Breaking down the new Community FUNnel: Top of Funnel - The Show
All marketers know and worship the top of the funnel. While the bottom is where the conversion happens, the top is the kindling that fuels the fire.
Affectionately known as ToFu, Top of Funnel awareness brings in new prospects to your world. You capture their attention. You condition the market for your solution. You show how others have succeeded with your offerings. You offer lead magnets, you scan badges at trade shows, you buy lists, you co-market with partners, anything to get you in front of new logos. But what if those new logos were actually finding you through sources they already know, like, and trust? Sources like their peers or experts in their industry that they look up to? And what if they were sharing you with others even before they did business with you?
Enter: The Show.
Entertaining, informative, consumable, shareable.
Your show needs to be highly functioning, but it need not be highly produced to succeed. According to Acumen Research and Consulting, the podcast market is expected to grow by 31.2% over the next 9 years and in November 2022, Buzzsprout released new metrics that the format grew by 8% in the last year alone. Meanwhile, YouTube still boasts over two billion monthly logged-in users and a daily watch rate of over a billion hours… yes, each DAY! And TikTok accounts like the Savannah Bananas have more than 3 million followers with posts getting multiple hundreds of thousands of views - one even has over 91 million views... Yes - 91 MILLION!! That can't be real, can it?? ??
If your audience or your vibe is more of a written content one, aim for a regular contributor role in a relevant industry magazine or well-circulated email publication. Make sure your content is written by an actual human (not AI-generated content) and is bylined so your audience can connect with a person as they read it.
Take short-form snippets of this show and push widely on social media channels so your community members have access to snackable, shareable content that they can share with their networks.
The Show section of the Community Funnel is the entry point to your community. It should be positive, uplifting, offer the hope of a better tomorrow, take your community on a little adventure, help them feel seen and accepted through the content you’re sharing, give them a way to be active with the content (i.e. sharing it, commenting on it, or otherwise engaging with it), and motivate them to want to learn more.
Key: It should feature the people in your community (customers, prospects, employees, experts). This is the window into your world.
A few of my favorite top of funnel Shows include:
For our communities like Team CMO, we have launched The CMO Show with Kate Gunning as our top of funnel show to begin driving people toward our deeper levels of engagement.
For another client, believe it or not, we're even exploring an *actual* reality show!
For me, personally, I view my articles here on LinkedIn as my "show" (should I embrace the LinkedIn newsletter format??). I also have a TikTok channel for B2B Event Marketers where I share marketing education for event professionals (@b2beventmarketer) that drives my professional development training offerings.
Your homework
Take a look at the content you create and how you're using it. From a community funnel perspective, what is your show and who are you bringing in to be on it? Is your Instagram account your "Show"? Does your founder have a podcast and does the content (or the guests) drive interest in your company's community? Do you have a TikTok channel that grabs eyeballs and interest?
Next up: Highlighting The Site , and how each of these examples pulls their community deeper into their funnel through their show.?
Here is the full series of articles:
Liz Lathan, CMP, is co-founder of?The Community Factory , helping brands grow and engage their communities of customers, prospects, and team members. Through a Community Design Strategy session, we help companies develop Community Enablement Programs and offer Community as a Service (CaaS) solutions that fit their needs. Contact Liz at [email protected]