What is Top of the Funnel Content (TOFU)?
Top of the funnel content (TOFU) refers to content targeted at customers at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. These customers do not know the solution to their current problem and are unaware that your product or service can solve it. In some instances, the audience may even be unaware of their problem.
Since the audience has little idea of potential solutions to their problem, top of the funnel content provides valuable educational content that raises awareness and educates them about the topic or problem.
Top of the funnel content is targeted at a broad audience and intended to attract, engage, and consequently get visitors to your site. Once done, you will try to get them to sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your channel, sign up for a demo, book a free call, or try your software.
Some examples of top of the funnel content include:
- I post del blog
- Infografica
- Social media posts
- Videos
- Quiz
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Podcasts
- Webinar
- Checklists
- Casi studio
The top of the funnel content is the first of the three types of content created as part of the marketing funnel. A typical marketing funnel begins with a top of the funnel content (TOFU). Visitors are then sent to the middle of the funnel content (MOFU) before terminating with the bottom of the funnel content (BOFU).
Importance of Top of the Funnel Content
A top of the funnel (TOFU) content is the first point of contact between a brand and its potential customers. At this stage, the audience is unaware of their specific needs or the solution your business offers.
The top of the funnel content is designed to attract and educate these potential customers by providing them with valuable content that addresses their general questions and addresses their pain points.
This content is non-promotional and not committed to converting into an instant sale. Instead, it is intended to help the visitor, which allows businesses to build trust with their potential customers and establish themselves as a reliable source of information.
Top of the funnel content is broad. That is, it covers a wide area of the topic. This is because it is intended to provide visitors with a general overview of the topic and guide them further down the sales funnel.
Six Top of the Funnel Content Strategies
Top of the funnel content is a great way to get visitors and leads to your site. However, there is no one way to do it. Instead, bloggers and creators implement multiple methods and strategies to create them. We will list some below.
1 Create High-Value Blog Posts
Create educational blog posts that address common questions and problems of your target audience. The content should provide valuable information that is helpful to the visitor without being overly promotional.
Your desired topic should be broad, and the content should be in-depth so visitors can discover it and regard you as an authority in the industry or niche. Make sure to follow on-page SEO practices to ensure that you deliver valuable content to visitors.
2 Publish Engaging Infographics
Infographics are graphical pieces of content that simplify complex information. They are visually appealing, easy to digest, and understand, even for the most complex topics. They are also highly shareable, which makes it likely that visitors will share them on other platforms.
Infographics capture attention and draw readers to your content and brand. Therefore, make sure to include them in your content where relevant and necessary.
3 Create Informative Videos
Videos are a common top of the content funnel content format. They are great for supplementing textual content and some businesses have even abandoned textual content altogether to focus on videos.
Compared to textual content, videos typically require less effort and commitment from the audience. However, they may take you more time to plan, shoot, and edit compared to text. Brands typically create and optimize these videos for video publishing sites like YouTube and video-centric social apps like TikTok and Instagram.
4 Develop Downloadable Materials
Most bloggers offer their visitors downloadable materials. The specific item varies between sites. However, they typically include ebooks, webpages, and other resources related to the topic or industry.
Bloggers require visitors to give them their emails or other contact information in exchange for the downloadable resource. Then, bloggers can provide visitors with other helpful resources and newsletters to guide them further down the funnel.
5 Host Webinars or Live Q&A Sessions
Visitors who research and access top of the funnel content usually have many questions. They also seek to establish a close relationship with an expert on the topic. This expert can answer their questions and guide them through the process.
Some bloggers position themselves as such experts. They provide their visitors with live webinar sessions where they give them additional information about the topic.
Many bloggers even take questions from their target audience before or during the webinar and answer them during the event. These webinars can be recorded and then provided to future visitors.
6 Create Social Media Content
Some creators focus on attracting their social media sites instead of blogging or exclusively making videos for platforms like YouTube. These creators use multiple social media content formats, including posts, photos, videos, stories, and ads.
Social media can pay off quite well and be a great source of leads. However, it is not a one-and-done thing, as the creator needs to continuously create new content to attract an audience. However, the benefits can be huge, especially when the creator goes viral or has an engaged audience.
To make the most out of social media, it is great practice to understand your target social media’s algorithm and create content that will interest your target audience. Creators can also funnel their audience to another platform where they get their contact details, particularly their emails and phone numbers.