Marketing is an excellent way for business owners to solve problems. If you want to boost your website traffic, marketing can help. If you want to explain a new business update, you’ll market the change on social media. But remember that problem-solving isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. Each consumer you market to has different consumption habits, knowledge of your industry and awareness of your brand.
Utilizing the content marketing funnel is the best way to expand your reach. Top of the funnel content and marketing techniques involve promoting your brand and bringing in leads, while bottom of the funnel content aims to close the deal. It’s easy to gloss over middle of the funnel content, even though it is just as important.
Here’s everything you should know about marketing in the middle.
What is Mid Funnel Marketing?
Mid funnel marketing, also known as the consideration stage advertising, focuses on the nurture stage of a prospect’s customer journey. In this stage of the marketing funnel, prospective consumers aren’t tied to any one brand or committed to a single solution. So, businesses need to double down on their content marketing strategies to convince consumers that their company is the best option.
Marketers often focus on the beginning and end of a sales cycle because it is the easiest to execute marketing in those stages. But middle of the funnel marketing is where the most lead nurturing happens.
What are Mid Funnel Marketing Tactics?
Mid-funnel tactics focus on creating a relationship with leads. When prospects enter the funnel, they may be unfamiliar with your brand or services. Through middle of the funnel content and tactics, your team can establish itself as an authority in your market, while building trust with your target consumer. Mid-funnel tactics also aim to nurture leads who may not yet be ready for a sales discussion.
Content marketing can be a great tool to showcase the value of your organization, since this phase of the journey involves research. Your strategy should involve educational content, thought leadership, and case studies.
What Does Marketing Look Like for Mid Funnel Leads?
Middle of the funnel content marketing bridges the gap between the initial intrigue an audience feels when they engage with a brand’s content, and the final sale. Leads in this stage are in the consideration phase of their customer journey, so the content produced here should engage prospects and consumers and educate.
Additionally, mid-funnel content is essential for any B2B company's content marketing strategy since these cycles are generally more complex than B2C companies, and businesses need to do a lot more to capture conversions.
Why is Mid Funnel Content Important?
Developing middle of the funnel strategies for your content is extremely important in helping prospects learn more about your brand while nurturing them into becoming loyal customers. Middle of the funnel content keeps your leads interested and converts them quicker while filtering through quality leads. Understanding the buyer's journey is crucial in creating the best content.
What Are the Goals of Consideration Stage Content?
Before any business can create a great marketing strategy, they must have a few goals in mind. To work toward success, use your goals as the basis for your marketing approach.
Mid-funnel content has three goals:
1. Educate Current Customers and Prospects
Above all, your content needs to educate both current and potential customers on why your brand is better than the rest. It is incredibly important to make this information easily accessible and attainable. Consumers should not have to search too hard to discover what sets your brand apart from others. Since the primary role of content in this stage is to educate, consider curating content in addition to the other initiatives set forth by your team. By leveraging outside perspectives, experts, and world class writers, you can set your brand apart. Business news, technology insights, entertainment industry news, financial news, and healthcare content from reputable sources can be a great supplement to your current strategy. Today’s consumers only have an average attention span of 8 seconds, so informative and engaging content is the way to go.
2. Lead Prospects Down the Funnel
Brands will want to nurture leads in the mid-funnel to help close the sale. Use your content to cater to their pain points, and then demonstrate how your solutions can solve these issues. Consider this to be the persuasive stage and do all you can to get them to make a purchase.
3. Build Relationships With Prospects
Just because they aren’t your customers yet doesn’t mean your potential consumers don’t deserve a connection with your brand. Fostering an emotional or authentic relationship between your audience and your brand will create continued brand loyalty.
What Are the Elements of Middle of Funnel Content?
As with other marketing tactics, you need to have a certain type of messaging for when you create mid-funnel content. According to content marketing best practices, good mid-funnel content should be educational, highly targeted and persuasive. When you have all three, your brand will have a better chance of resonating with the consumer, which causes them to convert quicker and to come back often.
Educational and Brand Specific Content
Not all prospective customers are created equally. But it is safe to say that if a consumer is already in your customer relationship management or target list, they most likely already have a solid understanding of your industry, brand and products. What they don’t have is information on how your company is different from the rest. When creating the content, it’s important to get more sophisticated and informative about your unique selling proposition.
Highly-Targeted Content
At its core, mid-funnel content marketing tries to capture people already interested in your brand who want to learn more about your products and a great opportunity to drive traffic to your website. But there’s a difference between keen and actionable interest and consumers who are casually looking for a solution. To ensure you are going after consumers with the highest likelihood of converting interest to a sale, you’ll want to create targeted content aimed at those looking for specific information on your products and services.
Engaging Content
Content in this stage should engage the target audience, inviting them to learn more about your brand and offerings. This content will need to address your audience’s interests, as well as ways your brand can solve their problems. You can consider sharing news content from reputable sources via a copyright license or creating targeted email campaigns speaking to your brand’s unique capabilities.
During mid-funnel content targeting, it’s always a good idea to be more persuasive in your language when discussing your brand. Consumers may need a gentle push to convert.
Middle of Funnel Content Strategies
Middle of the funnel marketing requires specific types of content to be successful. Here are some examples to keep in mind when creating your mid-funnel content strategy.
Showcase Case Studies
A case study is an in-depth, detailed explanation of how a product or service works. Case studies include examples of past success that can inspire potential customers. Creating case studies is a great method of showing how a product is used in action and how it has helped your customers achieve their goals.
