Creating a successful content strategy is like constructing a high-rise tower on short notice.
There is much to do over a short period with huge ROI expectations from your managers.
TOFU, MOFU, BOFU isn’t a trick to hit your content marketing ROI faster. But it’s a straightforward method to create content that rhymes with your customer journey to close more leads.
This guide will discuss the different stages of the content marketing funnel and how you can implement them in your content strategy.
What is TOFU, MOFU and BOFU?
TOFU, MOFU and BOFU stand for “top of the funnel,” “middle of the funnel,” and “bottom of the funnel,” respectively.
They are stages of the inbound content marketing funnel that narrow down from the vast crowd to real customers who purchase your product.
Think of it like a stack of three sieves, each one finer than the last, allowing for increasingly precise sifting.
Generally, a customer doesn’t come from the blues to purchase your product. They go through a buyer’s journey that starts with becoming aware of your product, then making considerations, and finally, making a purchase decision.
The goal is understanding your buyer persona and getting their pain point at each stage. With the data, you create helpful content that resonates with them, intending to push promising leads down to the last step.
- TOFU: Top of the funnel
TOFU is the top part of the marketing funnel that taps into the broadest audience.
Your target customer at this stage might have a pain point to which they don’t have an answer. Maybe they saw an ad on TV that aroused their curiosity. Or perhaps they want to research a question of interest that favors content that informs.
The first thing they’ll do is search on Google. The search engine receives 5.6 billion searches daily, and a sizable percentage of the searches are informational queries.
For example, as a content marketing agency, our target audience for TOFU is new content marketers.
The keywords they’ll likely search for include “What is content marketing?” “How to create a content strategy,” or anything else on that line.
They’ll also search for youtube videos, infographics, ebooks, and whitepapers in all things content marketing.
Our goal is to appear on their radar through valuable educational content that goes deeper into their needs.
- MOFU – Middle of the Funnel
Visitors moving to the MOFU stage have realized their problem and are already considering a solution.
They’re evaluating different options but are still skeptical of the available providers. The questions they have in mind are:
- What factors should I consider when searching for the right product?
- What are the pros and cons of each option?
- How many companies offer solutions to my problems?
But it’s not yet time to introduce your product. MOFU aims to create content that nurtures and strengthens their trust in your brand.
The most effective strategies to use at this stage include the following:
- Lead magnets in exchange for emails.
- Quick surveys or questions.
- Email marketing campaign.
- Social media posts.
- Podcasts and webinars.
- BOFU: Bottom of the Funnel
Every content marketer’s dream is to get as many leads as possible to this stage.
It’s where you pull the trigger by creating conversion-focused content. The aim is to present your product for quick purchase.
BOFU shouldn’t be challenging if you have good engagements for TOFU and MOFU. Why?
Your visitors have already developed a strong trust for your brand and see your product as the most viable solution to their needs.
Nevertheless, there’s no time to waste as the prospect may opt for another tool that offers a similar solution to yours.
The most relevant content for BOFU that drives conversions includes free trials, product demos, product comparisons, and listicles.
Why TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU matter in your content strategy
Here are a few reasons why the content marketing funnel is essential to your content strategy.
- You become a part of your customer journey.
- You’ll understand different visitors at each stage and create content that resonates with them.
- Have a clearly defined content strategy with goals.
- Keep your content calendar filled all year round.
- Enables you to create marketing strategies that yield results.
- Makes it easy to measure your content marketing ROI.
- It gives you an edge over competitors.
Key differences between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content
Here’s a quick scenario to give you an idea of the differences between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.
Imagine you own an online fitness equipment store. Sarah, a fitness enthusiast, discovers your blog post on “10 Simple Exercises for Beginners” (TOFU) during a Google search.
Intrigued, she subscribes to your newsletter and receives a guide on “Building a Home Gym on a Budget” (MOFU). Now interested in specific products, she clicks on a limited-time discount for a starter home gym bundle (BOFU) and makes a purchase, completing her journey from awareness to conversion.
As you can see, the main difference between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content is based on your buyer persona and their current needs.
