The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) sounds like it’s grimy and hard to clean. But that’s only because it’s an outdated visual that needs a straw scrubby.
BOFU is actually something that’s spotless because it’s been scoured by the repetitive scrape of shiny coins.
The bottom of the funnel is the last stage of the buyer journey—the fun part. It’s where all the effort you put into your 3-tiered marketing plan (TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU) turns into money.
BOFU, the focus of this blog post, is where customers decide they like your moxie and flow some of their budgets into your bank account. Kaching.
Want to know how to get them to do that?
You bet your BOFU you do.
That’s why we put together an article that covers everything at the bottom of the funnel and how to create campaigns that convert.
Pay attention because, you’re about to get the inside scoop on
- how to pick the best bottom of funnel call-to-action (CTA’s that win)
- how to increase your BOFU audience (by doing TOFU and BOFU right)
- what to avoid (Watch that temperature)
- bang-on BOFU offers that bring in the bling (booyah)
Okay, let’s get your BOFU strategy sorted out and get you converting more browsers into buyers pronto.
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We’ll keep it brief; we wouldn’t be very good digital marketers if we didn’t position stuff in the context of where it goes.
TOFU (top of the funnel) and MOFU (middle of the funnel) are the other two tiers of the marketing funnel. More on that below.
Disclaimer: At KlientBoost, we consider the traditional marketing funnel a bit outmoded. The shape is off; that wide top and narrow bottom don’t describe the journey properly anymore.
What do we mean by that?
The marketing funnel should focus on your most valuable customers (the ones who pop out the BOFU), giving them a massive microphone and making them feel like appreciated superstars.
The traditional marketing funnel doesn’t illustrate that—it puts the focus at the top on strangers.
So that’s one caveat.
But as long as you put emphasis on the people you’ve already converted out the bottom (those who went all in with you), there’s much to be learned from the funnel.
Marketing funnels will be different from industry to industry, but the gist of it stays the same: customers move along a stage-to-stage journey as they convert from passersby who notice your store (awareness TOFU stage) into interested shoppers who stop to look at your window display (consideration MOFU stage) into customers who take your product off the shelf and buy it (conversion BOFU stage).
That conversion only happens when you put some effort into it. And that’s what we call “nurturing.”
Not everyone likes to be nurtured.
Most people don’t enjoy your funnel actually, and they pretend a friend is calling them from across the street as you catch their eye. There are more people at the top of the funnel (walking by) than in the middle (judging your styling) or at the bottom (purchasing).
A good marketer understands where each of these tiered prospects are in their journey through your funnel. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What do they need where they are in the funnel?
You’ll have a different plan for each stage of the funnel.
TOFU (not a soy product) is at the top of the funnel. Every comprehensive business marketing plan should have a top of the funnel marketing strategy that casts a wide net into the universe (more specifically, the internet) to pull in those prospects in the awareness stage.
Your role is to educate these potential buyers and show them some flash.
Make them aware of what they’re not aware of.
If you don’t already have a unique value proposition, this is where that goes—so create one. How are you different? What do you do better? Get that message out there.
Simply put, TOFU is where you peak interest, establish your presence, push your branding, and start to nudge prospects through the nurturing phase.
This is where you apply channels like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), blog post content (hey hey), YouTube videos, social media posts, and prospecting PPC campaigns.
MOFU (not slang for a big jerk) is the next step down.
Your audience has narrowed, but these prospects are aware you exist. They’re looking in the window and they like what they see. Now it’s about getting them to walk in your door and pull out their wallets.
Your MOFU moves are all about gaining trust.
Peak their attention with SEO, Google Ads, and inbound content marketing like segmented emails (targeted newsletters). These shoppers are looking for a solution to whatever problem they have. And now they are aware of this problem because you pointed it out and put it on their radar in your TOFU content campaign.
This is your opportunity to empower them, identify their pain points, and share with them how you can pull that thorn better than your competition—because of what sets you apart.
Give them a grand customer experience.
It’s time to get your entire conversion funnel firing on all cylinders. Your bottom-of-the-funnel content strategy does some heavy lifting. Hold it up as the poster child of your content marketing campaigns because this is where the lead nurturing intensifies and the customer journey ends in a buying decision.
Did you know that it takes an average of 8 touches to convert a prospect?
