How Strategic Content Guides the Customer Journey — From Leads to Advocates
Published by Incomedia in Guides and Tips · Tuesday 10 Jun 2025 · 17:30
Content marketing — when it's strategically integrated into the sales funnel — offers exceptional benefits. It can help build brand awareness. It can elevate product understanding. And it can even play a role in converting new customers.
However, the tricky thing about developing a strategic content marketing plan is that the sales funnel isn't what it used to be.
Today's consumers don't follow a tidy funnel anymore. Instead, they do in-depth research, bounce between tabs, and form brand and product impressions before ever talking to sales teams.
With this in mind, the role of content marketing in the sales cycle is to guide consumers from curiosity to conversion.
This article maps out the modern buyer's journey and shows you how to create content for each of the five stages of the funnel. Along the way, we'll reference several examples from brands getting it right, including two posts from Capital Pad that will help you understand how thoughtful content can drive engagement without relying on aggressive selling tactics.
Let's get into it.
Phase 1: Early Awareness
The first step toward converting new customers is creating product and brand awareness.
During this stage, your goal isn't just to position your solutions as the answer to your target audience's pain points.
Much more importantly, it's to attract potential prospects, spark their curiosity, and plant a seed that will grow into a genuine willingness to invest in your products.
Unfortunately, most content marketing strategies miss the mark when producing early awareness-stage content.
The thing about these resources is that they need to be fully customer-centric. It's the only way to help potential buyers recognize themselves (and their pain points) in your content. Otherwise, you won't have much luck grabbing their attention. And you'll have an even harder time guiding them through the customer journey.
The great news is that there are multiple fresh and effective content types you can produce to nail that initial brand interaction.
Problem Framing Blog Posts
One of the easiest ways to attract awareness-stage consumers to your website is to produce blog content that discusses their pain points in a relevant and unique way.
Identifying and contextualizing your target audience's pain points is more than just a great way to attract high-quality, organic traffic to your site.
It's also a marvelous opportunity to position your brand as a knowledgeable source of information and guidance through the buyer's journey.
For instance, check out how Anytime Fitness does it with its Body Recomposition Guide. This resource is an excellent introduction to building muscle, losing fat, and achieving sustainable fitness results. It spells out the necessary phases of the process. Furthermore, it naturally mentions the importance of a personalized fitness regime, which is a service that Anytime Fitness provides through its Personal Training service.
Industry Op-Eds
Great awareness-stage content shouldn't focus solely on selling.
Instead, its primary preoccupation needs to be sparking curiosity about your brand and solution and building credibility in a way that will position your organization as the right entity to remove your target audience's pain points.
Industry op-eds that rely on your expertise are one of the best content formats to help you achieve these goals.
They're almost always centered around a pain point your prospects are familiar with. They elevate brand trust through thought leadership. They benefit readers by providing them with solutions without requiring them to spend their hard-earned money. And, most importantly, they introduce prospects to your products without feeling conversion-oriented.
Bubble's Why AI App Building Needs More Than Just Good Intentions is an excellent example of what this type of resource should look like. It's an in-depth exploration of a prevalent industry trend. What's great about it is that it doesn't just frame a problem. It explores potential solutions, predicts possible obstacles, and gently guides readers toward resolving their pain points without sales pressure while still building brand and product awareness for Bubble's newly released AI features.
Value-Driven Social Media Content
Another exceptional way to attract your target audience into the sales cycle and gently guide them toward becoming leads (and customers) is to meet them where they spend a good chunk of their online time — on social media.
By creating social media content that presents your prospects with hyper-relevant value — like the carousel from Remote below — you can grab their attention and build brand and product awareness in a way that can easily grow into purchase intent.
Whether you do this with threads, carousels, infographics, Reels, or ephemeral formats is up to you.
Take the time to find the format that works best for you. Then, use it to educate followers, share new ideas, introduce products and features, and gently guide prospects toward the lower stages of the sales funnel.
