Creating brand awareness and getting businesses to interact with us has become increasingly important. Only when a group of relevant businesses know who we are and interact with us, then we will be able to convert them into loyal customers.
But there is a problem plaguing the marketing world! Tighter budgets and increasing pressure on marketers. Subsequently, salespeople have only one complain towards marketing and that is a lack of high-quality leads. The leads marketing generates is not up to the mark.
That can be quite disheartening to hear. Yet it is a truth marketers must face.
But by targeting TOFU and MOFU leads in one campaign, we can tackle two problems at once. We can generate awareness and increase user engagement at the same time.
In other words, we must engage with and generate Top of the Funnel and Middle of the Funnel Leads.
What is TOFU AND MOFU?
Sales and Marketing to make their understanding of the buyers’ journey easier came up with the idea of a funnel. Or rather in 1898, E. St. Elmo Lewis created what is known as the AIDA model. It stands for Awareness Interest Desire Action.
The funnel is divided into three parts.
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
- And Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
We are going to focus on TOFU and MOFU
TOFU or Top of The Funnel
The Top of the funnel is where our B2B buyer becomes aware of us. It is first contact between a brand and its potential customers. Prospects, in this stage, are generally looking for information regarding a certain problem.
TOFU marketing is usually done to a broad audience. We need to capture as many eyes as possible in this one. It is crucial that we reach vast audiences, because many of them won’t convert.
MOFU or Middle of The Funnel
The Middle of the funnel sees our buyer begin interacting with us. They are aware of us and have taken an interest in what we have to say and offer. But they still need to evaluate. As we all know, B2B sales’ journey is a very deliberate one. So, it must not come as any surprise when the buyer spends a lot of time in this stage of the funnel.
Luckily, once a prospect enters this stage, strategic nurturing can help you close the deal. Tactics like ABM and Omnichannel marketing can help you close the deal. MOFU offers a lot in terms of personalization.
TOFU and MOFU offer a unique view of the buyer journey and helps us create content tailored to the buyer.
According to HubSpot’s sales reports, getting high-quality leads has become difficult. This is due to the lack of understanding what a high-quality lead is.
Together, we need to come up with a holistic way of approaching lead generation.
Why Top Funnel leads matter in the long run
According to Sana’s B2B buyer reports, 90% of the B2B buyers are turning to online channels to find new suppliers.
Let’s think on this metric for a minute. 90% of the B2B buyers use online channels to search for vendors. 90%.
We cannot underestimate the power of TOFU. Awareness is necessary for new buyers to come in. A great content and marketing strategy will help you convert prospects time and again.
A great strategy will bring in leads that matter.
Middle of the funnel leads are the perfect spot for Lead Nurturing
50% of our leads aren’t ready to buy, says Marketo. And let’s just forget about all the unqualified leads. Why does this happen so often? Because businesses aren’t nurturing their leads. Building a relationship with our prospects is necessary in our hyper-connected world.
MOFU is the perfect spot to nurture leads. The prospects know who we are. They are willing to: –
- Spend time with our content
- Answer qualifying questions
- Consent to call-backs
- Respond to mails
MOFU is a hot bed of possibilities. We can build a real relationship with our prospects. Not only for conversion, rather to build a network. A present network that will inform both the future and the near-future.
Yet, we face a lack of high-quality leads. It is now time to look at the Sales funnel from a holistic perspective.
We will begin this section with a question: Is the bottom line just sales?
Hear us out, conversion is crucial, and the lifeblood of every organization. It drives revenue. But is it the only bottom line?
How about customer loyalty and word-to-mouth goodwill, and profits?
We need our customers to come back and buy more and refer us to their network. And not buy more through coercion but through the value we provide. Through an unmatched experience.
For that, we must form a holistic view of the sales and marketing funnel. We should, strategically, create campaigns that tackle TOFU and MOFU simultaneously.
To convert and find the right customer is crucial for a B2B organization. Tackling a campaign of TOFU and MOFU ensures that we filter in the right leads.
Top of the funnel leads ensures our organization’s awareness spreads through the channels. While MOFU captures leads that can be converted through nurturing.
The data we would acquire through such a campaign would be unprecedented. We would be able to have relevant info that is usable and targetable for a long time to come.
The golden overlap
The golden overlap, as we term it, are leads that flow in from TOFU into MOFU. Prospects that are showing a very strong interest in our brand.
Here, we find, that we have discovered a treasure of high-quality leads. All they require is nurturing and patience and a great sales team.
Top of the funnel campaign will help attract diverse audiences, while middle of the funnel will filter down to relevancy.
Advantages of running two campaigns at once.
1. Resource allocation
Running two distinct campaigns is time and cost effective. Whereas dividing our existing resources in two can be incredibly beneficial. It will help save time and cost, and let us help create awareness and a lead nurturing pipeline at the same time.
2. ROI
By allocating resources in a creative manner, we can efficiently increase our ROI. In a relatively lower cost and time effective manner we are able to target two segments that would have been otherwise disconnected from each other. Helping us filter down and target relevant leads.
3. Increased Organic traffic
Increased awareness (TOFU leads) means a lot of eyes on your website. And increased engagement (MOFU leads) means a lot of relevant eyes on your website.
4. Consistent brand voice
A consistent brand voice creates loyalty. How? Because our buyers, B2B or not, understand who we are and what we stand for. When we create a campaign that is TOFU and MOFU simultaneously. We cannot overlook the importance of being consistent with tone and design.
5. High-quality leads
Tackling MOFU and TOFU together can be defined as a new way of filtering leads. Seeing if Top of the funnel leads evolve into Middle of the funnel leads and Middle of the funnel into Bottom of the funnel. This also gives us the added advantage of identifying what types of leads convert and which don’t.
A strategy that involves synergizing TOFU and MOFU can become a revolutionary new way of doing things.
At Coleda B2B, we use unique tactics to bring the best out of your campaigns. From personalization of landing pages to frontrunning an accurate awareness campaign. We aim to generate leads that convert. Creating a TOFU and MOFU campaign is a lot of work but it can be rewarding. There are challenges, like overcoming sales and marketing alignment or understanding how to attribute your content.
But when we overcome these challenges, we will find a pipeline rich in high-quality leads.
