Use These 5 Top of Funnel Marketing Strategies To Generate More Leads
Without enough leads, it is all but impossible to reach your sales goals. The first step to getting more leads is to boost awareness through top-of-the-funnel campaigns.
What is the Marketing Funnel?
The marketing funnel is a way to think about a person’s journey from being unaware of your company to make a purchase. In B2B lead generation, marketers typically define the following stages:
- Top of Funnel: Website Visitors
- Middle of Funnel: Marketing Qualified Leads (i.e., MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
- Bottom of Funnel: Opportunities and Customers.
There are usually many people at the top of the funnel and fewer people at the bottom of the funnel. You can see this in your practice. You probably engage in top-of-funnel activities (e.g., browsing an online store or window shopping in person) more often than you make a purchase.
Focusing your marketing effort on top of funnel marketing is an excellent way to grow your business. There are several strategies you can use to bring people to your website and online presence. A successful B2B lead generation strategy will typically use multiple strategies.
Before You Start Top of Funnel Marketing Campaign
There are a few critical questions to answer before you start a campaign. Skip over these questions, and you risk falling short of reaching your lead generation goals.
Let’s illustrate these questions briefly by imagining that you are selling a customer relationship management (CRM) app to a small business.
Who Is Your Ideal Customer?
In this example, a CRM company might define its ideal customer as a small business in the United States with at least three full-time sales employees. Ideally, the company would be in the B2B space.
What Are Your Customer’s Goals And Pain Points?
The business owner is disappointed by the slow pace of winning new sales. The small sales team finds they spend a lot of time getting ready for sales calls and sometimes forget to follow up quickly.
How is your customer currently solving their problem?
The customer is currently solving their sales problem by using spreadsheets. This spreadsheet works to a degree, but it is highly manual and error-prone.
Given these answers, we’re now ready to start planning the right top of funnel marketing strategies to appeal to this potential customer
Top of Funnel Marketing Strategies:
To reach your B2B lead generation goals, use the following strategies to create awareness and get in front of potential customers.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are more than five billion searches on Google every day. The total number of searches is much higher once you include other search engines like Bing and Yahoo. When you have a successful SEO strategy, your company will appear in front of potential customers exactly when they have a question or need related to your product.
However, search engine optimization is highly competitive, with many companies working hard to earn the attention of potential customers. That’s why it is helpful to work with search specialists who know how to find quick wins in search engines.
2. Content Marketing
According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top three goals of content marketing are creating brand awareness (86%), educating audiences (79%), and building credibility/trust (75%).
A content marketing approach means creating helpful information that helps potential customers achieve their goals. Investing in quality content marketing demonstrates that your company is knowledgeable and trustworthy.
In addition, content marketing can play a valuable role in moving people down the marketing funnel. For example, you might create a free guide, video, or report on your website. To download the report, a prospect has to provide their name and email. The prospect receives valuable information by entering their contact details, and the company earns permission to follow up with the prospect.
3. Social Media
Leveraging social media is essential to create awareness works because these platforms are used by millions of people every day. In addition, you don’t have to wait for them to search for something related to your business in order to get in front of them. If your company is not on social media, you may fall behind your competitors..
- Make LinkedIn A Priority. 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic marketing, and there are more than 50 million companies on LinkedIn.
- Other Social Media Platforms. Depending on your target market, other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram may also be relevant to your lead generation goals.
For the best results, consider using social media in coordination with content marketing and SEO. For example, you can create social media posts based on blog posts you publish on your website.
4. Paid Advertising
Building an organic following by publishing high-quality content on social media and your website is worth the effort. The downside is that it takes time to build a following. Paid advertising strategies can deliver faster results. Some of the most popular paid advertising options are LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, display ads, and influencer campaigns.
Modern paid advertising makes it possible to target your ideal customers precisely. For example, you can show one set of ads to people who have previously visited your website. You can also show a different set of ads to people unfamiliar with your company.
For the best results in paid advertising, combine this strategy with content marketing. For instance, you can offer to generate leads by offering a free download (e.g., special reports, guides, case studies, and other content marketing assets) through paid advertising campaigns.
Paid advertising campaigns may not be the right choice for every situation. What if you only have a small number – 100 or 200 – ideal prospects? In that situation, account-based marketing is a good option.
5. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-based marketing is a powerful top-of-funnel strategy for B2B companies with a clear picture of their ideal customer. For example, you might have a security product for shipping facilities at ports. In this case, your account-based marketing approach might start with making a list of the 100 largest US ports by volume (e.g., Los Angeles, Long Beach, New York).
Once you have a list of potential customers, you can create marketing resources to support the company. For example, you might create industry-specific content exploring the security concerns of high-volume ports. The sales team would then leverage these marketing assets in their outreach to these carefully chosen prospects.
SUPERCHARGE YOUR B2B LEAD GENERATION!
The more relevant people visit your website, and social media means more opportunities for your sales team. Work with Contrast Digital to build your digital presence, nurture leads and attract leads who want to buy from you.
