The Funnel Content Framework
How I plan marketing for every client. Most marketing asks strangers to buy before they know you exist. This gives every post a job, an audience and a place in the funnel first.
- Outcome
- More office accounts on the North Shore
- ICP (who it's for)
- Office managers ordering coffee for teams of 10 to 50
- Top pains
- "The coffee's gone by 10am." "Our vendor raised prices again."
- Pillars (recurring topics)
- LinkedIn: The 9am Office, Roast Day, Office Perks, The Empty PotInstagram: Roast DayEmail: Office Perks, The Empty Pot
- Cadence
- 3 posts a week, approvals every Thursday
- Scoreboard
- Sample-box requests, reviewed every Monday
- Not doing
- TikTok, until LinkedIn is working
What you walk away with
A strategy report that opens with a one-page plan: who the marketing is for, what to post, who posts it and how you'll know it's working. Anyone on your team, or any agency, can run it.
Three stages, one job each
Content that tries to do two jobs at once usually does neither. Each stage gets its own kind of post, its own ask and its own number to judge it by.
The ten steps
In order. Each step's output feeds the next, so if one feels hard, the one before it usually isn't finished.
- 1
Ideal customer profile (the one kind of customer the plan is for)
Who exactly is this for? Only one.
Done when: You can name ten real people who fit.
- 2
Pain points (what's bugging them, in their own words)
What hurts, in their words, at each stage?
Done when: A ranked list sorted into the three stages.
- 3
Funnel stages (what each stage of the funnel is for)
What's each stage's job, ask and metric?
Done when: A health check run and the gap found.
- 4
Pillars per channel (the three to five topics you post about every week)
Which recurring themes carry those pains?
Done when: Three to five pillars per channel, named for themes.
- 5
Content matrix (a grid of post ideas for every stage)
Is every stage fed every week?
Done when: No empty column, paths linked.
- 6
Piece anatomy (every post as hook, body and the ask)
Does every piece have one hook, one body, one CTA?
Done when: The CTA matches the stage.
- 7
Variation bank (lots of openings to test against each other)
Are there enough parts to test?
Done when: Ten hooks, three bodies, two or three CTAs per pillar.
- 8
Cadence and owners (who posts what, how often, and who approves it)
Who ships what, how often, approved by whom?
Done when: Something you can sustain for eight weeks.
- 9
Test and measure (a weekly look at what worked)
Which stage is leaking, and what do winners share?
Done when: A weekly review, logged.
- 10
Defend the plan (a reason behind every piece of work)
Can every piece say who, where, which pillar, which pain and which metric?
Done when: A one-page plan with a reason behind every piece.
Try the health check
Count what you posted in the last 30 days by what each post asked people to do. Change the numbers.
Mostly BOFU: you're asking strangers to buy
Expect low conversion no matter how good the offer is. Build the top and the middle first: posts that earn attention, then posts that show how you work.
Six things I never do
The rules that keep the plan honest.
- Talk to several kinds of customer in one post
- Ask cold audiences to buy before they know you
- Lean on a discount when nobody feels the problem yet
- Invent a number, a quote or a deadline
- Change more than one thing per test
- Add work that can't say who it's for and what it should move