6 Mid-Funnel Marketing Tactics for Successful Lead Nurturing

Marketing Funnel Series

Strategies That Drive Conversion and Elevate Customer Engagement.

By Ideas Collide

May 9, 202310:19 pm

If you properly utilize top of funnel marketing tactics to attract prospects, generate leads, and drive traffic to your website, then you’re well on your way to new customers. However, they aren’t fully convinced that you offer the product, service, or solution they need, so it’s up to you to nurture those leads to push them further down your funnel for conversions.

Doing so requires mid-funnel marketing tactics that help them learn more about their problem and your solution. Since 2005, Ideas Collide has been helping clients to upgrade their marketing funnel, nurture their leads, and ultimately grow their businesses. We’re here to help you with the 6 best middle of funnel tactics so you can do the same.

Understanding Mid-Funnel and Its Importance

What is mid-funnel marketing? Middle of funnel marketing, also known as MOFU marketing, is a strategy that targets the consideration phase of the buyer’s journey. That means that the prospects are already aware of their problem and your solution, but they may not understand enough to make an informed decision. They are interested and considering but need more convincing.

Unlike the bottom of funnel marketing, the goal of MOFU marketing is not to make a direct sale. Instead, the goal of middle of the funnel marketing is to nurture potential customers and educate them about your product or service. Basically, you want to subtly demonstrate that you offer the best solution to the problem they are already aware of, even though they are not yet ready to make a purchase.

These are the most effective middle of funnel marketing tactics in 2023 that you can use to amplify your funnel, educate prospects about your business, and encourage possible customers to continue to the bottom of your funnel.

Keep reading to learn how to improve your marketing with middle of the funnel strategies like informative content marketing, nurturing email campaigns, educative social media, effective middle of funnel call to actions, and much more.

Customer Insights for Effective MOFU Marketing

If you’ve already optimized your top of funnel marketing, then you know how important it is to understand your customer. However, you will need to continuously research your target audience and discover different insights to ensure you can deliver effective mid-funnel marketing tactics.

At this point in the buyer’s journey, you will need to understand their values and everything that influences their decision-making process. To do that, you must know what pain points and problems your potential customer is facing, common questions they have about your product, where they find relevant content, what factors they consider when choosing between you and a competitor, and more. The more you know, the easier it will be to implement effective MOFU strategies.

Some ways to learn about your MOFU prospects include surveying your existing customers, tracking analytics throughout your funnel, analyzing competition, researching relevant social media topics, reading reviews of your business and competitors, and creating a buyer’s persona that evolves through the different sections of your funnel.

You can ask these questions directly using surveys or polls or research the answers to deeply understand your middle of the funnel leads:

How did they get to the middle of your funnel? How much do they know about your solution?
Where do they spend most of their digital time? Do they use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Yelp, Hulu, etc.?
What type of content do your leads prefer when learning about new products or services? Do they prefer friendly blogs or videos, in-depth whitepapers, short or long-form case studies, or any other types?
How do they compare and contrast products when considering a buying decision?
Is their problem worsening, weakening, or staying the same?

Once you fully understand your customer, you can implement an effective middle of funnel marketing strategy.

Tactic #1: Email Marketing, Personalization, and Automation

While email marketing can also be used at the bottom of the funnel, effective middle of the funnel email campaigns should focus on educating your email list instead of direct conversions. Therefore, your emails should be informative, tell your leads more about your brand, educate them on solutions, and avoid pushing too hard for a sale.

It’s a good idea to personalize your email content as much as possible to strengthen the relationship with your MOFU leads. In addition, personalized content can boost conversion rates by as much as 20 percent! For example, you don’t want to provide emails that try to make prospects aware because middle of funnel leads is already aware of the problem and considering a solution.

Instead, you want to use their name and other information and also address their needs, offer informative support, and provide them with personalized blog recommendations, case studies, social proof, and product updates. You can even try individualized newsletters for each portion of your funnel with changes to the type of information included.

Two examples of successful middle of funnel email marketing are:

Outer

Outdoor furniture brand Outer includes emails with reviews, detailed images of their products, and strong testimonials and customer success stories that demonstrate exactly how their furniture solves their lead’s problems better than alternative choices.