Guest Articles, Founder Video Interviews, and Other Expert Content Formats
When faced with unfamiliar concepts, most consumers rely on social proof and expert guidance — especially during the early and mid stages of the buyer's journey.
So, if you want to draw them into the sales cycle by building brand and product awareness, the best thing you can do is rely on your expertise.
Content formats that allow you to share your unique insights and present readers/viewers with valuable advice are a marvelous opportunity for doing this.
For instance, the interview with CapitalPad's founder on the WithVincent blog is a great example of early awareness-stage content. The video presents a specific audience with a niche solution. But it doesn't aim to sell. Instead, its primary focus is to deliver educational value. It shares the founder's experience with tackling the pain points the intended viewership is struggling with.
Conference talks and recorded panels can be equally effective — particularly because they provide a more formal setting for establishing expertise and positioning you as an industry leader.
Alternatively, you could also invest in whitepapers that address and target industry trends and market gaps, which can help you establish credibility, all the while building brand and product awareness among business or expert leads.
Phase 2: Active Research
Once you've captured your target audience's attention, it's time to transform their curiosity into product understanding.
During the active research phase of the customer journey, your primary goal is to show the unmatched value you bring to the table.
With this in mind, the content you use during this phase needs to be focused on describing and explaining your products in a way that generates familiarity and elevates purchase intent.
Again, multiple formats can allow you to achieve these goals. The best ones will depend on the solutions you sell, your target audience's preferences, online behavior, level of expertise, etc.
Product-Focused Content
While populating the active research phase of the sales funnel, your prospects need specific details on what your solutions do and how they work. And there are a few simple yet effective ways to provide them with the info they need.
Dedicated landing pages that describe your services, solutions, or product features — like the Grammar page on the Wordtune website — are an excellent opportunity to increase product understanding.
You'll notice that this particular resource features a combination of written content and visual aids. On the one hand, this approach allows the business to use effective copywriting techniques to boost content understanding. On the other hand, it makes it easy to incorporate visuals, which play a big role in enhancing content comprehension.
Alternatively, you could achieve the same effect with blog posts that familiarize prospects with your solutions.
In some cases, that can mean producing standard "How it works" guides. Or, if you want to take things a step further, you could invest in detailed step-by-step instructional resources, complete with in-app screenshots and GIFs, like the Create a Subpage article from Notion.
Explainer Videos and Interactive Product Demos
Consumers hugely prefer video content over their text-based alternatives — especially when researching and learning about products.
So, it's no surprise that investing in explainer videos and distributing them throughout your website and social media channels represents one of the most effective ways to guide your prospects through the customer journey.
How you conceptualize and distribute explainer videos is entirely up to you. Of course, you'll want to ensure that the content aligns with your target audience's preferences and online behaviors.
For example, take inspiration from Oval. This brand understands that its potential customers need a quick introduction to why the Oval smart home product deserves attention. So, it created a resource that perfectly sums up the product's value in a simple 45-second YouTube video that can be embedded on any page.
Or, if you want to do everything in your power to familiarize your ideal customers with your solutions and guide them through the buyer's journey, consider investing in interactive formats. These are worth your while when aiming to boost conversions because they offer two distinct benefits.
For one, they are exceptionally engaging, outperforming static content by as much as 52%.
Secondly, they serve as a wonderful taster of your products' capabilities, setting and managing customer expectations, which is especially important for ensuring customer satisfaction during the post-purchase phase of the sales cycle.
For example, product tours and demos — like the one from Hemingway Editor — can offer marvelous opportunities to introduce your audience to your solutions in a way that enhances product understanding and purchase intent.
Phase 3: Evaluation and Comparison
Product understanding is not the end of the customer journey.
Yes, it's crucial for inspiring people to buy your products or services. Nevertheless, you can safely expect your target audience to do more research before committing to a purchase.
Over the past few years, the product evaluation and comparison stage has become longer than ever.
