep on sounding like everyone else, you will find it difficult to add to the ideas of others and contribute to conversations.
While it may be tempting to hide behind an already established style and it can be helpful to try other brands’ writing techniques as a learner, one of the hallmarks of generating content is establishing your unique style. Once you have found a unique style, you should stick to it and let it evolve.
Learn to Match Content-Length and Depth
“Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life”… Avinash Kaushika
Experts in generating content have mastered the art of matching the length of their content to the depth of what they want to discuss. Your writing will be all over the place if you try to cover more details than space allows. Similarly, not giving out enough detail despite having space means your content will be watery and boring. The optimal length and depth vary based on the type of content you choose to write and your digital sales funnel objectives. The big idea is to find out what types of content your target audience reads and write the length and depth that is sufficient to engage them.
Be Good with Research
Great writers are great researchers. While you are always encouraged to be original, you cannot produce top quality content without checking out information from other sources. So being good with research is most essential. Integrating a variety of research will make your content more informative and convenient eliminating the need for buyers to keep browsing the web for knowledge on a topic. You must know how to research the web to gather reference materials and not just browse the internet. That’s what sets your content apart from everyone else and provides the value your buyers are seeking.
Find a Unique Angle to Every Topic 
Great content doesn’t follow the crowd. Don’t get me wrong. This is not to say that every single topic you write about must be unique. This is virtually impossible since almost every subject of discussion you can think of has been covered in one form or the other by someone in the past.
The goal is to always find your specific point of view and write from that viewpoint. This is known as the slant of your content. Even when you are covering a trending topic that many content writers have written about, if you will add to the conversation, then you have to find your unique angle. This gives your readers an innovative point of view on a topic, which sets you apart from competitors and makes buyers intrigued in gaining access to your content. If you can’t find a unique slant for your content, then it’s best you talk about something else entirely.
Craft a Stunning Introduction
One of the unspoken rules of content writing is to make the first sentence of your write-up your best. This is especially important if you choose to give buyers a short preview of your content. Typically, you only get about three seconds to hook your readers and get them interested enough to want the full content and read on. You must make those precious seconds count and the only way to do that is to hook your readers with a stunning introduction or lead.
For a short article, craft the first paragraph or two in a way that captures the reader’s attention. For an e-book, the quality of your first section will determine if the reader reads on or not. You can start with an intriguing question, a little-known fact, the promise of new information or a contrary point of view. Make your lead as compelling as possible and ensure that it is appropriate for the type of content you chose to write. It should tease the content of your article without giving away too much about it.
Be Original – Never Copy
A good content writer never copies. Although almost every topic you want to write about has been covered at some point by someone in the past and research is the crux of content writing, you can’t just go about copying other people’s work. Plagiarism is one of the most grievous offences any writer can commit. It can even impact your sales funnel by making buyers lose trust in you, become hesitant to share their contact information and avoid association with you. One of the ways to avoid plagiarism is to use an online plagiarism checker.
Your Content Must Have Value
“These days, people want to learn before they buy, be educated instead of pitched”… Brian Clark
The value of your content determines the quality of the writer’s skills. No matter the topic or subject of discussion, your readers want to read relevant, accurate and reliable information. Don’t over-flog a subject matter or hype information.
Good content always presents accurate information. You shouldn’t bend or stretch the truth. People will only see you as an authority in your field when your content has consistently proven to be accurate. This is why it is important to research your topic deeply. Also, in a digital sales funnel, it’s important to focus on the information your target audience wants. Don’t fill your write-up with irrelevant information. If you are aligned with your audiences’ needs and wants, then they will be more interested in your content and your products. You should also provide references to surprising facts and figures quoted in your article. This will make it easy for people to believe what you have to say.
Seven Main Types of Content
In preparation for creating content, ensure priorities, as well as timelines, are understood and available resources are on hand. With this in mind when selecting the content to create, consider the following types.
The seven main types of business content are:
1. Blogs
A blog is usually shorter and provides a quick reference for information. It may not require as much depth, but it’s important to keep in mind your business goals when making them. For example, to improve your SEO, blogs are best but must be richer with keywords.
2. Whitepapers
A whitepaper is usually longer with more detailed information on a particular subject. It is best for sharing innovative, unique viewpoints on a topic that sets you apart from competitors. Since whitepapers provide more in-depth information, they can be used to acquire new leads in your digital sales funnel.
3. E-books
Typically, e-books vary in length depending on how much detail is needed to cover a topic. It’s similar to a whitepaper; however, there is less data. E-books are great content to exchange for contact information.
4. Case Studies
This content is best for B2B situations. They are usually shorter forms of content that detail how you provided unique advice that helped your client succeed.
5. Infographics
Since these are more visual, it’s important to keep the writing short with less depth and letting the images speak for themselves.
6. Templates & Checklists
This content has proven to be a strong lead generation magnet. They are great resources that users will utilize repeatedly and aren’t that costly to create.
7. Videos
Videos are not always considered written content, but with the growth in popularity and many videos viewed on mute (on Facebook alone, 85% of videos are watched without sound), having a script that follows what is being said increases the likelihood that content will be consumed either through watching, listening or reading.
Conclusion
One of the most rewarding aspects of developing a successful digital sales funnel is in writing great content. However, creating valued content that is read and shared is an ongoing process. As the market changes so do preferences, how, where and who buys all impact what content is relevant and meaningful. No matter the type of content, knowing the secrets of writing great content will ensure greater success across all stages of your digital sales funnel.