Yelp

Yelp sends out a monthly newsletter that includes links to targeted blog content that addresses pain points and offers more information to nurture qualified leads. In addition, the educational content isn’t too salesy with a relevant call-to-action button to “schedule a free demo.”

You can measure the success of your email marketing campaigns using mid-funnel marketing metrics like open rates, click-through rates, subscriptions, and unsubscribes. This data can help you improve your content for better engagement.

Tactic #2: Educational Content Marketing and Mid-Funnel SEO

Content marketing offers a chance to provide your leads with information that can help them see that your company offers the best solution for their problem. Unlike top of the funnel marketing content that is used to raise awareness and generate leads, mid-funnel marketing content should tell your prospects more about the benefits of the product in an informational way.

You can also use search engine optimization strategies that target the search intent of your middle of the funnel leads. They will be looking for content that addresses objections, offers helpful tips, and shows the differences and similarities between your brand and a competitor.

Try using these content ideas for your blog, webinars, whitepapers, and e-books:

Your Brand vs. Competitor

Directly compare your products, services, prices, and features to a competitor. This can help your customer make an informed decision.

Unbiased Product Reviews

Use product reviews to show your own value to your customers and build trust by offering them helpful information in an easily digestible way.

How It Works

Show how your product type works to solve a problem without being overly salesy. Your prospects already know you offer a solution to their problem, but they may not know exactly how it works.

Case Studies

Use case content shows exactly how your business helped another client or customer with a similar problem that your middle of funnel prospects are currently facing.

Infographics Answering Common Objections

Infographics are a great way to target specific parts of the customer journey with direct messaging that addresses their challenges, concerns, and objections.

FAQs

Use webinars or e-books to answer all the most frequently asked questions about your product and brand. This is also a great way to answer objections, show your features, and stand out among the competition.

Podcasts, Webinars, and Other Engaging or Entertaining Content

You can use these types of content to entertain and inform your leads while also providing the right type of information that supports your mid-funnel marketing strategies.

Here are a couple of examples of great content for the consideration stage:

Whirks

Whirks comparison article Paylocity vs. Whirks: What’s the Difference?, gives a very clear, organized, and unbiased outline of their service versus their competitor. This builds credibility and provides in-depth information and touchpoints that can help with greater brand awareness.

La-Z-Boy

La-Z-Boy’s learning center is the perfect example of lead nurturing because it offers blog content that teaches more about its products, tells you what to look for in new furniture, reviews its products and competitors, and gives you everything you need to know to make an informed decision.

Social media can be used to boost conversion rates, but it can also be a vital component in the middle of your sales funnel. You can leverage social media as part of your content strategy with educational content, but you can also use social media to answer questions, respond to feedback, encourage and display reviews, and create communities that develop quality leads.

For the middle stage of the funnel, encourage your social media sales team to do the following:

Identify the social media and e-commerce platforms where your target audience hangs out, particularly in the middle of the funnel.
Create and share valuable, informative, and relevant content.
Engage with followers by responding to comments, messages, and new leads in a timely manner.
Utilize social media listening tools like Brandwatch or Digimind to monitor conversations about your brand, competitors, and products.
Encourage user-generated content by running contests, asking for feedback, and starting new conversations about your industry.

Check out these two examples of great middle of the funnel social media campaigns:

Perfect Pooches

Perfect Pooches Dog Grooming’s YouTube channel, “Girl with the Dogs,” managed to develop a huge community of 1.5 million followers by providing a combination of entertainment and information about her dog grooming services, benefits, and industry as a whole.

Apple

Apple’s “The Shot on iPhone Challenge” launched a competition to capture and share images shot on their product on Instagram. Not only was this fun, engaging, and prompted over 6.5 billion impressions, but also demonstrated more information about their product for middle of the funnel leads.

Tactic #4: Middle of Funnel PPC Advertising

For the middle of your funnel, make sure your marketing team uses a pay-per-click strategy that makes sense for the consideration stage. Use these specific tactics to drive results for your MOFU PPC advertising efforts:

Tactic #4.1: Paid Social Media Traffic Re-Targeting

During this stage, you should try retargeting your paid social traffic, which means you nurture those leads by connecting with customers who have already shown interest. Not only does this give you a chance to educate them with information that shows your value while also building credibility, but according to Wishpond, consumers are 70% more likely to convert with retargeting and the click-through rate is 10x higher than a typical display ad.