When you create your case study, you’ll want to display your information in a way where your consumers can connect. They will want to see how the success of other businesses can relate to them, and how they will achieve their own goals.
Promote White Papers
Marketers create white papers to educate their audience about a particular issue while promoting a specific methodology. A brand uses a white paper to showcase personal success. White papers should include valuable, concrete facts and statistics that illustrate ROI. When executed properly, white papers allow customers to relate to other businesses and see firsthand the benefits your company will provide.
Leverage Email Campaigns
Targeted email campaigns are an easy and effective way to reach many potential customers. If a consumer has given you their email, chances are they are interested in learning more about who you are.
Creating an email newsletter is a great way to compile valuable information that helps consumers understand your company’s product offerings in greater detail. Best of all, consumers can read these articles at their own pace, so you don’t have to worry about capturing eyes as soon as customers land on your website.
Alternatively, you can use email campaigns as part of an educational content strategy. Curated newsletters and emails can showcase valuable industry trends and news, while targeted drive campaigns can move leads further along in the funnel.
Creating a relationship via email can be especially beneficial since you can send multiple emails over a specific period. These emails can remind and persuade consumers to work with your brand.
Write Blog Posts
Blog posts are one of the most versatile types of content, and they can be useful for any part of the sales funnel. With blog posts, you have the freedom to explore different lengths and formats. They are entirely customizable to your marketing goals, plus they are easy to consume.
Best of all, if you consistently update your blog with informational content, your consumers will start to see it as a reliable resource for industry news and updates. This will start to position you as a thought leader in your industry, which gives you a significant advantage over your competition. When starting out on creating this form on website content, it's important to create a comprehensive blog strategy to ensure your team is aligned on topics and the publication cadence.
Curate and License News Articles
Curating news articles can be a great way to help your audience stay informed on what is going on in their respective industries. Using a content license from a trusted source allows you to share timely and reliable updates, helping you build credibility with your audience.
Common Middle of the Funnel Content Mistakes
Below are some common mistakes content writers often make when creating middle of the funnel content.
Sounding too Salesy in the Copy:
Understand that all of your content should not be a sales pitch. Focus on your audience and its needs.
Failing to Define Prospects
Each person entering the marketing funnel will have their own goals and channels. As a result, it’s important to define these prospects before creating a content journey.
Not Focusing on the Needs of the Customer:
Customers care about how your product will benefit them. When marketers focus on product names or features, consumers may lose interest. Instead, marketing should focus on challenges customers are facing and how your product will help them.
Not Creating Specific Content:
Middle of the funnel content is easy to overlook in favor of sales specific material for sales or content that generates new leads. However, nurturing those already in the funnel with specific content that speaks to challenges and trends in their industry can go a long way in helping your company reach its overarching business goals.
Only Using One Form of Content:
People like to consume content in a variety of ways, so it’s important to offer different formats, whether that be blog posts, webinars, or white papers.
Case Study: AdvisorStream Improves Engagement With Licensed Content
By partnering with NYTLicensing, AdvisorStream was able to offer a range of licensed content from The New York Times and Harvard Business Review. Their users could use these content pieces for their content curation needs. As a result, AdvisorStream was able to increase engagement and improve visibility by 200%.
Final Thoughts: An Easier Way to Mid Funnel Content Creation
Marketing to mid-funnel consumers is one of the most beneficial marketing tactics. Persuading consumers who have already shown interest in your brand can help boost brand recognition and increase authority within your industry, while improving conversions and growing your business.
When it comes to creating your content strategy, you don’t have to work alone. NYTLicensing’s solutions offer multiple products that help you harness the power of world-renowned business storytelling from The New York Times, with content that compels and intrigues your mid-funnel audience. Working with NYTLicensing is the tool you need to educate, nurture and persuade potential consumers while helping your business thrive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the consideration stage in advertising?
The consideration stage is when prospects are actively looking for a solution for the challenges they are facing. They are often researching and considering various solutions. This is a key moment for your brand to distinguish itself from the competition.
What are examples of consideration stage content?
Consideration stage content should be focused on educating prospects and showcasing the value of your company. Case studies, blog posts, news articles, and webinars are all great assets for this stage.
What is a mid funnel lead?
A mid funnel lead is any lead that is in the research and consideration stage of the customer journey.
What content should be used in each stage of the funnel?
What kind of content belongs where? This is a question many marketers are continuously asking themselves. Here is a breakdown of what you should include in each of the stages.
1. Top of Funnel
- Targeted Ads
- Videos/Photos
- Resource Pages or Informational Posts
- Infographics
2. Middle of Funnel
- Blog Posts
- White Papers/Case Studies
- Curated News Stories
3. Convert
- Reviews/Customer Testimonials
- Case Studies
- Sales Sheets
4. Upsell
- Curated Emails
- Webinars with Customer Discussions
- Industry Trends and News
What is lead nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the process of guiding leads further down the sales funnel. Often this will involve a series of touchpoints that will help establish your brand as authority in the marketplace, while building a relationship with prospects. The goal of lead nurturing is to prepare prospects for a discussion with sales.
What is mid-funnel vs low funnel marketing?
Mid funnel marketing focuses on the consideration and research phase of the customer journey, while low funnel marketing focuses on making the sale.
What are mid funnel metrics?
There are many metrics marketers can use to determine the success of a mid-funnel campaign.
These include:
- Open rates
- Click through rates
- Webinar attendance rates
