Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered what content marketing funnels are? When it comes to content marketing, one big mistake that companies tend to make is creating content that has no purpose. Having an end goal or call to action is essential when trying to engage your audience. It's also important to make sure that your call to action lines up with the content marketing funnel that your reader is in. Basically, you wouldn't ask your reader to subscribe to your content or buy your product if this is the first time they're meeting your brand. Using a content funnel can help personalize content for your audience, which leads to satisfied readers or customers. This is Alex here with JotForm. Let's learn more. What is a content marketing funnel, really? A content marketing funnel is usually made up of three stages. Tofu, MoFu, and BoFu. I know that might sound confusing, but we'll go over everything, I promise. This system is meant to display how consumers become aware of your business, then convert or buy your product. It's called a content marketing funnel because at the top of the funnel, you have your largest pool of people. Then you usually lose people as you move further down the funnel. The bottom of your funnel contains the smallest pool of people. But this is where all of the conversions or sales happen. All right, let's talk about tofu. No, not that kind of tofu. In this scenario, tofu stands for top of the funnel. This is known as the awareness or attract stage. This first step is where your biggest audience is gathered and it's focused on informing and educating your audience. There is zero selling going on during that stage. You need to earn the trust of your audience before you can even try to sell them something. If you try making a sale too early, you'll likely lose the trust of your audience. Some common ways to format your content in the tofu stage include blog posts, infographics, videos, checklists, podcasts, and social media posts. Up next, the mofu stage. Mofu stands for middle of the funnel. This is also known as the relationship or engage stage. This is where you start introducing yourself and your company. Now is the time to build a relationship with your audience by creating content that is targeted and personalized. Let's use email marketing as an example. When people subscribe to your emails, you have the opportunity to segment them into specific groups and send them emails tailored to their distinct needs. Let's say you own a cat food company. On your subscription form, you ask the age of your customer's cat. Your customer will have different needs based on if they have a kitten or an older cat. This is your chance to send these different groups emails tailored to those needs. Of course, emails aren't the only way to create content in the mofu stage. Some other types of content include case studies, white papers, eBooks, live events, worksheets, and webinars. This is the stage where your audience is receiving more personalized, valuable content from you. This will likely inspire them to want to learn more about you and your company. The final stage is bofu, which you could probably guess stands for bottom of the funnel. This is also known as the conversion or purchase stage. This is where the audience that you've gathered becomes a subscriber, loyal reader, or customer. Our main goal in this stage is to make the conversion, which can be a sale, a new subscriber, or returning visitor. Your content needs to inspire the audience into purchasing and position your business as a superior brand. Now is the time to show your audience how your product or service can uniquely solve their problem. Show them the testimonials regarding your product or service. You'll find that it's much easier to sell your audience after you've gained their trust. Here's another tip. Create a sense of urgency around purchasing from your company. One way to do this is by creating a discount code that expires after a certain period of time, encouraging your audience to act fast. Some other content types you can use for this stage include video testimonials, case studies, comparison charts, contests, and giveaways. While accumulating new customers, don't forget about the customers that you already have. It's much easier to market to your current customers because you don't need tofu or mofu. You can completely skip those stages since your current customers already like you and trust you. You can keep your current customers happy by providing problem-solving guides, referral bonuses, loyalty programs, and exclusive content only for them. Even birthday emails are a fun and simple way to delight your current customers. Okay, that was a lot of information. So let's review. Content marketing funnels are used to generate content with a specific purpose in mind. It allows you to create more personalized content for your audience, which in turn leads to satisfied customers. Content marketing funnels can be broken down into three steps, tofu, mofu, and bofu. Tofu, or top of the funnel, is where your largest audience lies. Your main goal in this stage is to educate and inform your audience on your company. No sales are made during this stage. We are simply trying to gain the audience's trust. Mofu, or middle of the funnel, is where the audience tends to dwindle down a little bit. This is where we engage more with our audience, inspiring them to learn more about the company. You can accomplish this using live events, emails, or even webinars. And finally, bofu, or bottom of the funnel, is where the conversion happens. This is where the audience that you've spent so much time nurturing becomes a customer. It's finally time to make the sale. It's also super important to continue nurturing the customers that you already have. Further delight them with referral bonuses, loyalty programs, and exclusive content only for them. You should always be creating content with your audience in mind. If your content is addressing your audience's needs while fostering a relationship with them, then you're right on target. And if not, then we'd suggest giving the content marketing funnel a try. Thanks so much for watching. I hope this video was helpful and informative. I'm Alex with JotForm, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye for now.