What do we mean by the awareness stage in funnel design? In this second piece in a series of posts deconstructing the elements of marketing funnel design we explore how to nail the awareness stage.
We ran one of our Funnel Workshops in Bristol the other week and met a great crowd; all open minded and ready to have their concept of the marketing funnel well and truly flipped (check out the post on AIDA for a bit of background if you are a funnel virgin).
As part of the workshop, the Difference Engine team had prepared some mythical buyer personas for some well known B2B brands. We knew that there would not be enough time in the workshop to get the audience to build these as well as thinking about the types and topics of content necessary to attract them into the top of the funnel.
Get Customer Focused
After priming the audience of the overarching principles of funnel design and that contrary to general opinion the journey absolutely did not start with the awareness of the company’s product, but about the awareness of their own problem that they were setting out to solve, the interactive part of the workshop could begin.
We asked the audience to consider their buyer persona and and sketch out some content ideas and where they would come in the funnel:
Awareness – Consideration – Decision – Action
Surprisingly the awareness section proved the hardest part to comprehend – most of the content ideas that were initially suggested were best placed at the consideration and decision stage. This could explain why so much B2B content designed for the ‘Awareness’ stage of the funnel fails to deliver – those pieces focusing around ‘did you know, we do this, and we do this amazing well for these people (case studies)’ are for the ‘consideration’ stage and not the Awareness stage. In the awareness stage, you need to look at your buyer personas and look at their goals and challenges, this defines what your awareness content should be about. This is the gold dust needed to make your Awareness section sparkle and that is why it is worth spending the time developing the buyer personas…without a detailed persona you will fall at the first hurdle.
We would love to hear how you tackle the Awareness stage in your customer funnel – walk in the park or is it like walking through treacle?