Top of funnel marketing: benefits, examples, and strategies.

Starting out, top-of-funnel content helps to establish the first link between your brand and prospective customers. It is the initial step in developing a relationship with them.

Expanding your company is very comparable to advancing a personal connection. The steps are similar for both as you develop and nurture them.

So, what stages are involved in a buyer’s progress through the marketing funnel?

• TOFU or Top of Funnel

• MOFU or Middle of Funnel

• BOFU or Bottom of Funnel

A strong content marketing strategy can put your business in a position to reach people at every stage of the buying process, thus shortening the customer journey and increasing revenue.

It’s crucial to include top-of-funnel content in your marketing strategy. Doing so allows you to build a connection with your target audience from the start, thus boosting lead generation, improving conversion rates, and enhancing customer retention.

What Is Top Of Funnel (TOFU) Marketing?

Top-of-funnel marketing refers to potential customers at the start of their buyer’s journey, also known as the awareness stage. They are accumulating information and researching as they consider their options.

Companies tend to concentrate most of their PPC, Facebook Ads and SEO initiatives on those from the bottom of the marketing funnel as they are more likely to convert into customers quickly. But with strategic top-of-the-funnel content, you can amplify the return on investment from other promotional channels. This is why content marketing campaigns at the start of the funnel are so effective.

Benefits Of Top Of Funnel Marketing

1. Owning The Conversation & Being On The Same Page

Clients occasionally ask me why they should try to compose about these topics, which are so essential and may not necessarily attune to our perfect customer.

I’d say that all customers usually have queries, to begin with.

Although they might not be the ultimate customer, you can still build a strong foundation for your organization by teaching them about processes and terms via blog posts and emails.

2. Brand Awareness & Being Top Of Mind

A brand that imparts knowledge and offers significant advantages will become the go-to when customers need information.

A successful content strategy can ensure your brand is always on potential customers’ minds. By being the first to enter their consideration when they are ready to hire someone, you will give yourself a competitive edge.

Your sales team will have to put in less effort, as the content they’re utilising has already done most of the work.

3. Building Trust

Every time you publish quality content, you are helping to establish trust with people who are just starting on their quest for a solution.

Continually delivering value to people establishes trust in your brand and helps to position your business as a leader in the market, keeping you in their thoughts for the long term.

Although one may be at the forefront of people’s minds, this does not suggest it is necessarily a positive outcome. We have all had experiences we never want to repeat; for example, if you’ve ever suffered from food poisoning from a restaurant, then you understand what I’m referring to.

As long as you stay committed to obtaining permission from new email subscribers and not inundating them with Facebook ads, the level of trust will increase steadily.

4. The Evergreen Snowball Effect

Content marketing has the excellent benefit of providing an enduring ROI, as it will remain valuable over a prolonged period.

People arise each day looking for answers to problems your business is equipped to tackle.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pages are a valuable resource to help customers quickly find answers to their queries. These pages typically contain the most commonly asked questions, each with a solution.

FAQ pages are an excellent starting point for creating top-of-funnel pages for your company. This is because customers’ queries cannot be answered in a few words.

Questions that come up regularly should have their page so that they can be optimised as a solution in searches. This page should explain the answer fully, providing new customers with all the necessary information.

As you generate great material continually, it can start to rank naturally for people’s frequent queries. This is similar to a snowball rolling down a hill; over time, it gathers velocity and mass until it becomes an avalanche of potential customers.

5. Low Competition

Earlier, we noted that many businesses concentrate on the bottom of the marketing funnel.

SEO is difficult for newer firms, as they have to challenge competitors who have been doing it for years.

One of the many advantages of focusing on top-funnel content is that it does not necessarily require you to compete with big sites like Quora or Wikipedia. Instead, this can provide an excellent chance for something unique, an opening for a business to provide better answers than these platforms offer and overtake them.

Competing at the bottom of the funnel is costly for everyone.

6. It’s A Fast Pass For Customers

Have you ever visited a hectic amusement park like Disney World or Six Flags? Those lines can be gruelling, and for all that time spent in line, the rides are usually over in minutes. Such a disappointment!

Thanks to the FastPass system, long waits at amusement parks are a thing of the past. Instead of spending hours in line, people can now enjoy shorter queues, reducing their ride wait time from three hours to fifteen minutes. This fabulous invention has made many people very content.

