The Content Marketing Funnel: Which Content to Create at Awareness, Consideration and Decision

Scroll through most business accounts in Beirut or Dubai and you see the same post on repeat: here is the product, here is the offer, send us a message. That is decision-stage content aimed at people who have not reached the decision stage, which is why it gets ignored. The content marketing funnel exists to fix exactly this: match what you publish to what your audience is thinking right now.

Key takeaways

• Content marketing is creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent content to attract and retain a defined audience. The principle is give before you ask.
• Content writing builds trust and copywriting converts. You need both, at different points in the funnel.
• Awareness content answers "I have a problem", consideration content answers "what are my options", decision content answers "I am ready, reassure me".
• Most brands over-produce decision content and under-produce awareness content. A ten-minute audit by stage shows the gap.

What content marketing is, and why it pays off over time

Content marketing is creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and ultimately to drive profitable customer action. The key principle is give before you ask: provide value through education, entertainment or solutions, and trust builds over time.

We teach it as a long-term asset for five reasons:

• It builds trust and credibility. When you consistently provide value, your audience sees you as the expert.
• It drives organic traffic. Quality content ranks on search engines and gets shared on social media.
• It supports SEO. Search engines reward websites that regularly publish valuable content.
• It nurtures leads. Content moves people from awareness to decision.
• It costs less over time. Ads stop working when you stop paying; content keeps delivering.

Content writing vs copywriting

Content writing educates, informs and entertains to build trust; copywriting persuades and sells to drive immediate action. The two are often confused, and the confusion is what produces a feed full of sales pitches.

Content writing lives in blog posts, articles, guides, tutorials and social media posts. Its tone is informative, helpful and conversational. Copywriting lives in ads, landing pages, sales emails, calls to action and product descriptions. Its tone is persuasive, urgent and action-oriented.

Both are essential. Content writing attracts and nurtures the audience, copywriting converts them into customers, and a good marketer knows which one a given piece needs. For a longer comparison, see copywriting vs content writing.

The eight content types and what each is best for

The best format depends on your audience, your platform and your goal, and the eight formats we teach each have a job they do better than the rest:

Content type	What it is	Best for
Blog posts	Long-form written content on your website	SEO, thought leadership, evergreen content
Videos	Short-form (Reels, TikTok) or long-form (YouTube)	Engagement, storytelling, tutorials
Carousels	Multi-slide swipeable posts	Educational content, step-by-step guides, tips
Infographics	Visual representation of data or processes	Complex information, statistics, comparisons
Podcasts	Audio interviews and discussions	Thought leadership, deep dives, on-the-go listening
Case studies	In-depth analysis of results achieved	B2B, credibility, proof of results
Ebooks and guides	Downloadable long-form content	Lead generation, establishing authority
User-generated content	Content your customers create	Social proof, community, authenticity

Notice that the formats at the top of the table reach new people, and the formats at the bottom convince people who are already paying attention. That is the funnel showing through.

The three funnel stages, and what to create at each

Different content serves different purposes depending on where the reader is in their journey, and the stage is defined by what they are thinking, not by what you want to sell them.

Stage	Audience mindset	Content types
Awareness (top)	"I have a problem" or "I want to learn something"	Blog posts, social media, videos, infographics, podcasts
Consideration (middle)	"What are my options?" or "How do I compare solutions?"	Guides, webinars, case studies, comparison content, email sequences
Decision (bottom)	"I am ready to buy" or "I need final reassurance"	Testimonials, demos, free trials, consultations, detailed product information

Awareness: earn attention by being useful

At the top of the funnel the reader does not know you and is not shopping. They have a problem or a curiosity. A skincare brand in Beirut wins here with a Reel on why sunscreen matters in a Mediterranean summer, a carousel on reading an ingredient label, or a blog post on building a simple routine. None of it mentions the product. The job is to be the account they remember when they do start shopping.

Consideration: help them compare

In the middle, the reader knows they need something and is weighing options. Now the content gets specific: a guide to choosing between a serum and a moisturiser, a comparison of ingredients, a case study of a customer's results over eight weeks, or an email sequence that walks through the questions people ask before buying. This is where content writing starts handing over to copywriting.

Decision: remove the last doubt

At the bottom, the reader is ready and wants reassurance. Testimonials, before-and-after results, a demo, a free sample or consultation, and detailed product information including price, shipping and returns. This is the content most brands already have plenty of. It works, but only on the small share of the audience that has reached this stage.

How to audit your own content by stage

Pull up your last thirty posts and sort them into the three stages. Most brands find the split is lopsided towards decision. Here is the process we run in class:

1. List your last thirty posts, emails or articles in a spreadsheet.
2. Next to each, write the mindset it speaks to: problem, options or ready to buy.
3. Count the three columns.
4. Compare the split to the size of each audience. The people with a problem vastly outnumber the people ready to buy, so awareness should be the largest column.
5. Fill the thinnest stage first. If you have no consideration content, one comparison guide and one case study change the shape of the funnel more than ten more product posts.
6. Check the format matches the stage. A testimonial as a Reel is fine; a product spec sheet as your only awareness content is not.

A gym in Dubai that only posts membership offers is talking to the ready-to-buy slice all year. Add training tips for people who have never joined a gym and a guide comparing class types, and the funnel finally has a top.

Where this is taught

The funnel, the content types and the audit sit in week 5 of the Professional Digital Marketing Associate Diploma, where students map their own content by stage and then build the strategy, pillars and content mix that fill the gaps.

Frequently asked questions

How much content should go at each stage? There is no fixed ratio, but awareness should be the largest share because that audience is the largest, and decision the smallest. Our related guidance is that at least 80 percent of content should provide value and only around 20 percent should be promotional.

Is a blog post always awareness content? No. The format does not decide the stage, the reader's mindset does. A blog post titled "how to start a skincare routine" is awareness; one titled "serum vs moisturiser: which do you need" is consideration.

Can one piece of content serve two stages? Yes, and the best ones do. A case study that opens by explaining the problem serves awareness readers before it serves consideration readers. Just make sure the first lines match the stage you are targeting.

Where does copywriting fit in the funnel? Mostly at the bottom. Consideration and decision content lean on copywriting for the landing page, the email call to action and the product page. Awareness content is almost entirely content writing.