Your target customers face numerous challenges on an everyday basis. They have dreams and aspirations to fulfill too. We all do right?
As a business, you’re not just doing transactions you’re also building lasting relationships by providing products and services that are worthy of appreciation.
But these relationships must start germinating even before your prospects buy from you.
This is the stage when they are amidst their numerous daily challenges. They don’t know about their specific problem, let alone its solution or your business.
This stage is called the awareness stage and the marketing efforts that we do for this stage are called top of funnel marketing or TOFU content marketing.
At this point in time, your business has the opportunity to lend a helping hand and educate them. It is for you to play super-hero, identify the problem for them and provide content that educates them.
This is when you arrive in their life.
Companies like Hubspot, Buffer, and Co-schedule have educated their potential and existing customers relentlessly by designing the awesome top of funnel content. I’m a huge fan and a follower of all these B2B companies.
Top of funnel content is a healthy mix of education, hospitality, and entertainment.
In this stage, if you treat your audience as guests and give them respect, you will not just get noticed but also succeed in breaking the ice and starting the interaction process.
This is the reason it's a really important stage of the buyer's journey content marketing.
Hubspot and Wistia together created a resource for developing content for different stages of the buyer’s journey. In this ebook they have talked about 5 types of videos that you can use for the awareness stage:
These type of awareness stage content is created for educating your audience on the queries that they are searching for, online.
Let’s look at some of the common online searches:
“how to earn money online”
“how to create a blog”
“how to choose an electric guitar”
Depending on who your target audience is, they would be actively looking for answers to their questions. Take a look at this Hub video from Starbucks:
Hubs help you to cater to your audience requirements and make the discovery process faster. You can put these videos on your YouTube channel and your website.
It’s a simple strategy - look for audience queries online and create videos that make them go ‘OMG this was exactly what I was searching for’.
You can create Hub videos for a B2B as well as a B2C audience. The example shown above is a B2C one. Here is a good example of a B2B Hub video:
Did you distinctly hear the word ‘Snacks’? Yes, Snacks can be mouthwatering with or without beer, with or without your favorite movie.
Snack videos are short, tasty and delightfully entertaining. They do not answer active audience queries but you can still make them watchable and addictive.
So, here is the key difference between Hubs and Snacks - Hubs are videos that solve problems related to active searcher queries while Snacks educate them about stuff that they may not be searching online.
Make sure you keep putting these up on your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so your audience never stops nibbling. Take a look at this interesting example of an Animated B2B Snack video from Hubspot.
You can create Snack videos for a B2B business or a B2C business. The above example caters to a B2B audience. Let’s look at an interesting example of B2C Snack video.
These are videos that make your audience go - ‘Wow my Hero’. Well, I’m not kidding, these videos have that kind of viral effect, that emotional outburst, the crazy sharing on social media.
Remember how some of the native TV ads became really popular because they dealt strongly with a disturbing social problem.
Your brand becomes that Hero and becomes the center of attraction when you create a video like that. Here is an example from Starbucks:
No offense meant but you can create these type of educational videos only if you are a Guru of something.
These are authority videos and I would recommend it specifically for B2B businesses. You can create these videos after you have experience and expertise in your field.
You could also use your webinar series to create such educational videos which are in-depth and teach your audience a lot more than they could ever expect.
These videos may or may not be entertaining but should definitely be very professional. Here is an example of interesting Guru video:
Communication from B2C brands is more about emotions rather than authority. Hence, I don’t recommend these type of videos for B2C businesses.
Are you better at darts when you are drunk? Okay, drunk or not drunk, you better be good at darts. It’ll help you get more focused on creating awareness for your business.
With Dart videos, you’re supposed to consider the taste of a very specific audience. You need not preach with these videos. These videos poke your audience and have fun with them.
They tell them what your product stands for and how it would work. Just know who you are talking to and what they feel for, before asking them out:)
Dart videos are effective for both B2B as well as B2C businesses. Here is an interesting example of a B2B Dart video from Evernote
| Type | Description |
| Hubs | Videos that help the audience with active queries |
| Snacks | Videos that entertain and help the audience beyond specific queries |
| Heroes | Videos that spread mass awareness about a subject |
| Gurus | Videos that showcase your authority in a niche |
| Darts | Videos that educate on a specific topic to a specific audience |
‘Discovery’ - top of funnel marketing content is meant to help your audience find your business.
They help you to begin that first interaction. Craft these videos with your heart and soul and tell a story that etches a positive memory for your audience. The first impression, after all, is the final impression, remember.
Do share your comments and suggestions on creating top of funnel strategy or video content for the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.