by Calvin Smith
Are you looking inside your marketing automation software and discovering that you have numerous leads sitting at the top of your funnel? Perhaps they’ve been sitting there for a while and you’ve just assumed that they will eventually make their way through the funnel and become an MQL. Or maybe, a few leads have just arrived, and your funnel numbers continue to pile up, and you’re just not quite sure how to move them along. As a marketer, this might cause you to lose some sleep at night if you’re responsible for generating leads for sales.
If you’ve reached this stage, it’s probably time to devote your efforts towards creating an automated top of the funnel marketing campaign.
This blog will explore the top of the funnel stage and what you can do to start moving your leads to the middle of the funnel.
What Is the Top of the Funnel?
I could have subtitled this first section ‘Brand Awareness’ because essentially, that is what you’re doing at this stage. These leads were placed in the top of the funnel because they might have visited your site and filled out some forms, or they had a discussion with a sales rep at an event and provided contact information. Either way, they are a top of the funnel lead and as a marketer, this is now your time to shine.
In the top of the funnel you want to educate your leads with who you are as a company, the services that you provide, and those who are spearheading the company. It’s important to remember that these leads are curious about your brand and it’s perfectly fine to assume that they have no clue what your company does or how the company operates. It’s also worth noting that at this stage, we’re not trying to problem solve—that will happen in the middle of the funnel. We are simply educating the leads and informing them about your brand and services.
So, how do you educate your leads? Content.
Have you deployed an automated top of the funnel marketing campaign?
Provide Your Leads With Informative Content
In the top of the funnel, we are providing leads with information. There are a variety of methods in which you can provide information. For the purpose of time, I won’t go into every single piece of content that you can provide, but I will discuss a few pieces of content that I deem to be very effective.
The first piece of content that you can provide at this particular stage are blogs. At Aragon, we pride ourselves in writing high quality, informative blogs. Blogs are a great way to show what your brand is covering, provide opinions, and reflect your overall brand in a condensed piece. Blogs allow for your leads to gain further knowledge about a particular subject that might be relevant to their needs or wants. In the case of Aragon, a blog allows a reader to become more familiar with a particular analyst and his or her coverage areas.
The second piece of content that you might want to consider are either ebooks or guides. Here at Aragon, we cover a variety of markets and have a ton of information regarding each market. However, we don’t want to just shove all of our knowledge and coverage of a particular market down a lead’s throat. We want to provide them with a piece of information that will allow them to learn more about our coverage of a particular market.
Much like a blog, an ebook is a great way to engage your leads with a condensed informative document that provides them with the ins and outs of a particular subject (or in our case, a particular technology market). Furthermore, you’re trying to educate your leads and often times providing them with a long-form informational piece will take too long to read and they won’t be able to consume the information they really need. Providing more long-form content pieces can be done at later stages of the marketing funnel process. Additionally, if the reader becomes further interested with a particular market, then he or she can begin to discover further pieces of content that we have created addressing the market.
Lastly, something that can be very valuable for your leads is creating a brand 101 document. This is similar to a one-pager that will provide the basic information surrounding your company. You might include headshots of executives, clients, basic services, or maybe an informational quote. With this type of document, it’s perfectly fine to get creative and have the document aesthetically pleasing, but remember to include the basic essentials of your company. With this short-form document, leads can examine and extract the basic information that they need to know who your company is, what you do, and what you offer.
Automate Your Campaign
To save time, it’s imperative that you create an automated top of the funnel marketing campaign. This will save you the headache and overall effort that is associated with a manual top of the funnel marketing campaign. It’s imperative that you are constantly evaluating the overall effectiveness of the campaign. You should be tracking open rates, click rates, and which call to actions are working most effectively in your messages. Lastly, every three to six months, examine the type of messaging that you are sending to your leads. Has it been effective? What could be changed to drive results? Something as simple as changing the subject line or CTA button color will help ensure that you are maximizing the open and click rates.
Bottom Line
An automated top of the funnel marketing campaign can do wonders for your marketing efforts. It’s time to take action towards those leads who have been sitting there, waiting to learn more about your company and the services that you can provide them. By automating your marketing campaign, you will lessen the manual time and effort needed to educate leads, and can now focus your time on making sure the other leads in your funnel are moving through the pipeline.
If you would like to learn more about marketing automation software, or where to start with your automated campaigns, schedule a consultation with one of Aragon’s analysts.