Top-of-funnel (ToFu) content is informative and educational material that doesn’t directly promote a product or service. Instead, it focuses on generating buzz around your brand.
While it may not make a hard sell, providing valuable information through top of funnel content increases brand knowledge, builds trust and creates future sales opportunities.
In this article, we’ll learn more about top of funnel marketing by discussing:
• 3 Marketing Funnel Stages
• What Is Top of Funnel Content Marketing?
• Top-of-Funnel Content Strategies That Work
• 7 Top of Funnel Content Marketing Best Practices
• 4 Metrics for Measuring Success
• Nurture Leads and Establish Trust With ToFu Content
3 Marketing Funnel Stages
To understand the importance of top of funnel content, it’s necessary to have a basic foundation of the sales funnel stages, specifically the lead generation funnels.
Lead generation funnels are visual representations of potential customers moving through your sales process from awareness to consideration to purchase. Different marketing tactics are used to nurture leads and boost audience engagement at every stage.
Stage 1: Top of the Funnel
The top of the funnel is where most potential leads enter — this is usually through awareness campaigns. Generate interest in your company and products by providing valuable information to help the customer further down their journey.
Customers are researching their options and learning more about a particular subject matter at this stage. Therefore, the content should provide helpful information that helps prospects make informed decisions, such as:
• How-to articles
• Educational videos
• Industry whitepapers
• Infographics
• Interviews with experts in the field
• Best of lists or reviews
• Case studies from customers who have experienced success with your product/service.
Ultimately, the goal is to capture potential leads’ attention and draw them in with helpful information that builds brand trust.
Stage 2: Middle-of-the-Funnel
In the middle of the funnel, prospects start to become more familiar with your product and compare it with other options. This stage provides more detailed information about what differentiates you from competitors, such as features, benefits and pricing.
Content should focus on how customers benefit from using your product or service:
• Product overviews or demos
• Comparison guides
• Testimonials from customers who have used your product/service
• Data sheets showing specifications
• Free trial offers or sample products/services
Prospects at this stage may already be close to deciding, so the goal is to provide them with the information they need to make an informed decision.
Stage 3: Bottom-of-the-Funnel
At this stage, prospects are ready to buy and need that final push. Content should focus on providing prospects with all the necessary information to make a purchase decision. This could include:
• Promotional offers or discounts
• Free shipping
• Incentives for referring friends/family
• User testimonials or reviews
• Product tutorials
• After-sales support information
By providing helpful information at each marketing funnel stage, you guide prospects through the buying journey while supporting your eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts. Now let’s look at how ToFu content can help achieve that.
What Is Top of Funnel Content Marketing?
Effective top-of-funnel content is critical to the success of your overall sales and marketing efforts. This initial step serves as a catalyst, enticing potential customers to engage with your brand.
You cover a wide range of topics, even those that may not be relevant to your target audience at the moment but might be in the future. This casts a wide net and supports lead generation by introducing your brand to anyone who may have an interest in your offerings.
When prospects are familiar with your brand, they are more likely to purchase, and as your funnel expands, so does the potential for positive recommendations from satisfied customers.
All these factors contribute to establishing your brand as a trusted and reliable choice for new prospects – a driving factor for increasing sales opportunities.
Top-of-Funnel Content Strategies That Work
Unlike direct sales pitches, top-of-the-funnel content is a non-intrusive approach to engaging potential customers. This value driven marketing helps address customer pain points, offers resources and establishes your business as a knowledgeable and supportive leader.
Let’s take a look at some of the top strategies for success:
• Infographics – Simplified and attention-grabbing data. They are also highly shareable and can increase brand reach significantly.
• Blog Posts – Informative articles optimized with keywords for SEO purposes help attract potential customers and establish credibility.
• E-Books – In-depth content offering valuable solutions in exchange for contact information.
• Webinars & Podcasts – Audio and visual content showcasing expertise help build trust and generate leads.
• Videos – Short, captivating content designed to foster emotional connection and drive interest toward your brand.
Up Next: Get tips on how to attract customers with engaging ToFu content.
7 Best Practices When Writing Top-of-Funnel Content
Boost audience engagement and brand confidence with these tips on how to attract customers with top-of-funnel content:
1) Focus on Quality Over Quantity
Quality trumps quantity when it comes to creating content. That said, focus on creating meaningful and engaging content that adds value to the reader. Find out what topics your audience is interested in and provide helpful content related to those topics.
