Okay so you’ve built this amazing blog and now the leads will start pouring in and becoming customers, right? Wrong.
Well, partially wrong. If you’ve taken the steps to ensure this “top of the funnel” content will further lead your visitors into your sales funnel, then yes absolutely! But if you’ve only created this blog with the expectation that it alone will do all the work – you should read a little further.
In a recent article titled “Why Inbound Marketing is Necessary at Every Stage of the Sales Funnel,” the HubSpot team discusses the value of implementing inbound marketing tactics at each stage of the buyer’s journey through your funnel.
[bctt tweet=”Inbound Marketing is Necessary at Every Stage of the Sales Funnel” username=”@HubSpot”]
Before you dig into the depths of this highly detailed article, we took the liberty of extracting the basics of what we believe you need to know.
THE SALES FUNNEL AND INBOUND MARKETING
Let’s think of your sales funnel as an equivalent to your car, and inbound marketing, the oil. Sure, your car might run for a while without the recommended amount of oil, but we both know that wouldn’t last.
They didn’t coin the phrase “well-oiled machine” for nothing.
The same can be said for your sales funnel. If you’re not fully implementing an inbound marketing strategy at each phase of your funnel.
INBOUND MARKETING AT THE TOP OF THE FUNNEL (TOFU)
When at the TOFU, a consumer is trying to find resources that can help he or she determine possible ways to fill a need or fix a problem that they have.
For example, someone is looking for possible ways to have a television mounted on a wall. And this is a service that you offer. It would be appropriate that your TOFU offer is to post a blog showing the value of having a TV professionally mounted. It wouldn’t hurt to also include the risks and dangers associated with attempting to mount a TV on your own.
While the TOFU level leads should eventually convert into sales leads, HubSpot emphasizes that this is level is essentially pointless if you have nothing to take them further into your funnel.
This is where your inbound strategy for your TOFU needs to coincide with your MOFU plan.
INBOUND MARKETING AT THE MIDDLE OF THE FUNNEL (MOFU)
The top of the sales funnel’s purpose is to generate interest. The middle of the sales funnel is where it gets more exciting. Here’s where you filter through all of the interested people (which can sometimes number in the millions) and connect with qualified sales leads.
As HubSpot suggests, inbound marketing offers a great set of channels for executing this.
In order to connect with qualified leads at the MOFU level, you can use gated inbound content to:
- Continue providing leads with the content that they need.
- Filter out any leads that aren’t serious about possibly buying.
- And create a stronger connection with each qualified lead by acquiring an email and name.
INBOUND MARKETING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL (BOFU)
The BOFU level is where (if you’re implementing everything so far) most sales will close.
HubSpot notes that most marketers make the mistake of only going for the “low-hanging fruit” leads that can be converted by way of free trials and demos. But because you cannot guess when a lead is ready to make a purchase, this strategy can interrupt their trip down the sales funnel.
[bctt tweet=”You cannot guess when a lead is ready to make a purchase, this can interrupt their trip down the sales funnel.” username=”@HubSpot”]
Especially if this type of offer leads to a dead end.
Keeping this common sales funnel mistake in mind, make sure you’re combining your BOFU and MOFU offers. They can then work in sync (like a well-oiled machine); to ensure that you are providing the right offer at the right time.