Getting to the bottom of your funnel likely took some time. But those prospective customers stuck with you through that process.
They think you’re the sh*t and they are looking for one more reason to sign on.
These almost-customers were enlightened thanks to your TOFU campaigns that identified a problem they maybe didn’t know they had. Your unique value proposition got them excited. Your MOFU campaign created trust by giving them valuable information that boosted your authority. You increased your BOFU audience size by adequately addressing the upper funnel traffic with proper CTAs (more on that below).
And now you have the unique opportunity to wow them and drive home a conversion (purchase decision). They’re at your fingertips at this point. You can’t afford poor SEO, lackluster emails, misaligned messaging, or PPC BOFU campaigns that miss the mark and hurt your bottom line.
Your warmest audience—these are your highest-qualified leads—gets the strongest campaigns across multiple channels. These campaigns narrow from research-gathering blog articles to specific content like customer stories, trials, live demos, and personalized consultations.
How do you convert your smallest crowd (the BOFUs) and get them to purchase your product?
Answer: With the right call-to-action button.
Call-to-actions are not all created equal. Apply the wrong one and you scare a potential customer off because you ask for too much (if you’re too aggressive).
Knowing what CTA to use for the right traffic is vital.
To increase the number of hot leads in your BOFU audience, match your CTAs to the TOFU and MOFU temperature. If you’re giving your TOFU audience a ‘get a demo’ CTA you’re scaring off could-be customers and shrinking your MOFU and BOFU audience.
Here is how the traditional marketing funnel typically works…
TOFU is your cold prospects, the people who have never heard of you and haven’t visited your site or landing page before. In Facebook advertising land, ice cubes are usually the people you target with a Saved Audience.
MOFU is your lukewarm audience: people who know who you are but don’t know for sure what you do (but think they want to learn about you).
BOFU is your volcano lava traffic: people who have bought something from you before or are at the bottom of the conversion funnel, on a short path to becoming a customer.
Your call-to-action buttons for your BOFU volcano crowd should be for things like free trials, demos, consultations, and personalized audits.
If you’re looking for inspiration, here are 61 call-to-action examples that you can’t help but click.
Every call-to-action serves a purpose, and knowing what works and what doesn’t will change how you design your ads and landing pages.
Here are a few key takeaways:
- Only use a single call-to-action per page, form, email, etc. As soon as you introduce a second CTA, you worsen your visitors’ attention ratio and lessen your chance of them converting on even a single CTA.
- Increase your BOFU audience by feeding your colder audience (TOFU/MOFU) the correct CTA like coupons, toolkits, checklists, email courses, infographics, or white papers.
- Your BOFU CTA should mirror the conversion temperature of your warm traffic. If you’ve already given your client a white paper then they’re beyond the awareness stage; they have a deeper insight into what you do and it’s time to give them a stronger CTA like a “Free Trial” or “Get a Demo.”
- You can use a cold call-to-action for hot traffic, but you can’t use a hot call-to-action for cold traffic.
After feeding your top-of-the-funnel and middle-of-the-funnel audiences with blogs, premium content, infographics, white papers, webinars, and ebooks, it’s time to buckle down and end the buyer’s journey in a conversion.
Not providing the right offer is an ad mistake that runs the risk of losing targets in your sales funnel completely. Remember to check your CTA with the traffic temperature; don’t give your cold traffic (TOFU) a ‘get a demo’ CTA or ‘book a consultation’ CTA.
According to Pardot, 70% of buyers turn to Google 2-3 times during their search to find out more about their problems, potential solutions, relevant businesses, etc.
Many people also turn to social media and forums for recommendations. At this point, they aren’t looking for promotional content; they’re looking to learn more about potential solutions for their needs.
Google RLSA (Remarketing List Search Ads) come into play here. Continue to nurture users down the funnel and provide the correct offer, knowing they have already done some research. Here are 7 examples of how to use remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) successfully.
73% of marketers attributed email marketing to increasing their conversion rate efforts. Emails are a powerful weapon in your BOFU content arsenal. Send appropriate and relevant email content on a regular basis.
Email BOFU content campaigns should reinforce that your products/services work. They should link to concrete case studies or strong reviews. Doubling down on your unique value prop or pushing your stronger content pieces will increase metrics exponentially.