Nowadays, almost all consumers consult social proof before investing in a solution. Apparently, 29% consult price comparison websites to collect pre-purchase information. And 81% of people conduct online research before deciding what products to purchase.
What this data reveals is that, while guiding prospects through the customer journey, you need to:
- earn their trust
- remove their risk-based conversion obstacles
- differentiate your solutions from your competitors' alternatives
Here are the best content marketing formats to help you reach these goals.
Case Studies, Social Proof, and Third-Party Certificates
Any content format that presents potential customers with proof of your brand's expertise and your solution's effectiveness will be helpful when trying to encourage conversions.
And the type of social proof you utilize will hugely depend on your product and audience.
For standard retail, simple reviews and ratings are more than enough.
When aiming to wow more discerning buyers — experts, B2B customers, or when selling high-cost products — you'll need something a bit more convincing.
In these cases, look for a higher level of authenticity and personalization from your social proof.
Case studies that include real-life data and accessible visual representations — like the Capital Pad Historical Search Fund Returns resource — are excellent examples of high-value social proof.
Alternatively, you could spotlight your existing customers, whether through video testimonials, UGC, or customer stories blog content, which is what Olvy does with the Customers section of its website.
Finally, don't forget that social proof and trust signals become far more convincing when they come from sources your prospects already perceive as credible.
Highlighting third-party certificates, awards, and media mentions makes for an effective way to use positive brand and product feedback to elevate trust and guide your prospects closer to the bottom stages of the sales funnel, where they'll feel comfortable deciding to convert.
Evaluation and Comparison Resources
Generally, your primary goal during the evaluation stage of the customer journey should be to convince consumers to convert. However, converting customers at any cost won't necessarily benefit your business.
If you convince people to invest in your solutions without first helping them understand what those solutions can and can't do, you're setting them up with a poor customer experience.
That's why you absolutely must produce high-quality, objective comparison resources that will allow shoppers to choose the right solutions for their needs.
This can be as simple as enriching your Pricing pages with information about the features each of your product tiers includes — which is what Memtime does below.
Or, if your primary goal includes differentiating your solutions from those sold by your competitors, you could take inspiration from Rocketlane and its Rocketlane vs GUIDEcx landing page that summarizes the key differences between the two software options and shows why the former could be a better fit for the brand's target audience.
Phase 4: Conversion
You've almost done it.
You've engaged your target audience, stood out as the best option for your customers' needs, and positioned your products as unique choices in your market.
Now, all that's left to do is remove any conversion obstacles and close the deal.
The best way to use content to guide your prospects through the funnel will be to look at ways to minimize friction.
What sorts of resources can you produce to aid leads during the final steps of their buying journey? There are lots of content formats that can work. Here are some of the most effective types to consider adding to your content strategy.
Onboarding Resources
Knowing that consumers love to know what to expect post-purchase, your onboarding processes should start as early as possible.
When trying to guide purchase-stage consumers over their last hurdle toward conversion, think of the types of content that could help communicate your dedication to delivering a stellar CX.
Investing in onboarding resources that maximize overall customer satisfaction is a wonderful way to guide your future customers toward a more satisfactory brand and product experience, as well as to remove their final conversion obstacles.
For example, check out how Basecamp does it. Every free trial sign-up triggers an automated welcome email series that includes guides and resources meant to ease the onboarding process. The fact that these include simple but effective tips for getting the most out of the software allows users to integrate it into their workflows more quickly. Moreover, it maximizes their chances of turning into paid customers down the road.
Freebies, Consultations, and Personalized Pitches
Another excellent method to nudge prospects closer to becoming paying customers is to provide them with relevant resources free of charge.
Freebie downloads, consultations, personalized demos, or video pitches are all great content formats for guiding prospects through the customer journey.
