How do I generate sales from cold leads?
This is part 2 of our Salesforce Marketing series. We’re talking about what great Marketing looks like in 2021, and how you can use Salesforce products like Marketing Cloud and Pardot to grow your business. Read Part 1 here.
The purpose of marketing is simple: create a promise to the marketplace that your product or service can deliver well and consistently.
If you do this well, you will supplement the efforts of your sales team and help them focus on what they do best – sell!
However, just because someone finds your company on Google doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. These people fall into a couple of broad categories:
- Some people are figuring out exactly what their problem is. EG: “iPhone won’t turn on”
- Some people know what their problem is, but don’t know how to solve it. EG: “How to replace cracked iPhone screen”
- And some people know what needs to be done and are ready to do it. EG: “Cracked iPhone screen repair service”
We refer to the stages of the buying cycle as ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu.
The people in your sales funnel can be broken down into 3 categories:
- ToFu – Top of Funnel – people figuring out what they want
- MoFu – Middle of Funnel – people looking for how to get what they want
- BoFu – Bottom of Funnel – people seeking somewhere to get what they want, or someone to help them do that
What is ToFu content?
Top of funnel (ToFu) content educates prospects and helps them understand what they want. If they’re solving a problem, this helps them define what their problem is. If they’re looking for something to buy, this helps them decide which one to get.
Here are some examples of ToFu content:
- Blog Posts
- Web
- Email Newsletters
- Social Posts
What is MoFu content?
Middle of funnel(MoFu) content continues to educate and begins to show how your company can help the prospect get what they want or solve their problem.
Here are some examples of MoFu content:
- Website service pages
- Case Studies
- Testimonials
- Whitepapers
- Demos
- Webinars
- Drip campaigns
What is BoFu content?
Bottom of Funnel(BoFu) content showcases why your company is a great place for your prospect to get what they want. If there is a problem to solve, this content makes it clear how your company will do it and why they are the best suited for it.
- Buy Now
- Free trial
- Discount code
- Subscribe
- Book a sales meeting
- Get my quote
How do I get people to go to the bottom of the sales funnel?
We’re glad you asked. Some of the magic lies in a process called Lead Nurturing.
Lead nurturing is the automated process of sending personalized and relevant content to prospects and customers at every stage of their buying journeys. – Pardot
Marketing automation software like Pardot and Marketing Cloud make it easy to create lead nurturing programs to:
- track which stage of the buying process your prospects are in
- capture which email, social, ad, and website content your prospects are interested in
- automatically send your prospects relevant content to get them to proceed to the next stage of the funnel
In Pardot, lead nurturing campaigns are built in Engagement Studio. In Marketing Cloud, they are typically built in Journey Builder.
What is an example of a lead nurturing campaign?
Let’s continue with the cell phone repair analogy. You are the owner of a cell phone sales and repairs store.
A visitor to your website has completed the email updates form on your website. Since you use Marketing Cloud, you can see that they clicked on the the iPhone screen replacement tutorial blog link in your last email campaign. This is an indicator that they are already in the middle of the sales funnel (MoFu). Awesome!
Based on what they clicked, this subscriber had their interests field updated to include iPhone Repair. Now, this person will begin to receive a drip campaign.
Wait, what is a drip campaign?
We’re glad you asked! A drip campaign is a series of emails that are automatically sent over a span of time when subscribers match a set of criteria.
Very often, the content in these emails is relevant at any point in time and specific to the interests a subscriber has show. Ideally, your email marketing software will allow you to add subscribers to them automatically when they meet the criteria.
Where were we?
Back to the cell phone store drip campaign. You’ve setup a drip campaign that send 3 emails over the next 2 weeks as follows:
- Email 1: Buy An iPhone Screen Replacement Kit
- Email 2: Need help replacing your iPhone screen? We can do it for you!
- Email 3: Save $300 on a new iPhone when you trade yours in
While your tutorial is detailed and easy to understand, replacing an iPhone screen isn’t easy. This campaign helps the user learn more about the solution that they showed interest in, and then gives them all of the purchasing options they could possibly need.
The great thing about this drip campaign is that these products and services never change. You can set it up one time and never have to touch it again! (Of course, you’re smart and will review the metrics over time to see how you can improve the results.)
The emails in the drip campaign work to build trust with your prospect, educate them on their options, and present different solutions that could take them to the bottom of the funnel(BoFu) where they are ready to make a purchase. The campaign starts with the cheapest solution, and offers more expensive solutions as the emails progress.
Next Steps
We’ll be continuing to talk about how to grow your company with Salesforce’s Marketing suite. If you found this valuable, subscribe to email updates to ensure that you don’t miss a post.
If you’re looking to setup drip campaigns in Pardot or Marketing Cloud, we can help. Fill out this form to start the conversation.
Source: https://www.weidert.com/blog/tofu-mofu-bofu-serving-up-the-right-content-for-lead-nurturing