Well-made content can have a similar effect on your potential customers. It assists them in moving from the exploration process to setting up a demonstration or purchasing something.

This is incredible, as you convert them into customers without needing to go through their everyday journey to find your product. You have successfully circumvented the difficulty of obtaining customers at the end of the marketing funnel, and now they have become yours.

7. Create Assets For Your Sales Team

Your sales staff’s time is of great importance. They have their own sales pipeline to attend to.

Decreasing the work your sales team has to do can quickly lead to a greater return on investment. Reducing the time it takes to convert leads is an incredibly effective way to maximise profits.

The materials that you are generating to go at the beginning of the marketing funnel can be used by your sales team as links.

Your sales team should be able to provide consistent answers, which can be aided with a one-pager of quick responses to frequently asked questions and links to your high-calibre top-of-funnel content.

8. Improves Your Email Marketing

When someone arrives at your blog post via an upper-level digital marketing plan, they likely aren’t ready yet to make a purchase or book a demonstration.

We don’t want to miss out on this opportunity to benefit or reconnect with our potential customer base, so why not use email capture to grow your list, such as offering an ebook or cheat sheet?

A practical content approach with email capture and digital marketing can be a great way to fill your sales funnel with potential customers continuously.

9. Improves Retargeting Marketing

Lastly, if you are getting lots of organic traffic to your blog, even if it doesn’t turn into conversions or email addresses, there is still a potential benefit.

Potential customers visiting your website can be pixelated, enabling you to retarget them.

Retargeting campaigns can be an effective way of bringing customers back and getting them to convert.

In 2018, 41% of shoppers quit the checkout procedure when they were almost done. Despite going so far with the process, they could not follow through.

Launching a retargeting campaign in your digital marketing could help bring a substantial portion of that 41% back to their shopping carts and complete their purchase.

Top Of Funnel Measurement and Metrics

To determine the success of any endeavour in your business, begin by establishing a target.

A top-of-funnel content campaign aims to drive as many new visitors as possible to the middle or bottom of the funnel. Any descent down the marketing funnel from the top constitutes a victory.

At KlientBoost, we have two intentions for our client’s blog posts: one to speed up success and the other to take it slow.

1. Fast Lane Goal

The company’s primary source of income is attaining quick objectives.

Examples of fast-lane goals:

We are dedicated to increasing our product sales and revenue. We are focused on generating more revenue by selling products and striving to improve our profits by selling more items.

Signing up for a free trial or demonstration is simple. All you need to do is fill out the form and provide your contact details. You will then receive information on how to access the trial or demo. It only takes a few minutes, and the process is easy.

It is a great victory when someone arrives on your blog and becomes a paying customer.

Typically, someone in the awareness stage is not yet willing to purchase what the company is offering; they are still in a period of courtship.

Measuring Fast Lane Goals:

You should track the completion of your blog and top funnel resources since they are a priority goal for the entirety of the firm.

What to measure:

• Organic traffic 
• Revenue 
• Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) 

Slow Lane Goal

A slow lane goal is intended to help draw a potential customer closer or further along the sales channel.

Examples of slow lane goals

Email captures are an essential part of most websites. They are used as a way to capture email addresses and other personal information from visitors of the site. 

Engagements with a chatbot are rapidly growing. This rapid growth of chatbot usage highlights how this technology is becoming increasingly popular.

Pixel for retargeting is a tool used to collect data from website visitors in order to understand better how they behave and interact on the website. 

There has been an upsurge in the number of social media followers. This is likely due to the rising popularity of such platforms and services, making them more attractive to users than ever.

Measuring the progress of slow lane goals is an essential part of taking stock of one’s situation. It’s crucial to assess how far you’ve come and to identify areas that still require work. 

Measuring your slow lane goals involves tracking the key performance indicators associated with those marketing channels.

If you have an email capture and drip campaign, it is crucial to monitor whether the rate of emails gathered is increasing and if they are leading to conversions. This also applies to chatbots, organic traffic or any other slow lane target.

Top of Funnel Marketing Strategies

Don’t forget to include a powerful call to action when creating a campaign or piece of content. Your audience needs to know the next step, so ensure it is clear and actionable.

People who visit your website will likely be unfamiliar with you and your services. To ensure that they can find their way around, you should use Call-to-Actions (CTA’s) to guide them to the available fast and slow lanes.