For one, they deliver a level of personalization that today's consumers expect as part of a stellar customer experience (yet rarely receive). Secondly, they demonstrate your brand's willingness to prioritize customer needs over profits, which is a marvelous method of reducing perceived risk and overcoming one of the biggest conversion obstacles.
Clay's Get a Demo page is a great example of what this can look like. But, of course, you can use any other content format that works for you — whether that's a downloadable ebook, a chat flow with embedded content, or an interactive setup checklist that guides new clients through the process of getting the most out of your solutions.
Urgency Content
Lastly, if you want to encourage conversion-stage consumers to turn into loyal customers of your business, it's not a bad idea to give them a bit of a nudge with urgency-based content.
Because this type of messaging is exceptionally effective at inspiring consumer action, it can be a great addition to your content strategy when aiming to guide prospects through the sales funnel.
Don't put unnecessary pressure on your potential clients — as that can often backfire by harming brand trust. But do explore ways to give a small push every once in a while to encourage people to convert sooner rather than later.
Skillshare does it perfectly with its Final Chance emails, which remind prospects that they can access a 30-day free trial but only if they act immediately.
Phase 5: Loyalty — "I've Signed Up. Now Make Me Stay (and Tell Others)"
You've converted your clients and provided them with the solution they needed. Now, it's time to get them to remain loyal brand customers.
In truth, this is one of the most important stages of the sales cycle. Yet, it's the one most brands ignore.
But the thing is, investing in customer loyalty is one of the best things you can do for the financial well-being of your organization. Retaining existing clients is much cheaper than converting new ones. Loyal customers spend significantly more than first-time buyers. And people who feel connected to brands are much more likely to recommend those brands to their peers, which gives you access to free (and impactful) social proof.
With this in mind, your loyalty-stage content needs to do three things:
- build and nurture long-term relationships with your customers
- continually engage clients to maximize their CLV
- create opportunities for turning users into advocates
Regular Newsletters to Maintain Engagement Rates
The easiest method to employ content to elevate retention is to develop a loyalty-focused email marketing strategy.
By sending your users updates, tips, entertaining content, or engaging op-ed pieces, you can keep pulling them back to your brand and turn interactions into a routine.
Grammarly's Weekly Writing Update emails are one of the best examples of what this type of content can look like. In addition to rewarding app usage, these emails also gamify the process of interacting with the brand's solution, turning (relatively) irrelevant data into an engaging piece of content that generates excitement around the idea of brand loyalty.
You can do something similar with update and release notes, which will call users' attention to the new ways they can interact with your products.
Or, you might even present loyal customers with access to deals, content, or products, which can transform simple brand interactions into the pillars of long-term loyalty.
Gallup does this beautifully by inviting newsletter subscribers to join exclusive webinars and download new research reports, all of which deliver continuous value to prospects and make them more likely to rely on the brand for insights into the global work marketplace.
Customer-Centric Content
Another excellent method to make your clients feel more connected to your brand is to spotlight them with your content.
Whether you do this in your email newsletters or on your social media feed — like Royal Ballet and Opera in the example below — is entirely up to you.
But you can rest assured that it will make your customers feel appreciated and create a setting in which more customers will want to feel special, too. This will help boost their engagement rates and produce free social proof content you can use throughout your marketing strategies.
Final Thoughts: Don't Just Create Content, Design a Journey
The types of content mentioned in this guide merely scratch the surface when it comes to what types of resources you can produce. But the truth is, there's no single answer to what formats you must incorporate into your content strategy.
Instead, think of content marketing this way: it should act as a logical and enjoyable step on the journey from awareness to conversion to loyalty. During this journey, every piece needs to play a role in nudging the reader forward.
So, to get the best ROI from your content, map out your prospects' customer journey. Create valuable resources for each phase, prioritizing alignment with user intent. And always prioritize educational value, trust-building potential, and helpfulness when producing resources. If they're there to fill space, they won't benefit your audience or your brand. You'll just waste precious time and money on something that doesn't serve you in any way.