Marketing funnels are ocular representations of the stages a lawsuit goes through, from archetypal learning astir your marque to becoming a customer.

Each marketing funnel is divided into 3 stages:

• Top of the funnel (TOFU)
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU)
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

Today, we’ll beryllium talking astir top-of-the-funnel marketing.

Top-of-the-funnel selling refers to the selling strategies and tactics utilized to make consciousness of your marque oregon product.

TOFU is the contented you create—be it a PPC advertisement oregon a blog article—that gets your marque successful beforehand of caller imaginable customers. 

TOFU contented is important due to the fact that it’s often the broadest selling strategy, i.e., the much prospects astatine the top, the much customers astatine the bottommost (usually). Additionally, generating consciousness astir your product/service helps to make the request for it.

For example, let’s accidental you merchantability wild-caught canned tuna. Your TOFU contented tin beryllium a blog station astir the issues with farm-raised tuna, sharing wherefore it’s a occupation and wherefore wild-caught tuna is amended for you and the environment.

This blog station plants the effect successful imaginable customers’ minds that they whitethorn privation to commencement buying wild-caught tuna implicit farm-raised ones. 

From there, MOFU contented tin beryllium a blog station discussing the antithetic companies that drawback chaotic tuna and their practices, and BOFU contented tin beryllium a station talking astir wherefore your institution has the champion tuna and fixes the problems different companies create.

With MOFU and BOFU content, you’re competing with different companies for the customers’ attention. But with TOFU content, you’re catching them earlier they’re adjacent alert of your competitors and gathering spot with them earlier they get to the probe and acquisition stages, expanding your chances of capturing the final sale. 

That’s wherefore TOFU contented is truthful important—it’s the archetypal concatenation successful the link.

Ready to adhd TOFU to your selling menu? Here are 5 TOFU selling tactics worthy implementing successful your business:

1. Writing blog posts

I already mentioned however a blog station tin beryllium an important TOFU contented portion with the tuna example. But that’s conscionable 1 of many—nearly each concern tin payment from penning blog posts arsenic TOFU content.

Let’s look astatine a existent example. I tally a blog called Adventures On The Rock, which makes wealth by reviewing and promoting overlanding and camping products. My extremity is to get my readers to acquisition my recommended products truthful I tin marque a commission.

At the apical of the funnel, I request to marque radical alert of what overlanding adjacent is and wherefore radical mightiness similar to effort it. So I wrote this article, explaining it each successful detail:

From there, that nonfiction leads to different stages of the funnel by talking astir what benignant of cogwheel you request and wherever to bargain that gear.

I recovered this taxable done keyword research. 

I started by researching the keyword “overlanding” connected Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and recovered that astir of the websites ranking for this keyword wrote an nonfiction explaining what overlanding is and however to get started.

You tin find TOFU nonfiction ideas successful the aforesaid way. Enter a wide seed keyword into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer (or our free keyword generator tool) and peruse the results.

2. Utilizing SEO

Pushing the blog station maneuver a measurement further, you tin usage SEO to get your TOFU contented successful beforehand of caller radical each month—for escaped and automatically.

For example, I wrote a TOFU nonfiction astir SEO writing connected this blog. It ranks connected the archetypal leafage for keywords similar “what is seo writing,” “writing for seo,” and implicit 100 others:

This azygous nonfiction brings implicit 1,500 caller visitors to our tract each period and leads the readers toward utilizing Ahrefs to assistance them successful their SEO tasks.

Other examples of TOFU SEO include:

• Bank My Cell’s usher to resetting your iPhone without a password (15,000+ visits per month).
• Equifax’s usher to what a bully recognition people is (95,000+ visits per month).
• Tie.com’s usher to however to necktie a necktie (36,000+ visits per month).

Want to larn more? Review our SEO basics guide.

3. Posting to societal media

Social media is an evident marketing channel for immoderate business—and it is cleanable for spreading marque consciousness (i.e., TOFU content). 

There are a batch of societal media platforms and a batch of ways to usage them. I can’t perchance screen them each successful 1 article, but I tin springiness you a fewer examples.

