---
type: "Know post"
title: "The Know - Trust - Love philosophy and content funnel"
docType: "Concept"
description: "The three reader states Know, Trust and Love, six shared rules, and the funnel that lines up every post on one straight path to the product."
resource: "https://cuongthach.com/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/introduction/"
markdown: "https://cuongthach.com/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/introduction/index.md"
tags:
  - "docs"
  - "en"
  - "content-system"
  - "Concept"
  - "Content funnel"
status: stable
generated:
  by: "process:cuongthach-okf-export"
  at: "2026-10-25T02:36:04Z"
---
# The Know - Trust - Love philosophy and content funnel

Know - Trust - Love is the base philosophy of how content is made here: each piece of content takes the reader to **exactly one of three states**, in the order know, trust, love.

The Know - Trust - Love content funnel is the method that applies it: it lines up every post on one straight path made of a Know post, a Trust post and a Love post, and the end of that path is the product that gets sold.

## The three states and the buyer's journey

![The three states of a reader: Know, Trust, Love](https://cuongthach.com/docs/_astro/illus-docs-chuoi-trang-thai.en.Bg2CWF4i_ZTKTiY.svg "Knowing is not enough, people still have doubts")

Know is discovery, Trust is action, Love is direction: at Love, the product appears as a lever to go faster and not give up halfway.

The three states join into one straight line, matching the three stages of the content funnel and of the sales page. The table is the definition you use to check a piece of content:

| State | What the content must do | Sign it worked | Matching stage |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Know | Name the reader's problem correctly | They recognize themselves in the post and read on | Know post |
| Trust | Give them one small job to make a result themselves | They follow along and hold a result | Trust post |
| Love | Lay out the whole road to solving the lasting pain | They look for your product | Love post |

### Why can't the journey be shortened?

Buyers pass through the three states over time, and in Cuong's experience **no state can be skipped**.

Two common approaches fail: handing a price list to someone who just met you, or cramming everything into one very long sales page because you don't know which state the buyer is in. Both try to convert the buyer in one or two steps, and the buyer does not buy.

Every time a reader meets you is a **touchpoint**. The table follows an example Cuong tells in his recordings, like rain that soaks in slowly:

| Touchpoint | They move to | How long the sales page must be |
| --- | --- | --- |
| First meeting, price list right away | Does not know you | No page is long enough |
| Repeated meetings, each time seeing that you have a product | Know | Not buying yet, needs more proof |
| Seeing a proof, seeing others use the product with good results, or trying it themselves | Trust | A short page to check again and buy |
| Learning more deeply about the product | Love | A short page, plus a personal note from the maker |

Content makes these touchpoints without you meeting each person. Buyers buy because of **content and proof that arrive drop by drop and repeat**, not because of a sales page that is as long as possible. The sales page is the last touchpoint, covered on the [LOVE](/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/love-post) page.

### You control the path, not the way in

Search engines and AI drop readers into any post: a technical question lands them on a Trust post, and an opinion lands them straight on the Love post. What you can control is the **path**: each piece of content points out the next step.

| Readers enter at | The content must point to |
| --- | --- |
| A Know post | The way into the Trust post |
| A Trust post | The way into the Love post |
| A Love post | The sales page to buy at once. Those who don't buy go to the home page or read another post |

Someone who needs a solution fast may buy at once. Someone who does not buy yet stays on the website, and the links at the end and in the body of each post lead them to the same Love post.

## Rules and methods

Six rules come from how Cuong makes content, and they hold for every method under this philosophy:

- **Every piece of content has a place.** Each piece of content serves one state and points to one next step. Content that cannot name both need not be made: you work from a plan, not from inspiration, keywords or trends.
- **People come before AI** and **real work comes before guides.** AI helps order ideas, make images and store working history. The point of view and the work done in the real world are not handed to AI, because readers notice the marks of AI content and judge the brand along with it. In Know, you rely on understanding customers and your own angle. In Trust, you rely on the result you made yourself ahead of the reader.
- **The edge is you.** A product stands out through a few points that come from the strengths of the person who made it. Competitors can copy the product and the tools, but not you.
- **Trust comes before the product.** A product needs a history and real traces of contact with customers before launch, so readers already trust it, which means you can start even while the product is still on paper. If you wait until the product is done before writing, you get no early feedback and are left with big praise that is hard to believe. Making content early shows you what you thought was right and customers did not need.
- **You control the path, not the way in**, as in the chapter above.

The philosophy answers *"which state does the reader need to reach?"* for all content, posts and sales pages alike. A method answers *"which posts, in what order?"* for one kind of content. The content funnel is the first method in these docs, but **not the only one**: a sales page is also built in three layers, Know, Trust and Love.

