How to build and nurture leads using this three-step sales funnel

TOFU, MOFU, BOFU in SEO and Content Marketing

TOFU MOFU BOFU CONTENT

Previously, we did a post on the Three Tiered Sales Funnel for SEO or TOFU, MOFU, BOFU in Content Marketing content and inbound marketing. Now that you understand the basics on the the SEO sales funnel, we want to educate you on how to nurture those leads.

What is TOFU, MOFU, BOFU?

  • TOFU – Top Of Funnel
  • MOFU- Middle Of Funnel
  • BOFU- Bottom Of Funnel

Leading the Custom Down a very specific path for Better Conversion Rates

When you’re attracting new leads and trying to increase your conversion rates, you have to gradually entice them and warm them up to your product or service. It isn’t as simple as just telling them that they need what you have to sell, and then selling it – if it were, we’d all be billionaires already.

Even if customers know perfectly well that they need what you’re offering, most still want to be engaged, sweetened up, and comforted about their decision before they open up their wallets. The art of selling is largely focused on this need to psychologically groom your customers and make them feel good about their purchase.

This might sound manipulative, but it’s really not. You know that you are selling a product or service that will make your customers’ lives better. You’re not scamming anyone; you’re making them happy by providing something of real value to them.

But when people buy something, they’re not just buying a thing; they’re buying an experience. They’re entering a relationship with the person or company they’re buying from, and relationships need to be nurtured.

If you were going on a blind date, you wouldn’t start off by telling your new acquaintance all the reasons he or she should marry you, and then offer a limited-time bargain on the wedding ring of their choice. You shouldn’t do it in sales either. Fortunately, winning customers isn’t anywhere near as complicated as finding your soul mate; all you have to do is present the right sort of information at the right time, following the simple three-step sales funnel.

Top of the funnel (TOFU)

TOFU CONTENT

At the top of the sales funnel belong the general articles that provide broad information about the topic of your product or services. This is your content marketing and inbound marketing heartbeat. Creating content that was amazing enough to attract visitors is often hard to do; however, there are many reasons why you want to do this. 

Goals for the top of the funnel content:

  • Establish yourself as a trusted authority
  • Educate people
  • Inform people
  • Attract backlinks (link-bait)
  • Attract Social Shares (Social-Pings)
  • Keeping your website fresh with content
  • Sales
  • Newsletter Sign-ups
  • Lead-in Form Submissions
  • Phone Calls

You have potential customers who know a bit about your product or service, and you also have potential customers who don’t know anything about it at all but who might be interested in learning.  These are the people you are targeting at the top of the funnel.

The top of the funnel is all about education. At this point you should’t even be thinking about trying to sell your product or service. Beyond a link and perhaps a short boilerplate at the end of each article, you shouldn’t be pushing your own products.

Just focus on providing good, quality information that will be really useful to your readers.

This is the step where you demonstrate to your readers why they should pay attention to you. If you establish yourself as an authority who has expert knowledge on your subject, they will be more likely to trust you later in the sales funnel, when it is time to actually sell your product.

The top of the sales funnel is also where you get the most shares and publicity. If you put up a free ebook that is full of useful knowledge, your readers will share it with their social networks. People will be impressed at the quality and value of the information you put out there, and that is good for you. With a strong top of the sales funnel, you will quickly become a big name in your industry, purely based on the fact that people read you online.

Here is some of the content you need at the top of your sales funnel:

  • Ebooks
  • Definitive guides
  • Blog posts
  • Guest blog posts
  • How-to articles
  • Beginner’s ebooks
  • Free Resources

Middle of the funnel (MOFU)

MOFU CONTENT

In the middle of the funnel, you are targeting people who know about your industry and product, but are perhaps not quite ready to buy just yet. This is where you start introducing people to your product in particular.

In the middle of the funnel, you should be comparing products, especially comparing your products with your competitors’. This is also where you do more in-depth informational content for people who are already fairly familiar with the industry you are selling in.

For your middle of the funnel content, try focusing on things like:

  • Buying guides
  • Product comparisons
  • Case studies
  • Advanced ebooks

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

BOFU CONTENT

The bottom of the funnel is where you are actually selling. This is where you pull out all the sales strategies – limited-time offers, percentages off, free add-ons, free trials, and similar strategies.

At this point, you have convinced your customers why yours is the product they want (that was what the product comparisons were all about), and now you just need to get them to open their wallets.

Many people need a little extra encouragement to buy, even if they know they want a product. But with a free trial or a limited time discount, you make it just that much easier for your customers to go ahead and take the plunge.

Obviously, when it comes to online content, you can’t control what order your readers are encountering your content in. In addition, your customers might read some Tier 2 content, bounce to some Tier 1 content, look at the deals you’re offering at Tier 3, do some more comparisons on Tier 2 to make sure it’s really what they want, and then buy.

However, with judicious use of your keywords, you should be able to at least make fairly certain that your readers are encountering the content they need to see based on the questions they have and the information they want to know.

TOFU, MOFU, BOFU Take Away?

In every article you write, content strategy you develop and inbound marketing campaign that you push forward, you must have a goal. It is important to have a goal with every piece of content you push out and then track that goal. Take your TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content piece from the previous month and compare it against your TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content from this month.

See which one out performs the other and try to understand why. Once you understand what elements or components of that TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content stood out, re-create it using a new strategy or targeted term.

Give us a call if you have any questions

If you have any questions about TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content marketing, give us call or contact us today. We are your local experts in content marketing, inbound marketing and targeted TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content creation in the Greater Sacramento, Folsom, Roseville and El Dorado Hills area.