It’s not even related to the content you create at each level.
For example, since ebooks and white papers are the most relevant TOFU content and webinars for MOFU content, it doesn’t mean that you can’t interchange the two.
This is where things get tricky, and that’s why you‘ll hear content marketers having different opinions on the type of content you should create at each funnel stage.
The confusion arises because they emphasize content and forget the most critical thing – customer intent.
Nevertheless, you need to be careful when interchanging content for each stage. The goal is to make it relevant to your customer based on their persona.
Here’s the critical difference between TOFU MOFU BOFU based on customer intent.
- TOFU – Answers “why” and “how”
TOFU content gives answers to “why” and “how.”
The visitor doesn’t have much knowledge of their needs. Your content provides factual information without explicitly promoting your product.
For example, suppose you’re a SaaS business selling an email outreach tool. In that case, your TOFU blog post, ebook, YouTube video, or infographic can be about “How to conduct an email outreach for SaaS startups.”
The title cuts across most channels but keeps the customer’s intent at heart.
- MOFU – Answers “which”
At the MOFU stage, the visitors already know their problem and consider the perfect seller.
They’re evaluating different options but are unsure of which product they should choose. Therefore, you create content that seals the trust as you slowly introduce your development as a suitable option.
An example MOFU blog post, video, guide, etc., can be “Your product vs. Competitor – Side by side comparison.
- BOFU – Answers “where”
Visitors who’ve reached the BOFU stage are already hooked to your product. They just need that extra push and a little more coaxing.
BOFU content aims to create extra reassurance, add more incentives, and create a sense of urgency to your product.
Only at this stage do the content you create differ significantly from TOFU and MOFU.
Ideally, you’d only focus on conversion-focused content like product comparisons, testimonials, and case studies. However, the most effective BOFU strategy is offering free demos and consultations.
TOFU MOFU BOFU content in action
Let’s look at a brand that has used TOFU MOFU BOFU in its content strategy to turn its blog into a money-minting machine. That’s Mailshake.
(I don’t have a working relationship with the company. They’re just a well-known SaaS brand that came into mind for this example).
Mailshake is an email outreach tool laser-focused on content marketing to gain traffic and sell its product.
At the time of writing this article, their blog receives 128k organic traffic per month, according to SEMrush.
- Mailshake TOFU Content
It’s hard to determine how a blog’s TOFU content performs.
Luckily, SEMrush divides a site’s traffic based on the intent of the keyword. One of their metrics is informational keywords. Visitors use these search terms when they want to learn about a pain point they’re experiencing.
In short, they’re the keywords you’ll target for TOFU content. So is it a coincidence that those keywords bring in 73.2% of Mailshake’s traffic? Not really.
By targeting these keywords, Mailshake gets 94,080 visitors looking for answers to a pain point they don’t know about. That’s the goal of TOFU content.
Here’s a screenshot of a few keywords they rank for and the estimated traffic each brings.
- Mailshake MOFU Content
Since Mailshake relies on content marketing for traffic and leads, most of its MOFU content is mainly blog posts.
But they’ve diversified on different channels to ensure they have covered everyone considering their product.
Their most popular social media channel for MOFU strategy is LinkedIn which has over 5000 followers.
The company’s co-founder Sujan Patel also leverages his massive pool of LinkedIn followers to market the company. He creates insightful posts that often go viral and spread the brand’s message.
In addition, Sujan appears in podcasts to talk about sales and how Mailshake offers the best solution for email outreach. There’s also a YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter page.
All these are powerful MOFU content that makes visitors gain trust in the company and consider their product.
- Mailshake BOFU Content
With all the nurturing at the MOFU stage, Mailshake creates the most compelling BOFU content to maximize funnel conversion rates.
They have focused mainly on three BOFU content, as shown below.
Product demos
Mailshake provides a demo that they’ve strategically placed on the landing page.
The free test drive allows potential leads to learn how to use the Mailshake platform to generate leads.
Success stories
Mailshake has dedicated a whole section on its website for customer success stories.