Use the philosophy to check any piece of content, and a method to do the work: pick posts, build a page, set the order you publish in. Every method must answer the philosophy's three questions:

- What new thing did the reader just learn
- What did they do themselves, and did they get a result
- What way forward do they see

## The Know - Trust - Love content funnel

![What is the Know - Trust - Love content funnel?](https://cuongthach.com/docs/_astro/illus-docs-tuyen-ba-ga.en.Cu9Wzh4p_ZTKTiY.svg "One line, three stops, and the last stop is the product")

The funnel is a straight path with three stages in the order of the reader's feelings, each stage points to the next, and **each post takes exactly one row** of the table. The argument and the story behind the method are in the [funnel post](https://cuongthach.com/biet-tin-yeu/).

| Stage | Type of post | Points to | Number of posts |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Know | Know post | Trust post | The most, each one adds a touchpoint |
| Trust | Trust post | Love post | Fewer than Know posts |
| Love | Love post | The product | A single post, taking up to 80% of the effort |

### Why do you need a funnel?

Three signs that a website is missing a funnel:

- Posts get readers, but orders do not rise with them.
- Nobody can answer the question "where does this post lead the reader?"
- New topics are picked by keyword or by what is trending, not by position in the journey.

Cuong's old site wrote for keywords from 2017, about 300 posts, with readers but no conversions. When the site was rebuilt, **only 11 posts were kept**. The funnel gives each post a direction, a formula and a place in the learner's journey.

### The funnel is the strategy, the process is the doing

The funnel is the strategy of making content. With the wrong strategy, few readers buy, even when each post is written and published the right way. So your posting plan is measured by the funnel.

Writing and publishing each post is the doing part of the [Idea - Write - Edit process](/docs/content-system/idea-write-edit/introduction). The funnel decides which posts are worth writing and where they lead, so it is a filter too: **a post with no place is not published**.

## Two phases and the links between posts

When you build a funnel you go backward, while buyers go forward. The funnel rolls out in **two phases** so you do not get overwhelmed, and posts link to each other in two places.

### Build backward from the Love post, in two phases

![Phase 2 is opening up and growing](https://cuongthach.com/docs/_astro/illus-docs-hai-giai-doan-tich-o.en.4fuRrXqp_ZTKTiY.svg "Two phases: three posts, then grow")

The build order has three steps, and each step gives birth to the stage before it:

1. Write the Love post from the core of the product.
2. For each stretch in the Love post with a technical difficulty or a barrier to action, write a Trust post.
3. The "what is" and "why" questions that come up while writing a Trust post are split off into Know posts, so the Trust post does not get diluted.

Phase 1 needs **exactly 3 linked posts**: one Know, one Trust and one Love, with the Love post pointing to the sales page.

The funnel counts as running once all three posts are published and the links run from start to end: readers get their problem named, make a result themselves, and see the full solution to buy. No other post is needed before you open sales.

Phase 2 starts once the basic funnel runs. The rule does not change: **the Love post is the only one, never write a new one**. Every post you add only brings more readers to the Love post, in three steps:

- **Write in pairs.** Each new Know post comes with a new Trust post, so readers who just understood something get a guide to follow right away.
- **Cross-link.** Once there are enough Trust posts, a new Know post points to the existing Trust post that fits best.
- **Grow the Know stage.** Write more Know posts to add touchpoints, even on topics that are trending, because the Trust stage below is strong enough to hold new readers.

### Links at the end and in the body of a post

The end of a post leads the reader, following the table of ways in above, and the Love post can lead to a waitlist instead of the sales page. As the writer, you know what readers need next, after they understand this in a Know post or finish this task in a Trust post.

In the body, in all three kinds of post, you place links to related posts where they fit, so algorithms understand. Because the posts share one frame of reference and link to each other, search engines and AI models understand your website's structure and your expertise, and Google can tell which post relates to which.

## An example of two funnels on cuongthach.com

The cuongthach.com blog runs two funnels of three posts each, and both Love posts lead to the Write to Sell sales page.

| Funnel | Know post | Trust post | Love post |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sales page | "Is a long or short sales page better in the age of AI?" | "How to make a simple sales page in 3 layers: Know - Trust - Love" | "The Know - Trust - Love content funnel: Write less, sell more" |
| Writing from recordings | "Write hands-free, stop procrastinating with Talk to write" | "How to turn a recording into a fully published post" | "The Idea - Write - Edit process: Escape the never-ending writing loop" |

In the first funnel, the Know post shows readers that the right length of a sales page depends on where the buyer stands, and it was split off from the Trust post of the same funnel. The Know post of the second funnel names the habit of putting off writing, then invites readers to make their first post with their own hands.

## What the philosophy and the funnel do not do

- **They do not set a writing style.** How to write each kind of post is on that kind's own page.
- **They do not use AI to mass-produce posts.** If AI writes everything, the philosophy and the funnel both lose their reason to exist.
- **They do not need a finished product first.** You can build the funnel at the idea stage, with the Love post leading to a waitlist.

## Read next

- [KNOW stage](/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/know-post) — The Know post is the first touchpoint of the funnel, where readers discover you, see their own problem named and want to keep reading.
- [TRUST stage](/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/trust-post) — The Trust post follows the Know post with small, hands-on steps, so readers make a result themselves and start to trust you.
- [LOVE stage](/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/love-post) — This page explains the Love post, the only post in the funnel you write yourself, the short sales page it leads to and why that page stays short.

Source: https://cuongthach.com/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/introduction/index.mdx