The following concepts are outdated, serve minimal value, and are no longer good enough to win in content marketing: - TOFU / MOFU / BOFU - AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action) - Aligning Content to ICPs & Personas - Prioritizing by Keyword Volume - Content Calendars These are played out concepts, which have now become table stakes in any content driven growth strategy. It's no longer good enough to do these bare minimum things. Yet, marketers are spending huge amounts of time on low value decision making. Most categories are too saturated, and the big brands keep steamrolling ahead due to years of built up momentum. A better way to make content marketing decisions is a product led framework. 💡 Below is the rubric I have personally created and used to scale content programs. You can steal it for free. I borrowed the original template from Ahrefs and tweaked it. And don't worry about being "too salesy." 🙄 If you provide zero value and just try to shove a product in people's faces... that's not content. It's just one giant ad. When you strike a balance of providing value and demonstrating how the product can be a helpful solution - it's magical. ✨ Link in the comments to an example of great product led content that you can study. #Marketing #ContentStrategy 🚀
Absolutely 💯 💯 💯 And while we're at it, let's also abandon the industry-wide accepted lie that "people don't read, they skim" People skim cause most blog posts are overly optimized and dragged out writing meant to rank (instead of being written to inform in an intriguing/interesting way). Instead of diving into the 3000-year history of your topic, just jump straight into it. People skim because they have to skip over a ton of info they weren't looking for, not because they don't read. But instead of looking at our content and going "hmmmm, maybe we should drop the fluff and make it better," we go "oh yeah, people just don't read, they skim."
Jana Lass
1y
Agree that it is no longer adequate to do the bare minimum. But I will say the way the information is presented here while it doesn't explicitly say TOFU/MOFU/BOFU or ADIA, it aligns in a very similar way. Your score of 1 = types of content that would generally be classified or considered awareness or TOFU level content. Looks like a good classification and prioritization method though. I think most of the issue comes when the classification method becomes the strategy instead of following it through to actually answer specific questions or needs a person has as shown in the examples. Value/Benefit mapping is a must.
Carlais P.
1y
Any suggestions for courses on product-led content frameworks?
Sweta Govani
1y
SparkToro team does awesome content balancing value + solution. While I like and agree with this approach, I'd argue there are two prerequisites - (1) building a product that is actually a helpful solution (not always in marketing control) + (2) understanding the problem and positioning the product as the solution to it (great place for marketers to start).
Randy Byrne
1y
I am struggling with this a bit, Gaetano. Are you saying this specific to SaaS software marketing (as the “product”) or are you aiming this post for virtually all types of physical products as well?
I find a lot of value in thinking about content through a JTBD lens. Your example also seems to be based on jobs, and not demographics or psychographics that a lot of user personas are afflicted with.
Exactly. The buyers journey was never linear to begin with but let's still plan out a TOFU > MOFU > BOFU funnel content strategy and assume prospects will follow that happy journey.
Devin Reed
1y
Every time I share my content strategy slides internally I preface with “just so we’re clear, I understand this funnel does not actually exist.”
Growth Advisor 🚀
1yExample of product led content: https://www.aura.com/learn/how-to-protect-your-child-from-identity-theft