Tactic #4.2: Paid Search Non-Brand Keyword Campaigns

We recommend using non-brand keyword paid search digital marketing campaigns to match middle of funnel search intent. Strive for informative keywords as well as landing pages and clicks that make sense for those searches.

Tactic #4.3: Paid Display Lead-Magnets

Since the goal is MOFU marketing is not to convert, but to educate, we suggest using lead-magnets as a paid display option. Lead magnets, white papers, case studies, and other paid display content educates your potential customers based on their search intent and also helps you gather contact information for further MOFU marketing as well as future bottom of funnel marketing.

Here are two great examples of lead-nurturing PPC campaigns:

BetterHelp

BetterHelp shows up in non-brand keyword searches that include questions about online therapy and then uses multiple PPC links to provide advice, offer relevant articles, answer FAQs, and demonstrate statistics to help potential customers to decide what’s best for them.

Klarna

Klarna uses retargeting with Google PPC ads that use a combination of visuals and copywriting to demonstrate more value for their leads. This helps to recapture potentially lost leads in the middle of the funnel stage.

Tactic #5: Interactive Content: Engaging and Educating Prospects

Using interactive middle of the funnel content can be a great way to engage leads who are aware of your brand but have not decided whether they want to purchase your product or service. Plus, interactive quizzes, surveys, calculators, and tools can be used to inform prospects about the benefits of your brand, respond to their objectives, and provide a personalized experience within your marketing funnel.

To create effective interactive content, consider the following:

Create interactive content that addresses pain points and provides solutions. For example, you can use quizzes to show them the best product from your brand that matches their specific needs, challenges, and concerns.
Use tools like Typeform, SurveyMonkey, and Playbuzz to create interactive content that promotes your brand while educating your leads, growing a community, and promoting brand awareness.
Provide tools that help your leads make a buying decision. For example, you could provide leads with a calculator that helps them see how much money they can save with your solution versus a competitor.

Here are a couple of examples of innovative, interactive campaigns that target MOFU leads:

VenturePact

VenturePact, a software development firm, used a calculator to address their target audience’s most common challenge: the cost of building an app. Within 2 weeks, the calculator boosted traffic by 15% and encouraged more than 11,000 new leads. Plus, it provided the perfect information as a mid-funnel marketing tactic.

Oreo

Oreo released a 360-degree interactive video in 2016 that let viewers experience the inside of an Oreo factory while providing more information about their new products. The video ended up getting more than 3.2 million views and increased interest in their Filled Cupcake Flavored Oreo Cookies.

Tactic #6: Use Relevant Middle of the Funnel CTAs

When it comes to mid-funnel marketing tactics, you don’t want to encourage a sale, which means your call-to-action buttons and phrases shouldn’t say, “Buy Now.” Instead, you want to align your CTA with the rest of your middle of the funnel marketing strategy.

Try using call to actions that help customers learn more about your product. You can encourage a free demo, invite leads to read testimonials and reviews, encourage them to check out a new product, or ask them to learn something new about their pain points.

MOZ

MOZ uses a call-to-action alongside informative statistics to encourage the visitor to exchange an email for an analysis of their domain SEO. This provides both value and information to leads that are likely in the consideration stage of their sales funnel.

Autodesk

Autodesk uses CTA buttons in the middle of their blog posts, which mimics the middle of their funnel because someone who has read half of a blog post is already aware and learning more. These call to actions don’t ask for a sale, but instead offer a free webinar, infographic, or more reading that provides more detailed information and pushes the lead further into the funnel.

Transitioning MOFU Leads to the Bottom Funnel

If you’ve already mastered top of the funnel marketing techniques, then using educational and interactive content, engaging social media campaigns, targeted and retargeted PPC advertising, and other mid-funnel marketing tactics can nurture your leads.

Once you implement these tactics and improve your MOFU strategy, you can begin to transition your leads into the bottom funnel where you can boost conversion rates.

Ready to Boost Your Conversions? Click Below to Dive into the Bottom Funnel Strategies

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In This Series

Marketing Funnel Overview image with 3 funnel layers and icons flowing between them.