Prospects can see how past users have generated revenue with the tool. Anyone who was initially skeptical will automatically purchase the tool because of the compelling stories.
BOFU Blog posts
This is where Mailshake makes most of its revenue.
Using the SEMrush Keyword intent bar, you’ll notice that 6.5% of Mailshake keywords are transactional.
Visitors use transactional keywords when they want to buy something as soon as possible. With a monthly organic traffic of 128k, 6.5% represent over 8,300 hot leads.
Of the 8,300, 110 people are ready with their wallets as they search for “Mailshake pricing.”
Let’s do some math to see how Mailshake might be making by acquiring new customers every month through BOFU blog posts.
We can do this calculation by multiplying these variables.
- Number of monthly BOFU blog post traffic
- The modest conversion rate of 10%
- Mailshake’s most basic plan of $44 per month
The calculation gives us a monthly ROI, as shown in the image below.
Multiply the monthly income by 12, and you get $438,240.
So Mailshake might make an additional half a million dollars yearly by focusing on conversion-focused BOFU blog posts alone.
How To Implement the Content Marketing Funnel in Your Content Strategy
Even before you execute the content marketing funnel in your content strategy, the first critical thing is understanding your buyer persona.
Once that’s done, the next step is to determine the best content type you’ll use for each stage.
Suppose you’re a new SaaS business selling an email marketing tool. How would you implement the marketing funnel in your content strategy?
Step 1: TOFU Content Strategy
The first step to start before creating TOFU content is keyword research. It’s where content marketing begins. You want to have a good spot in the SERPs.
How you do your keyword research will significantly depend on your industry. For example, email marketing is a widely contested industry.
Capterra alone has listed over 789 email marketing software products.
What does that mean? Don’t focus much on TOFU content because the competition for rich keywords is at its peak.
For example, we checked how the TOFU keyword “what is email marketing” ranks.
As you can see, the competition for the keyword is at its peak. You will hardly appear even in the 30 SERP results.
The solution is to go deeper in keyword research to find low-volume keywords your competitors haven’t tackled. Focus on many of those keywords, and you’ll start getting eyes for your blog.
But you want to leverage the little traffic from SEO.
That’s where other channels come into place. A healthy content marketing mix must include a wide range of content formats.
You can create an in-depth ebook on email marketing. Or you can create insightful infographics, host educational webinars, or even open a YouTube channel.
The goal at this stage is to create super-quality content that makes your brand shine more than competitors.
Step 2. MOFU content.
Keyword research still plays a significant role here. You want to direct the portion of visitors past the TOFU stage back to your website as they evaluate different providers.
The most preferred keywords for MOFU blog post content should be comparison-related and listicles.
Again, as said earlier, email marketing is a vast niche. MOFU keywords like “best email marketing tools” already have a high KD.
You’ll need to use unique key terms with less volume. For example, you can focus on long-tail keywords that most visitors in the MOFU stage search. A good example is “Best email marketing tools for startups.”
While the volume is low, it lets you tap into a particular audience in their search.
As you publish the blog posts, create case studies and email newsletters to nurture leads. Also, consider having active social media platforms to spread your brand.
Step 3: BOFU Content
Some content marketers argue that you don’t need to prioritize MOFU and BOFU if you’re in a competitive industry.
While it may seem like you’re breaking the marketing funnel, there’s some truth. You don’t want to start educating an audience that already knows what it needs.
Consider email marketing, a broad niche equipped with numerous tools. Your target audience likely possesses a foundational understanding.
Instead of wasting money and resources following the content marketing funnel, invest in BOFU content strategically.
The best content at this stage is channeled to sell your product. Typically, you’d go deeper into product comparisons and demos, offer free trials, and create customer success stories.
Conclusion
Content marketing is a long-term game. And it even becomes longer if you don’t approach it with a clear strategy.
The content marketing funnel doesn’t mean you’ll get your ROI faster. The goal is to create a straightforward content system that embraces your customers based on their buyer journey.
It ensures you get quality leads to buy your product by the time they’ve reached the conversion stage. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll start getting qualified leads.