FUN-nels

Talking TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU

Hi Cringers,

This week’s question comes from “recovering child actor” 😂 and public speaking coach extraordinaire, Will Greenblatt, who asks:

For anyone not in the marketing world, let me briefly explain funnels.

What the heck is a funnel?

Marketers looooove talking about funnels and making funnel charts ad nauseam, like this one:

Funnels are frameworks for understanding where your audience is at in their “buyer’s journey” (another phrase marketers love).

Content marketers use funnels to help them create and distribute content based on their audience’s awareness of a problem and level of engagement with their brand as a solution to that problem.

For Will’s audience, that problem might be, “I have to give a speech, but I have stage fright.”

This is the problem-aware phase, aka “Top of Funnel,” or TOFU (no relation to the soy product).

In the next phase, “Middle of Funnel,” or MOFU, they might look at different speaking coaches or alternative solutions for managing their stress before a speech.

After reviewing their options, they might decide that Will is their top choice. At this point, they’d “convert” aka purchase his coaching service. This is “Bottom of Funnel,” or BOFU.

Let’s say they give the speech and knock it out of the park. They’re sold. They become loyal to Will and go to him for all their future public speaking support needs.

The final phase is advocacy. They not only love Will, but they actively promote him, send him referrals, and champion his work to their friends, family, and colleagues.

Got all that?

The TL;DR - How you talk to people varies by their level of awareness of a problem and your brand/service/product as the solution to that problem.

How do you use a funnel?

The top of the funnel has the most people. At this stage, you aren’t selling. You’re simply engaging with people around the problem and/or making yourself known.

Your focus should be on answering questions, educating, entertaining, and getting people familiar with your brand.

Think how-to’s, checklists, infographics, memes, personal stories, etc. versus MOFU and BOFU content which involves more testimonials, case studies, success stories, product overviews, etc.

The LinkedIn Funnel:

Typically, funnels include different channels.

It might look something like this: Get your brand discovered on social, get consideration through email, convert through a webinar, build loyalty through your services and support, etc.

For a long time, social platforms were viewed primarily as a place for TOFU or “discovery” content.

It was where you made the initial connections before luring people to your email list or website to go deeper into a topic. However, that’s starting to change.

It’s now common for people to go through an entire funnel on one platform, like LinkedIn or TikTok.

I’ve seen this firsthand. People will discover me on LinkedIn, follow me for a while on LinkedIn, and then convert via a DM on LinkedIn. I’ve sold thousand-dollar+ service packages on LinkedIn alone.

A Note on LinkedIn Reach:

The challenge with LinkedIn is that you can’t target certain segments like you can with email marketing.

I can’t say I only want these LinkedIn connections in the consideration phase to see this post on funnels. It doesn’t work that way.

When you post on LinkedIn, the first people to see it will likely be your first-degree connections and followers.

This is why if you want someone to see your content, your best bet is to connect with them. When you connect, they automatically become a follower.

Image source: LinkedIn

If those 1st-degree connections engage with your post, then that activity will be shown to their first-degree connections (your second-level connections), and so on.

If your main goal on LinkedIn is to use it as a discovery platform to get more people in your network, and “in your funnel,” then you’ll want to focus on creating content that a large percentage of your connections and followers will engage with, which will then be shown to their followers and connections.

If you offer a service that anyone can benefit from, like public speaking coaching (or personal branding), then it makes sense to try and reach as many people as you can with a fair amount of TOFU content.

If you offer a premium service or retainer-based consulting and don’t need a ton of leads, then you could focus more on MOFU. It just depends on where you’re at, what your goals are, and how you’ve priced and packaged your services.

My Approach to LinkedIn:

At this point, I’d estimate I’m doing 50% TOFU/30% MOFU/20% BOFU on LinkedIn. 

However, I do have other channels like this email and my website, which is more for people in the consideration phase

Doing Too Much TOFU is Controversial

If you were to ask most content marketers they would tell you to concentrate most of your efforts on MOFU. The thinking is that bigger influencers/companies already have the market on educating around the problem and that you should position yourself for when people get to the consideration phase.

The problem with doing this on LinkedIn is that MOFU and BOFU content tends to be boring. People aren’t going to LinkedIn to buy anything—they’re going there for entertainment and connection.

If you do too much MOFU and BOFU, you risk losing followers and/or limiting your reach.

That’s why a lot of my focus goes to TOFU content. I create posts that help people get to know me (e.g. personality posts) and THEN position myself as a service provider.

How to determine how you focus your funnel:

Consider what problems you’re trying to solve with your content:

- Do you want more leads? Try more TOFU content that will get high engagement and increase followers. Often this is entertainment content, personal stories, or posts with more mass appeal.

-Do you want to establish yourself as an authority? Focus on more MOFU posts that demonstrate your expertise, tells your story, and illustrates why you are uniquely qualified to solve your audience’s problem. You may also benefit from connecting through other channels, like via email or YouTube to demonstrate more in-depth knowledge.

- Are people hesitant to buy? Incorporate more BOFU content. Testimonials and customer success stories are always helpful.

I generally recommend people focus on entertaining, delighting, and educating. Then, slip in some testimonials and descriptions of your services once you have them hooked.

Follow your intuition and get a feel for what your audience is connecting with. 

People buy from people they enjoy interacting with and trust. Find a balance that keeps people engaged, relatively entertained, and aware of your services and success stories.

Marketers love charts, percentages, and analytics dashboards, but at the end of the day we are people dealing with people, and people rarely follow all the rules, stay in boxes, or slide seamlessly down funnels.

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