This week we’re looking at the middle of the funnel after last week’s focus on the Problem Stage and top of funnel (TOF) content. We also talked about a customer’s place in their sales journey and how to get them to stay engaged with your brand throughout. B2B marketers tend to get caught up talking about their products and forget about the importance of the middle of funnel (MOF) content.
This step is the bread and butter of your funnel because these leads are already engaging with your brand. They want someone to help them find a solution, and you can do that. MOF content gives relevance to buyers’ issues by providing them with everything they need to find a solution.
Middle of the Funnel Solutions
During the buyer’s journey customers who become Solution Aware now need help specifying their needs. They know they have a problem, but they now need someone to help them fix it.
There’s always a giant leap from the problem awareness phase (top of the funnel) to the decision phase (bottom of the funnel) in a buyer’s journey. This is where your personalized MOF content can really make a significant difference in a lead’s consideration.
Although marketers spend a large part of their budgets at the top of the funnel, the middle is where your ad conversions declare how ready they are for you. These MOF prospects are great because they have already demonstrated that they are interested in solving their problem and if you can help them with a solution, you win. Therefore, you need to provide the right personalized content to move them down the funnel.
MOF Content That Converts
Knowing that MOF content is necessary is only half of the battle. You need to understand how to present your content to provide solutions and features that solve a customer’s problems. Social proof is one way to do this. This is a concept that people can be persuaded by the behavior of others. In practical terms, these can be online reviews of your products and services that help a buyer decide to purchase. Testimonials and case studies are also great tools to help spark a conversion.
Other ways can be through an active and large social media following, as well as, influencer marketing. These are ways to prove that your brand is worth the investment and your solutions are worth consideration. At the middle of the funnel, leads want reassurance that it’s worth their time to consider your solution. But, this still isn’t a sale.
The Goal of Middle of the Funnel Content is to Get Qualified Leads to Your Sales Team!
every sales manager
Types of MOF Content
The type of content that makes an impression on leads needs to solve their problem and simultaneously position your brand as the solution. Depending on your product or service, there are many ways to do this. You could offer targeted content in the form of videos, webinars, white papers, case studies, or technical notes.
There are a wide variety of ways to implement this strategy, and it all depends on viewing the funnel as a whole. You could also look into developing pillar blogs as a subset of your expertise. Pillar blogs are a great way to cluster content together under your service or product umbrella. These are ways to set yourself apart from the competition by showing that you have expertise that focuses on customer solutions.
Get the Conversions
Through personalized and thoughtful MOF content, you can help direct leads where you want them to go. Ultimately, this should be booking a demo or a call with sales. However, if you have a complex solution and tend to attract tire-kickers, it’s completely okay to add barriers to your demo or sales team with pre-qualification forms or a layer of sales development reps (SDRs) who take the initial call to make sure they are a good fit for your services. Nothing makes someone want you more than exclusivity.
You don’t want to miss out on the plethora of opportunities that exist in MOF content. Experienced marketers can dissect prospects’ behaviors and needs at all funnel levels, even the middle and direct buyers into a sale and even post-sale and retention. In short, don’t forget to plan and customize your MOF content strategy.
Next week, we’ll move onto the bottom of the funnel and post-sales content.