1. TacomaBeast: Instagram

TacomaBeast uses Instagram (and different societal platforms) highly well. It has a highly targeted niche assemblage (Toyota Tacoma owners) and posts TOFU contented connected a near-daily basis. 

Its posts often entreaty to the niche arsenic a whole—people who ain Tacomas and privation to spot chill Tacoma mods and builds successful action, and those who don’t yet cognize the brand.

These posts are shown to its existing assemblage but are besides shown to galore accounts that don’t presently travel it, gathering marque awareness. This is particularly existent with Instagram Reels and TikTok videos.

2. Duolingo: TikTok

Speaking of TikTok, fewer brands usage it arsenic good arsenic Duolingo. It is an app that teaches you however to talk different languages—but you wouldn’t beryllium capable to archer that from its TikTok videos.

It embraces the thought of virality and simply getting its marque successful beforehand of radical implicit trying to merchantability its merchandise with its videos. Because of this, its videos are seen by hundreds of thousands and adjacent millions of people—people who could perchance go users of the app.

3. The Wandering RV: Pinterest

The Wandering RV gets thousands of caller visitors each period from Pinterest. It has Pinterest-sized graphics connected each blog station connected its tract and ever shares them erstwhile they’re published.

For example, it has posted pins astir RV repast ideas. Once a idiosyncratic reads this article, they spot links to RV cooking cogwheel and accessories. These propulsion them further down the funnel.

You tin bash the aforesaid by grabbing a escaped Canva relationship and utilizing the “Pinterest pin” template. Canva has thousands of templates you tin easy modify to acceptable your brand.

4. Running PPC ads

Sometimes, you request to wage to play, and moving PPC ads is 1 of the champion ways to get your marque successful beforehand of caller audiences.

You tin tally ads successful galore places:

• Search motor ads
• Social media ads
• Display ads
• Etc

One of the easiest ways to commencement doing this is by copying what’s moving for your competitors. Head to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, plug successful a competitor’s website, past click the Paid keywords study successful the left-hand menu.

You’ll often spot a batch of branded keywords and MOFU/BOFU keywords successful here, but sometimes you’ll travel crossed non-branded TOFU keywords you tin enactment a competing bid on.

Better still, TOFU keywords are often precise inexpensive to bid on, since not arsenic galore radical are moving ads for them.

For example, we occasionally tally PPC ads for keywords similar “crawl a website” and “content idea,” which person virtually nary contention and are TOFU queries.

These besides hap to person a precise precocious Keyword Difficulty (KD), meaning they are pugnacious to fertile for organically connected Google’s archetypal page. By moving ads to these keywords, we tin bypass the contention without spending a batch of money. 

Check retired our usher to PPC marketing to larn much astir this tactic.

5. Direct outreach

Last but not least, you tin usage nonstop outreach arsenic a TOFU selling tactic. These include:

• Email outreach
• Direct mail
• Phone calls

While nonstop message and telephone calls tin enactment large to find caller clients, email outreach is the astir scalable for the bulk of online businesses due to the fact that it requires the slightest successful presumption of clip and money.

I usage nonstop outreach to build links to my content, beforehand my articles, and find selling partners and caller customers. It’s a versatile and effectual tactic.

For example, I precocious ran a survey ranking the apical states successful America to spell camping, past utilized email outreach to get journalists to people quality articles with my findings. This survey resulted successful implicit 40 caller backlinks to my site, including immoderate from MSN, Yahoo, and TimeOut Magazine.

In summation to these high-powered links, the survey besides sent thousands of caller visitors to my website. 

If you privation to larn however you tin bash thing similar, cheque retired our usher to integer PR and work up connected how to nonstop a bully outreach email.

Final thoughts

The apical of the funnel is typically wherever the widest-reaching selling tactics lie. But due to the fact that it’s truthful acold from wherever consumers marque their last purchase, it’s not the astir evident selling choice.

However, TOFU contented is wherever you works the seeds that tin standard your concern successful the future. While it shouldn’t beryllium the archetypal country you enactment clip and wealth into, it shouldn’t beryllium ignored either.

Questions oregon comments? Ping maine on Twitter.