Email is also a great way to send time-sensitive offers. Deadlines in emails create urgency to convert. These emails could include flash sales, coupons, or “preferred customer” deals to add a personal touch to your email. Here are 34 creative ways to retarget users in email campaigns.
Your straightforward branded and product-related SEO content is also a critical component to close those BOFU leads/sales.
This is your time to wow them with solid reviews, testimonials, blog posts, and a trustworthy sales process. The value you provide needs to shine through and be the tipping point for users to convert.
BOFU content for your PPC campaigns should be a mixture of what you’re using in Email and SEO BOFU: webinars, ebooks, white papers, and robust content offers.
But don’t feed the same content repeatedly; create a funnel by excluding audiences that have already hit some of these content pieces so you can plan out their journey.
Capitalize on fresh, creative image ads or video ads. On average, you have 1.7 seconds to capture a user’s attention on any mobile content. Use that time wisely to close sales and boost lead generation.
A strong Facebook BOFU ad campaign could target either 10% or 25% time-on-site visitors. You could also create an audience list where the user must hit 1 or 2 of your ebooks, white papers, webinars, or whatever content you fed them earlier in the funnel.
Lastly, give your current customers the microphone. This is a precious resource that you should spread across ads, SEO, and email. What device builds your credibility better than the say-so of your current customers?
They create the biggest hype.
New customers listen to your current fans. From quotes to video testimonials and case studies, these assets pay dividends in the long run.
Test out different temperature CTAs for your BOFU audience
- Cold CTAs: Coupon, Toolkit, Email Course, White Paper, Infographic
- Lukewarm CTAs: Webinar, Case Study, Giveaway, Ebook, Quiz
- Hot CTAs: Consultation, Quote, Purchase, Trial, Demo
Create different CTA paths for users:
- First touchpoint hits infographic, second touchpoint hits your case study, third touchpoint hits your ‘get a demo’ page.
Don’t be afraid to test out cold CTAs to your BOFU audience:
- First touchpoint hits white paper, second touchpoint hits blog, and the third touchpoint hits case study.
Get your loyal customers to push your product:
- Create ads with customers raving about you
We prioritized BOFU content for Flo Technologies, a product that most homeowners wouldn’t know much about, and this company saw excellent results.
Here’s how that went:
We fed TOFU and MOFU a healthy amount of ebooks, blogs, and other informative literature to create awareness and educate potential customers about the world of smart water devices.
By applying bottom-of-funnel strategies like CTA offers and conversion-focused landing page optimization, KlientBoost
- increased Flo Technologies’ Facebook Ads purchases by 1,665%
- increased ROAS by 168% (Return on ad spend)
- increased conversion value by 1,125% from Q1 2020 to Q2 2020.
The changes also significantly reduced the campaigns’ cost per acquisition (CPA) and generated other bottom-line improvements in their PPC campaigns.
This massive win was largely due to synchronized BOFU funnels from email, SEO, customer video testimonials, matching CTAs with traffic types, and PPC working in tandem with all of these, creating that sweet, sweet ROAS.
If you’re starting to improve your conversion funnel, your best bet is to start at the bottom and work upward, putting all three layers in place.
95% of buyers choose a vendor that provides content for each stage of the buying process.
Come at it from multiple channels: SEO, email, and PPC.
Each of these marketing channels plays their part and deserves dedicated attention and timed planning, but PPC will be your golden tool in terms of importance and maximizing ROAS.
You don’t want to waste ad spend at your most critical part of the funnel. You do want to improve your BOFU PPC ROAS (Bottom of the funnel pay-per-click return on ad spend) and run effective Bottom-of-the-funnel PPC campaigns.
Remember to think about where the customer is on their journey from don’t know you yet to want to buy from you and match your content offer and CTA appropriately.
Don’t scare them off with a CTA/content offer that’s too strong or weak. Continue to test CTAs with your BOFU audience and create specific buyer journey funnels (first offer: white paper, second offer: case study, and third offer: consultation).
Each part of the funnel is essential but, when it comes to easy wins and picking that low-hanging fruit, BOFU is your bread and butter.
Begin with BOFU.
If you’ve got BOFU down and you want more insight and inspiration about grabbing the attention of those passersby (TOFU prospects), hop over to our dedicated post about Top of the Funnel tactics and add those to your digital marketing strategy.
And if you want to know why we think the funnel could use a facelift and take on a more modern shape, put on some flip flops and read this.