Did you realize that almost all users exit your site or app without making a purchase? Without direction, they can lose interest and forget about you. Having an enticing call to action motivates them to interact with you and creates a meaningful connection.

Implement An Email Capture

During the initial phase of their customer journey, most people are not prepared to enter into a sale or an extended demo with a salesperson. They are still in the process of collecting information and trying to make sense of it all.

Instead of exclusively providing “Buy Now” and “Sign Up For A Free Demo” call-to-actions, adding call-to-actions will allow you to continue engaging with customers and supporting them on their journey.

An effective way to connect with potential customers is through email. Offering something of worth in return for their email address will help you impart knowledge and build relationships with them, increasing the likelihood of them becoming loyal customers.

Examples of email list-building assets

Do you want to learn a new skill or hobby? Look no further than our ebooks and guides! We have many ebooks and directions for any skill level or interest. No matter what you’re looking for, we have the right ebook or guide to help you get started.

Reports and infographics are excellent tools for giving information to various audiences. They provide detailed data in a way that is easy to understand and find meaningful. These resources allow organisations to present their material accurately and compellingly.

Quizzing and surveying are great ways to measure people’s knowledge, gauge their opinions and understand their interests. These methods allow us to accurately capture essential data and ensure we have the most up-to-date information.

Calculators and other tools are great for helping to perform calculations with large amounts of data and complex equations. They can also be used to determine probabilities, assess risks, and conduct simulations.

Checklists are a great way to keep track of everything and ensure you don’t forget anything. They help take notes on a project, keep track of what needs to be done, or organise a day out.

Case studies are an essential aspect of education. They can provide a powerful learning experience. Case studies can be critical in many different sectors. They allow people to understand the topics being studied. It is a key tool in understanding complex concepts and helps people make well-informed decisions.

White papers can be used to get more customers and grow the business.

 Webinars are easy to access and can be of great value.

Grow your social media channel following and expand your audience. Increase the number of people interacting with you by posting engaging content encouraging others to follow and interact with your channel. Try to create an environment that will keep viewers continually returning for new content. Use different strategies to motivate people to start and maintain consistent interaction with your channel.

Having a lot of followers on your social media channels gives you a chance to stay at the forefront of their thoughts. They can spot your posts in their news feed as they scroll through.

For example, 97% of B2B marketers turn to LinkedIn as a platform to share their content.

How to increase your followers

Invite people to join you and ensure they know the benefit of being part of your channel.

Adding images embedded from Instagram will showcase examples of the content.

Include video embeds from YouTube, making it easier for viewers to watch and subscribe.

Invite them to join the discussion on our Facebook Community to feel included and a part of something special.

Spark engagement by connecting with your audience and providing incentives. Reach out to your audience, increasing connectivity and interaction. Provide rewards and recognition to maintain engagement.

Blogging is a great way to build and maintain relationships with potential customers. It keeps you in their thoughts, increasing followers and more loyal customers. Even though measuring the direct monetary value of engagement on blogs can be difficult, it’s clear that having an engaged audience pays off.

How to increase engagement on a blog

Make it a two-way conversation. Ask for feedback or suggestions in the comments.

Promote your business or product by holding giveaways and contests requiring participants to Like, Share, Follow or engage in other ways. This can help increase the reach of your brand and attract new followers.

Sharing on social media is a great way to spread awareness of your company or product. Encourage people to post about your product, brand, story or cause to increase visibility and reach a larger audience.

How To Find Top Funnel Content Topics

We all know how tough it can be to jumpstart a blog and content strategy. To help you out, here are four strategies that should point you in the right direction when it comes to finding fantastic topics.

Surveying your customers is a great way to understand how they feel about your business and what changes you can make to improve their experience. It’s a fantastic way to gain valuable insight into the minds of your customers.

Gather data on your current customers’ needs and wants to help you identify questions and pain points that apply to your ideal prospects. By understanding what can be improved, you can make changes that appeal to new leads.

Using a Google Form can make getting feedback from your customers effortless. Create the form and send it to them so that you can learn more about their questions and concerns.

As you gather more and more survey responses, you’ll begin to detect patterns in the inquiries they raise, as well as ideas regarding what material should be created to assist prospective customers best.

Use Google suggest 

One of the best ways to brainstorm topics for both top and middle of the funnel is to utilise Google Autosuggest; it’s a great tool that won’t cost you a penny.

