After this series, you’re hopefully brimming with new content ideas and can’t wait to tackle all those new topics!
But wait, there’s more!
Yep, there is one more stage to understand in the content funnel. And this happens after the sales are made.
If you’re looking for content ideas to keep customers’ attention after the sale, and keep them coming back for more, read on!
Eye-popping ROI
While a steady flow of new customers is the goal of every business, ignoring the customers you’ve already won is leaving money on the table.
A lot of money, actually.
According to Semrush, the likelihood of selling to a new customer is only between 5% to 20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60% to 70%. And repeat customers spend 67% more than new customers.
Studies also show acquiring a new customer can be anywhere from 5 to 6 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.
Surprisingly, only 2 out 5 companies have an equal focus on customer acquisition and retention. 😬
Your financial brand should be one of them!
Finalizing the funnel
In this series our focus has been on the single best content marketing exercise to help you create fresh ideas for your editorial calendar and make plenty of work for your sales team: The content funnel.
Remember that the stages of the content funnel represent how website visitors engage with your content.
As we shared in part one, new website visitors will be hungry for top-of-the-funnel Awareness content.
In part two, we showed you how engaged website visitors looking to solve a problem will then move on to the next stage, Evaluation content.
Part three revealed that prospects who are ready to purchase will be most influenced by Conversion content.
Now you’ve won a customer, congratulations! Your next task is to keep in touch with them, offer them relevant upsells or cross-sells, and generally keep them coming back for more. Not to mention, referring new business. This is where post-funnel content comes into play.
Welcome to the Retention stage!
So how do you create customer retention content that keeps current customers engaged and looking for more?
One of the best ways is with regular thought-leadership and how-to blogging or a regularly published newsletter.
A newsletter is your recurring opportunity to demonstrate subject matter expertise to your subscribers to deliver all kinds of helpful news and information. Plus, it’s easy for customers to forward to friends and family.
But there are even more ways to keep them coming back for more.
Retention content includes:
- Newsletters (weekly, monthly, quarterly … just make sure the cadence is consistent)
- Onboarding email series
- Regular customer education on best practices for using your product or service
- Events and webinars
- Customer surveys
- Podcasts and interviews
Retention topics include:
- New product, service and release announcements
- Updates to the “knowledge base” on your website
- Specials and sales
- Press mentions
- Team spotlights, behind-the-scenes
- Corporate charity or sponsorships
- Customer “before and after” stories
- Customer events, webinars
And that’s the content funnel!
We hope you can see how this strategy can help guide quality content choices for your website, social media platforms, and email marketing.
Over time, producing stage-based content pieces will help build customer confidence in your financial brand and create a strong following of loyal buyers and advocates.