April 2022: Mapping Content to the Sales Funnel

One of the first questions we ask our lead gen and custom content customers is: what stage of the sales funnel (top, middle or late) are you focusing on?

At Credit Union Times, our ABM/Activate products offer the ability to find firms/companies that are displaying likely interest in your product/service and indicate where they are in the sales funnel.

And we also have different lead gen programs that track to different stages in the sales funnel. So you can choose broad programs to drive awareness leads, and more targeted programs to drive later-funnel leads.

But what content types align best with the three stages of the sales funnel? Here’s some guidelines from our audience marketing and custom content teams. And check out the key trends credit union marketers need to know that follows these tips.

Content Types Aligned to Sales Funnel

Top of the Funnel – Awareness. Define the Challenge/Opportunity

• Educational: Informative content that answers a question. Think of content around regulations, compliance, and improving efficiency.
• Thought leadership: Forward-thinking and macro industry trends.
• Research: Collecting data that supports a challenge/opportunity and puts it into context.
• Premium programmatic units that grab attention but can be dialed up or down at a moment’s notice.
• Immediate gratification: Solves a pain point, improves efficiency right away. These may come in various types but think along the lines of forms to modernize your contracts, quick reference infographics for compliance, or excel sheets to easily calculate some industry formula.

Mid-Funnel – Consideration: What types of solutions are available?

• Tip-based content: Quick tips or deep-dive tactics to improve your business, team, or solve problems.
• Buyers Guides: Step-by-step content that outlines options available to solve a problem or enhance your capabilities.
• Checklists: Short-hand version/summary of buyers guide.
• Evaluations: Tools to assess what your team needs, where it’s at, and what to consider.

Bottom of the Funnel – Justification: What are proof points that show the solution works?

• Case studies/testimonials: How you solved a customer problem.
• Use cases: When the product is new and you don’t have a case study.
• ROI Calculators: Prospects can input high-level data from their business and see potential outcomes.

If you’d like more information about our ability to target leads and content that is aligned with your sales funnel strategies, please contact me at [email protected].

Trends Credit Union Marketers Need to Know

• Increased Cyberattacks: According to CU-tech experts, cyberattacks have increased hundreds of percentages in the past month as Russia made plans to invade and then invaded Ukraine. Experts say this trend of increased attacks on the financial system coming from Russia will continue and could become much more aggressive and problematic for credit unions.
• CU M&As: Credit union merger and acquisition activity isn’t a new idea, but the trend of M&A activity continues its upward trajectory as small- and mid-sized credit unions merge and as larger credit unions absorb smaller banks and mid-sized credit unions. 2022 could be a record-breaking year for credit union M&A activity as the number of CUs goes down and assets and membership numbers skyrocket.