TOFU, MOFU, And BOFU: Crafting Content for The Sales Funnel

craft professional sales funnel content

There are many acronyms in digital marketing, like ROI, SOAS, SEO, etc., and marketers love to use them frequently. That’s not to say they are overused. They do have their usefulness in sales and marketing lingo.

Creating a sales funnel is an essential step in boosting traffic and converting more visitors into buyers. If you’re a seasoned marketer, or heavily involved in training sales teams in your company, there’s a good chance that you have heard of these three abbreviations: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. If you have not, don’t worry! We’ll get you up to speed about what exactly these terms mean, and also give some content marketing tips.

If you’re interested in improving your website traffic and converting more visitors into leads, you should align your content with your sales funnel. This will guide visitors through the buying journey and meet their needs. Moreover, crafting content to fit this funnel will result in more consistent traffic, more leads, and more growth. Here’s how.

The Sales Funnel

sales funnel

Before we start, you need to know that these terms are related to the sales funnel. In e-commerce, a sales funnel is a consumer-focused marketing model that represents a typical customer journey when making a purchase on a website. The goal of a sales funnel is to gather the attention of online visitors, turn them into leads, and ultimately convert these leads into a sale.

Creating a sales funnel work is another story altogether. A study involving several companies revealed that 68% of the businesses surveyed had never had a strategy to evaluate the sales funnel and that a whopping 79% of sales funnels failed to generate any leads.

Companies spend a lot of time and money on building an effective sales funnel to maximize sales opportunities. An engaging content marketing strategy helps to achieve this goal. You should consider hiring a professional content marketing agency like One Content Pro for crafting content for the sales funnel and convert more visitors into buyers.

Read more: 8Ps Of Marketing Work Together in The Marketing Mix

What do TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU mean?

what do tofu, mofu, and bofu mean

A sales funnel can be split into three parts. Each part represents a separate section of the customer journey.

  1. Top of the funnel (TOFU)
  2. Middle of the funnel (MOFU)
  3. Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

As you can imagine, TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU are all needed for generating and converting leads, but each requires a different approach.

1. Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

TOFU marketing marks the beginning of the customer journey, and it’s also the widest part of the funnel. This means that the TOFU audience is the broadest part. At this stage, the customer is coming across your marketing content and trying to figure out your products and services. The reality is that most of the visitors at this stage will not buy anything from you. So you need to engage them and build trust to turn them into potential leads.

Dos

  • Use content to increase awareness
  • Use simple, educational content
  • Try to answer common questions
  • Tailor content to your brand persona
  • Address pain points

Don’ts

  • Provide detailed product or service information
  • Offer a sales pitch
  • Provide frequent information

TOFU Marketing Content Ideas

1. Social Media Updates

You need to know the platforms your primary customers frequently visit, so you can focus your efforts on the right ones. Social media posts can also lead visitors to your MOFU and BOFU content.

2. Blogs

Blogs are a great way to discuss common issues and offer innovative solutions to readers. Your product use cases can be highlighted through backlinks. You can also add content that appeals to a larger audience. You can use blog content for running a newsletter as well.

Read more: 7 Tips for Creating Better-Ranked Blogs

3. Audio/Video Content

Short audio or video clips that summarize key points are ideal at this stage. Remember, most visitors don’t want to spend too much time on research, and would rather have quick answers to their questions and problems.

4. Website Pages

Website content helps to convince potential customers who are considering your product. You need to have a simple yet informative home page design. We also recommend FAQ pages or content specifically tailored to a market segment.

5. Research Reports / Ebooks / Whitepapers

This content should be short and easily downloadable. Use easy-to-understand visuals and avoid using very complex terms (or explain them using clear definitions).

6. Quizzes/Forms

These are useful for requesting specific information from visitors about their needs. These are useful for qualifying leads from TOFU marketing campaigns. These should be very brief at this stage.

7. Infographics

Infographics can be effective at grabbing customer attention, while also providing a summary of key points you want to communicate. They can also be integrated with social media and your MOFU and BOFU content.

2. Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

The next stage of the sales funnel is MOFU. MOFU is a critical stage of closing a sale because it means that you have generated warm sales leads already. Most of the visitors from the TOFU stage have been filtered out, and the users at this point already know what they want from your product or service. They might also like to seek more product or service information. For you, that’s the target audience, and it also shows that your sales funnel is actually working.

MOFU is where you can now bring your product into the discussion in more detail. Since they are actively looking for information, this is typically a good time to add contact forms for visitors to access your marketing content.

Dos

  • Use content that helps in the evaluation of solutions
  • Provide detailed, practical information (including comparisons and resource guides)
  • Gate content behind registration forms

Don’ts

  • Introduce paywalls
  • Request too much personal information
  • Focus on other vendors

MOFU Content Ideas

1. User Guides

How-to content can be helpful to inform customers about your product.

2. Detailed Whitepapers / Research

This is the same as your TOFU marketing content, but you can go into more detail at the MOFU stage. This is important if you want to capture leads.

3. Webinars

Webinars provide a way to engage and train customers about topics relevant to their interests. You can then tie your offers into them. Webinars have a Q&A session that answers user questions while gathering feedback for marketers.

4. Podcasts

Podcasts can offer detailed information to potential customers. You can network with a community influencer to add value to your podcast content.

5. Comparison Charts

Use these to compare different products and solutions. These can be easily integrated into infographics.

3. Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

By now, you might be wondering, ‘what is BOFU?’ BOFU is the last stage of the sales funnel, and it has the narrowest audience. Buyers at this stage are very close to making a purchase. However, you still need to close the sale, and your customers will be well-informed at this point. They have likely considered other options for purchase.

Your BOFU marketing needs to demonstrate your product or service, and convey its benefits directly. In other words, customers need to know everything they are getting. BOFU is the best time to make a hard sales pitch. This is also a good time for including discount offers.

Dos

  • Focus on conversions
  • Describe specific benefits
  • Give references to other vendors
  • Give Demos
  • Offer follow-up to initial meetings

Don’ts

  • Start with a hard sales offer
  • Leave out key details
  • Overpromise on discounts

What are BOFU Content Ideas

1. Live Demos

Showing and telling go a long way towards getting conversions. Use presentations and other rich media tools to supplement your demos.

2. Free Trials

Free trials can help users get a feel of your product and, in many cases, constitute the final step needed for a conversion.

3. Technical/Vendor Comparisons

At this stage, you can give vendor-specific comparisons to prospects. This BOFU content helps clarify any details they already know or have missed out on.

4. Case-Studies, testimonials, and customer stories

Show how your product or service has benefitted other companies and buyers. This type of BOFU marketing content gives credibility to your brand by providing a source of third-party validation.

Craft Professional Sales Funnel Content

TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content are crucial for funnelling prospective customers into conversions. However, every company has unique content marketing requirements that depend on its target audience and industry. Covering all three bases timely and effectively for your sales funnel content marketing strategy can be challenging.

Or you can leave it to content marketing experts at One Content Pro. Our adept and experienced copywriters help you generate content that moves your leads through the sales funnel and every stage of the customer’s journey.

Let us streamline and speed up your sales process with a content marketing funnel that works!

Contact us today for a quick consultation.