2) Identify Your Audience & Content Needs
To do this, conduct a customer survey or market research to understand who your target customers are and what they’re looking for in regard to information. You should also understand the sales funnel stages and how each type of content fits into it.
3) Use Data & Research
The more data and research you have in your content, the more persuasive it will likely be. Having facts, figures and expert quotes to back up your points helps establish industry authority, as visitors are more likely to trust content backed by solid data.
4) Promote Your Content
Social media platforms offer an excellent opportunity to reach customers and boost audience engagement. With billions of users on various networks, you can effectively convey your message, build customer relationships and foster loyalty.
Use social media platforms like Facebook, X (previously Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn for content promotion. Aim to get featured by influencers and bloggers in your niche, or use targeted ads to boost discoverability.
5) Repurpose Content
Don’t have the time or resources to produce new top-of-funnel content? Consider repurposing existing content. You can turn a blog post into an infographic, an ebook into a webinar or even create a podcast series from old blog posts.
Repurposing content is a great way to reach new audiences while keeping content fresh and engaging without creating something from scratch every time.
6) Focus on SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to reach more people. Ensure your content ranks high in search engines with these simple tactics:
• Creating compelling headlines that answer the user’s query.
• Crafting content that includes the right keywords and phrases.
• Use of internal links to relevant pages on your website.
• Utilizing external links to authoritative websites and sources.
• Writing long-form content (1500+ words).
• Using multimedia, such as images, videos, infographics etc., to support your points.
• Ensuring your content is mobile-friendly.
7) Measure & Optimize
Top of funnel marketing is an ongoing process of producing new material to engage visitors. A content calendar can help plan and schedule in advance, ensuring a continuous flow of fresh content to stay ahead of the curve.
You should also monitor metrics such as website traffic, time on page and conversions to see which pieces are performing well and what needs improvement. Use tools like A/B testing to test different versions of your top of funnel content.
4 Metrics To Measure ToFu Success
Monitor these metrics to better understand the value of your top-of-the-funnel strategy.
• Impressions: The simplest way to gauge brand visibility. Impressions refer to the number of times content is shown to users. Suppose your ad is displayed 100 times on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Google, it will accumulate 100 impressions.
• Reach: Measures the number of individuals exposed to your content across digital platforms and helps evaluate the effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaign. If your ads reach a large audience but fail to convert them into customers, it indicates the need for performance improvements.
• Website traffic: Allows you to track the number of visitors to your site. However, note that increased web traffic from the top of funnel marketing efforts may be attributed to other lower-funnel marketing activities based on measurement and attribution.
• Bounce rate: The percentage of website visitors who leave after viewing just one page. It provides insights into user engagement with content like blogs, landing pages and product descriptions. A high bounce rate may suggest uninteresting or irrelevant content or a poor user experience.
Identifying the most crucial metrics for your top-of-funnel content relies on your overarching goals and objectives. Pinpoint the appropriate metrics for your business by working with eCommerce conversion rate optimization and SEO experts.
Nurture Leads and Establish Trust Through ToFu Content
Effective top of funnel content is pivotal in fueling your marketing and sales pipeline. It is the gateway to enhancing your lead nurturing campaign, which is crucial for closing deals.
Remember, an empty top of the funnel directly affects the bottom of the funnel. You can seal the deal faster by capitalizing on content marketing strategies that keep prospects informed and engaged throughout the buyer’s journey. Doing so helps generate leads and keep consumers excited and loyal to your brand.
At the end of the day, it’s all about providing valuable information that helps prospects make smarter purchase decisions — because happy customers are always the best kind of customer relationships.
Craft Exceptional Content for Any Phase in Your Marketing Funnel
If you’re looking for creative and effective ideas to jump-start your content marketing strategy, partnering with a digital marketing agency can get you started.
Thrive, a full-service digital marketing agency, provides a comprehensive suite of services designed to help businesses optimize their content and website for maximum impact.
With eCommerce conversion rate optimization services, value driven marketing and a lead nurturing campaign, Thrive helps companies drive more leads and sales.
Our skilled copywriters create concise, engaging content that encourages audience engagement and fosters customer relationships. We use a multi-channel approach to ensure content is seen by the right people at the right time.
Contact Thrive today for value driven marketing that compels leads to smoothly progress through the various sales funnel stages.