Enter queries related to your field and let Google take care of the rest. The search engine will provide the newest and most widely sought-after questions.

The 5 W’s rule of journalism (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How) is a great way to kickstart your content creation with keywords. If auto-suggested topics around your niche aren’t working for you, it might be time to get a little more inventive with coming up with the questions that interest your customers.

Keyword Research 

If you have access to a tool such as Ahrefs, which KlientBoost uses, you can benefit from a substantial amount of data regarding areas with a natural interest and how hard it may be competing for those terms.

A key benefit of using Ahrefs is the availability of a question-specific keyword research filter.

Following the screenshot instructions, you can quickly identify which search queries have the highest organic demand. After exporting these terms, you can generate a content calendar to gradually create posts.

The Quora ranking pages for the keyword [H3] list various topics and provide in-depth analysis. These pages offer detailed descriptions and insights into the topic and can be extremely helpful when researching or studying this subject.

To uncover great top-of-funnel content, I recommend using Ahrefs to check if Quora or WikiHow are ranking for relevant terms in your industry. These two sites rank highly across many industries and can be bettered by a brand with the right approach.

By using an SEO tool, you can identify the pages in your niche that rank the most frequently for keywords and ascertain the estimated traffic they receive monthly.

Top of Funnel Marketing Examples

Let’s put this tofu content to work. Here we have some digital marketing samples from the top of the funnel.

How to Write a Google Review Without a Gmail Account – Signpost

Why It’s Effective: This use case is effective because it speaks to the needs of business owners who want to respond to customer reviews and are looking for a way to do so. Offering a demo of their product is a great way to connect with these customers.

This post does a great job incorporating both a Fast Lane CTA (Get A Demo) and a Slow Lane CTA (Free Guide to Google Reviews).

If you’re dealing with a slab leak, then Restore My Pipes can help. We are experts in repairing these types of leaks, getting the job done quickly and efficiently. Our team of highly trained technicians understands how to diagnose and fix this issue, and can provide the necessary solutions to get your pipes back in working order.

This blog post is a great illustration of how to create a web page that centres on “Signs of a Slab Leak Repair” and “What is a Slab Leak,” as well as try to persuade visitors to reach out for help.

This post uses two Fast Lane CTA’s (Call Us Now) and another Fast Lane CTA (Contact Form) to significant effect.

Gear Guide to Camping in a Truck –  DECKED

This post serves as a great example of how to research truck camping effectively. An individual who may have never heard of DECKED can learn the advantages of their product and consider it for any future endeavours they might be planning.

CTA: This post provides a fast way to get people in the sales funnel by letting them pick their vehicle. It also includes links so readers can easily share it on the social platform of their preference.

Facebook Ad Examples – KlientBoost

This is an ideal opportunity for KlientBoost to demonstrate its excellence in Facebook advertising. Individuals who attempt to manage their social ad campaigns often seek inspiration on what works best. When they observe the standard of our work and read our Facebook Case Studies, they are more likely to entrust us with running their advertising initiatives.

At KlientBoost, our blog has three different calls to action. We capture email addresses to nurture our relationships with leads over time. Additionally, we offer potential clients the opportunity to request a proposal through site chat and buttons.

Make The Relationship Funnel – Official

If someone contacts you right after matching on a dating app and proposes, you should head for the hills.

Content at the top of the funnel is hugely significant. I would argue that marketers underestimate it.

If you don’t get it right, you’ll miss essential contacts. And with each person you bring into your funnel, the bigger the potential audience at its lowest point becomes.

The same level of consideration should be provided.

Familiarising yourself with your target audience and providing them with valuable content can establish a solid foundation for long-term company success and increased ROI from all marketing efforts.

Having become familiar with the top of the funnel, you are now ready to explore what there is to know about the bottom.

Once you understand the full funnel, you’ll understand why the traditional funnel may not work ¯_(ツ)_/¯ and what can be used instead. As a result, you will become an expert in speeding up your growth process and quickly converting leads.

We’re keen to learn which strategies have been successful in helping customers progress through the stages of the funnel and would welcome any suggestions for improvement. We’d love to hear what ideas you have.

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Euphoric is an SEO agency based in West Sussex.

If you want to find out how we can help you with your SEO and content marketing strategies, we would love to learn about your next project.

We’ve been smashing it for our clients and achieved significant increases in rankings and traffic through our SEO strategies, and we would love to do the same for you!