Ever feel like content that used to produce reliable results no longer drives the same traction? The B2B content marketing funnel has evolved faster than most companies can adapt, leading many to miss out on leads and deals they would have landed with ease just a few years back.
Today, just 3% of content marketers say their strategy is highly effective - and this article will help you join them. We examine how AI is really changing the content marketing landscape and provide a clear overview of each stage of the funnel in 2025.
Expect to learn:
The concept of a content marketing funnel is simple: B2B buyers follow a reliable pattern of behavior when searching for a solution – and the funnel helps you map content to each “phase” of that journey.
This is generally broken down into three phases:
But this has been shaken up in recent years, not least by research from Gartner that revealed how most buyers follow a very non-linear process – often moving backward in the traditional funnel multiple times. That revelation precipitated a larger shift in the content marketing landscape in the last few years.
From the deluge of AI-generated content to the ever-growing number of marketing channels, buyers looking for a new vendor face a far more chaotic and confusing landscape – and that has produced a few very visible effects:
Buyers are becoming increasingly skeptical of what they read. Many now wonder, “Did a human even write this?” This creates a signaling problem: you don’t want buyers to think you care so little about their time and attention that you just let ChatGPT whip up the content you’re feeding them. So, while automation tools and AI can streamline content production, over-reliance on them risks alienating prospects and damaging brand credibility.
Most buyers are overwhelmed by the content they actually want to consume – let alone the stuff they have to read for work. An endless stream of B2B blogs, social media “thought leaders,” automated emails and heavily advertised industry reports leaves them exhausted – and far less likely to take action after scanning your content.
Put simply, buyers either crave something novel and exciting, or they just want companies to make their lives easier. This saturation has shifted the focus from volume to clarity and impact.
Buyers today have more options—and distractions—than ever before. Whereas, historically, it would take a big push to find and connect with an alternative vendor, buyers can almost instantly source new solutions. That increased “buyer empowerment” has made buyers’ attention harder to hold and brand differentiation more important than ever.
A recent poll illustrated the net impact of these changes perfectly. The top two challenges B2B content marketers reported facing were:
Equally, respondents claimed that what held back their content marketing strategy was a “Lack of clear goals” (42%) and that content was not “Tied to the customer journey” (39%). All of this suggests that traditional approaches to content marketing fail not because marketers can’t produce quality content – but because their strategy is not properly mapped to the modern content marketing funnel.
The content marketing funnel breaks down into three stages:
Top of the Funnel (TOFU) content is designed to generate awareness and interest. In recent years, B2B companies have often focused on inbound strategies that help buyers understand their problems rather than directly selling services.
The thinking is simple: if you can win buyers’ attention and trust early in their research process, your company becomes the no-brainer option when it’s time to make a purchase. But the way buyers approach this initial research phase is evolving – and content marketers must adapt.
Most of the same content channels are relevant:
However, the way you approach each must change to meet buyers’ new needs. A simple example is gated content: buyers are often too overwhelmed to be enticed by a 30-page whitepaper. This kind of detailed content is now better suited to later in the buyer's journey when they can afford to invest more time and attention. But early in the process, a checklist that helps buyers quickly understand a specific challenge and offer actionable steps to solve it? That is far more appealing.
Similarly, content SEO is still a core facet of B2B TOFU marketing. The difference is that many keywords are flooded with AI-generated content, and a “spray and pray” approach will no longer suffice. Be strategic and invest more time in keyword research and prioritization. The goal is to use tactical terms that offer the right mix of volume, competition, relevancy, and attainability so your content marketing budget goes further.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) content nurtures leads while they consider different solutions and vendors. The goal is to balance the buyer’s needs with a push to promote your company and move toward a deal, which makes MOFU marketing a fine art.
B2B companies tend to focus on content that shows how their product or service solves the buyer’s problem – most often through case studies, whitepapers or comparison guides. The problem is that buyers can increasingly make these comparisons elsewhere. ChatGPT can make product suggestions based on available content, social media makes it easier than ever to get trusted recommendations, and most buyers trust third-party sources far more than vendors to offer an impartial evaluation of the market.
The solution is to focus more on value in your MOFU content – and create assets that deliver insight buyers can’t get anywhere else. Here are a few examples we’ve used to help our clients improve their MOFU performance:
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) content aims to convert buyers into paying customers. This is the least “content-heavy” stage of the funnel, as buyers are more likely to be directly engaged with a salesperson and less easily swayed by reading a case study. But there are a few key steps every business should follow in 2025:
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