The content funnel is evolving...

How do you build trust in a trust recession? According to a recent study by The General Social Survey, we are at the lowest point of person-to-person trust in the last 40 years. 

Ravi Abuvala has cracked the code by pairing this information with the 7-11-4 Rule, and in turn, broke the one-way sales funnel and turned YouTube into his entire marketing department. 

How did he do it? And why does it matter? 

Hey, Paige here! Back with another creator deep dive.

The content funnel is changing, but how you build conversion-boosting trust can still be traced to the same foundation: Exposure.

In short, the more exposure you have, the higher the likelihood of building trust, the more conversions you get. And the higher the price of your solution, the more exposure you need. 

Like many others, Ravi once put his free content behind opt-in walls. But as trust continued its plummet, so did conversions. 

Following the 7-11-4 Rule, the average viewer must be exposed to 7 hours of content across 11 different touchpoints in 4 locations — a spread you’ll never get from content behind opt-in walls. 

Ravi used this information to make a big shift. He moved all of his content to YouTube. But he isn’t optimizing for views… he’s optimizing to get the right people watching his content. 

You can no longer push people through a one-way sales funnel. You need a plethora of content that allows people to get to know you in a “choose your own journey” format. 

So what exactly does that mean? It’s time to break down some of those walls.

You need to have:

• Free, accessible content 

• A consistent, focused strategy

• A solid foundation of expertise-building educational content

• And occasional content that spotlights your true differentiator: your brand

This doesn’t mean you need to jump into YouTube or social posting with flashy video editing or insanely creative content. You simply have to share what you know in a clear, concise way. 

“If you can’t do something every day, don’t do it for one,” Ravi shared when talking about his content strategy. He found that his simplistic videos outperformed those that took deep post-production work.

Your ideal audience won’t be the people who need to see a million things in one video. They will be willing and ready to listen to a longer-form video that highlights your expertise.

Ravi leaves us with one more major piece of advice: make your content personal. One of his top-converting videos had nothing to do with what he sells. It dove into why he stopped drinking. 

When your audience is 6 hours into your content, they already have a solid understanding of your expertise. They are looking for something to connect with. Your differentiator is rooted in your unique experiences.

In your life, you can only truly become an expert in a handful of things, and those can’t be the foundation of your conversion — there are a ton of other people who have the same expertise. You have to pair your knowledge with personal experience and share it, even if the conversion attribution isn’t entirely clear at first.

So what does this mean for you?

As a business, you need to create accessible, consistent, free content that leans into education, not entertainment. Then occasionally pair it with sharing your personal and professional experiences to build trust.

Your audience doesn’t need another opt-in. They need a person to connect with and follow who can solve their problems and resonate with their experiences. 

The Takeaway: When you intentionally change your understanding of the content funnel, you can build trust with accessible, simplistic content that highlights your expertise and your true differentiator — your brand. 

That’s it, ya’ll. Happy creating!

Paige Peterson
Newsletter Aficionado, Sweet Fish