Where in the funnel does relational content fit?
So, those of you following along will recall that I recently shifted this newsletter to focus on a flavor of marketing that I call relational content. This approach frames and organizes roughly the same information that would be in traditional marketing content into more in-depth, interconnected resources that drive engagement and sharing. But if I’m going to advocate for a substantial change like this, I think the obvious question is: How should this fit into the rest of the marketing that a company does? That’s what I want to address this week.
Note that I’ve created my own relational content resource - A Marketer's Guide to Relational Content - where I’ve been collecting all these ideas. But what I’m writing about this week is still not fully baked, so I haven’t added it yet. When I do add it, I’ll announce it in an upcoming post.
My current thinking is that relational content should complement a company’s blog or newsletter rather than replace it. Each one serves a slightly different purpose, and you need both.
To understand why, let’s return to the mental model of the marketing funnel, or rather the non-funnel that I wrote about a few weeks ago (before the name change). In this model, rather than following a series of carefully orchestrated CTAs, a prospective customer bounces around, interacting with different pieces of content until they build a sense of trust with the company.
The goal of relational content is to give them that place to bounce around. If you let them go back to Google the next time they’re looking for more information, you may never see them again. Relational content gives them a trusted source of information that they’ll come back to instead of trying their luck with Google.
But you still need to get readers to the relational content in the first place. And for that, you need transactional content. Social posts with controversial hooks and SEO-optimized blog posts on timely or highly specific topics get people’s attention. But they don’t make for good relational content.
The problem with transactional content on its own is that the reader may not be ready for a lower-funnel CTA. If it’s the first time they encounter your content, they may not be ready to book a demo, or even go to a product page. So if you can point them to a relevant page in a relational resource, that’s a much easier click. Then in the relational content, you make sure that those lower funnel CTAs are easy to find when they’re finally ready.
In other words, relational content isn’t meant to replace transactional content. Instead, it acts as a layer between top-of-funnel, attention-getting transactional content and the lower-funnel CTAs that turn readers into customers. It’s a buffer to keep them connected to the funnel until they’re ready for the next step.
Of course, creating the relational buffer requires thoughtful strategy and a bit more planning. But in return you get much more value from investment in content you’re already making. And as the battle for attention gets more intense, I believe this is the only way B2B SaaS companies will rise above the flood of AI generated noise.
Thanks for reading the Relational Content newsletter! I help B2B SaaS companies adopt relational content strategies to maximize the ROI from their marketing. To see what this might look like for you, check out merelogic.net.