This funnel. That funnel.
Marketers and salespeople love their funnels 🙂
So, what exactly is the middle-of-funnel (MoFu) marketing? What are the strategies and tips to help businesses target this tier of leads?
We’ll explore the answers to these in this blog.
Let’s get started!
What Is Mid-Funnel Marketing?
Mid-funnel marketing, also referred to as middle-of-the-funnel marketing, is catering to a different class of leads, as we discussed in the intro.
These leads are past the awareness stage by now. They have interest and are currently evaluating what your small business has to offer.
They’re aware of their problems and pain points and are considering which products or services could be a potential fit.
However, they have yet to reach the bottom of the funnel, which is usually when purchasing decisions get made.
New leads can enter your small business sales funnel from the middle, especially if they’re qualified leads.
Your new customers can even arrive during their second pass-through on the sales funnel in this part. Your goal is different than when working with leads, in that you’re trying to encourage a repeat purchase.
With new leads, even if they are qualified leads, you’re trying to get them to make a first-time purchase.
However, now is not the time to begin bombarding your leads with sales messages trying to cinch that deal.
They are still in the evaluation stage, after all, and they will stay there until they make up their mind.
Rather than trying to earn the sale prematurely, your primary goal with mid-funnel marketing is to nurture these leads or new customers.
You want to provide information that will educate them on your products and services.
Even if they enter the funnel already cognizant of what your small business offers, that doesn’t mean the lead knows everything yet.
After all, if they did, they would have already made their purchasing decision or exited from the funnel when they decided that your products and services aren’t good enough for them.
Read also: 5 Essential Marketing Funnel Basics Every Business Needs to Know
Middle-of-the-Funnel Marketing Tactics and Strategies
Keeping in mind your goals when working with leads at this stage of the sales funnel, we now want to share the following mid-funnel marketing strategies that you can utilize.
These tactics should guide your lead further down the funnel.
Product or service pages
A product or service page is like a landing page but less salesy.
You’re just trying to educate your lead about your products and services as much as you can.
You will have to write a page for every product or service in your roster, which cannot be helped.
If you have resources or guides on your product or service, include hyperlinks to this helpful information.
You can also add links to past blog posts and videos on a product or service, especially if it’s been around for a while.
Avoid the need to talk about pricing or reviews or anything of that sort.
Your lead is probably aware of all this information already anyway, and that veers too far from the kind of info you’re supposed to provide to leads in this stage of the sales funnel.
Read also: A Beginner’s Guide to Lead Funnels: How to Double Your Sales
Webinars
A webinar is another valuable opportunity to teach your mid-funnel leads about your products or services.
Since your lead isn’t yet ready to make a purchasing decision, we doubt they’d pay for a webinar at this stage either.
You thus might decide to offer the webinar for free only to mid-funnel leads and then charge existing customers to access the same webinar.
If the webinar is older and can be repurposed, then you won’t be so concerned with charging for it since you probably already made good money from that webinar anyway.
Outside of the webinar itself, you can also offer transcripts at this time for the busy lead who might not have time to watch your entire webinar.
Read also: eCommerce Conversion Funnel in 5 Stages
Email newsletters
Since your lead is interested and informed, the chances are good that they’ve already opted into your email list.
If you’re not already producing automated email content to go to your middle-of-the-funnel leads compared to your bottom-of-the-funnel and top-of-the-funnel leads, you need to.
Email newsletters are a great example of such content.
You might only send newsletters periodically, such as once a month or once a quarter, but each time you send a newsletter, it pushes your brand to the top of the lead’s mind.
Of course, you don’t want to wait an entire quarter for the lead to make their purchasing decision, so that’s why you’ll supplement email newsletters with other forms of content.
Read also: eCommerce Sales Funnels 101: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners
Case studies
For instance, case studies are a great mid-funnel marketing tactic. Case studies generate trust and authority in your small business and prove that your products and services can fulfill the needs of others.
If your lead sees their own problem or a problem like theirs being solved by your products and services, that can push them to make a purchasing decision.
Read also: What Is Direct Marketing? Does It Work? [13 Ways To Do It]
Blog posts
Blog content is also very useful mid-funnel content.
Rather than take existing blog posts and send them to your lead, create content specifically for middle-of-the-funnel leads.
What kinds of questions do they have at this stage that need answering?
What do they need to know about your products and services that they don’t already? What do they need to know about your company that they don’t already?
Keeping these questions in mind, create an editorial calendar where you produce mid-funnel content.
Read also: Behavioral Targeting: The Future of Digital Marketing
Conclusion
Mid-funnel marketing required different types of content altogether. The leads that enter the sales funnel here are more informed than most leads but are still on the fence about their purchasing decisions.
By using the marketing strategies we outlined here today, you can inform and guide mid-funnel leads on their way to the bottom of the funnel.
