If you know anything about the marketing funnel, or the journey that customers take with your business, from awareness, through to conversion and beyond – you’re probably familiar with “BOFU” marketing. BOFU, or bottom of funnel marketing strategies are the methods you use at the end of a “full funnel marketing” plan, to ultimately convert prospects into customers.
We say these strategies happen at the end of a full funnel marketing campaign, because it takes a lot of work to get customers to a point where they’re ready to convert. You need to make sure they’re aware of your brand, products or solutions, earn their trust, and help them determine what they need.
That’s why the number of “leads” you have at the bottom of your marketing funnel will often be a lot smaller than the number you start with. Investing in the right bottom of funnel marketing strategy ensures you can boost your chances of turning as many of those warm leads into dedicated customers as possible.
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What is Bottom of Funnel Marketing?
Bottom of funnel marketing (BOFU marketing) is the term used to refer to the promotional techniques you use in the last stage of the marketing funnel. You’ll already have captured the attention of potential customers with your top of funnel (TOFU) marketing strategies.
Plus, you should have earned their trust and directed them towards the right products with your “middle of the funnel” marketing efforts. Your bottom of funnel strategies are all about giving your customers that final nudge- the extra push they need to actually buy whatever you have to offer.
Bottom of the funnel marketing can be complex. On the one hand, the leads you’re connecting with at this stage are already in a much better position to convert. They already know all about your products, and they’ve probably done a decent amount of research into your company. However, there are plenty of things that can turn even the warmest leads cold at the last moment.
While you’re trying to seal the deal with a lead, they’re still being bombarded by other marketing messages and options from your competitors. If a customer decides you don’t fully understand their needs, or they can’t trust you, based on pushy or ineffective BOFU marketing, you could lose that sale. In other words, you’re under a lot of pressure to ensure you don’t trip at the last hurdle.
Why Bottom of Funnel Marketing is Crucial
The reason you need to invest in bottom of funnel marketing should be obvious. There’s no point wasting all of your time building brand awareness and earning the trust of potential prospects if you’re not going to eventually turn them into customers. While a handful of leads might end up buying your products or services without interacting with your bottom of funnel campaigns, most will need that final push.
An effective approach to bottom of funnel marketing is how you ensure you’re:
- Maximizing your ROI: Successful bottom of the funnel marketing helps to ensure that all the time and effort you’ve invested into guiding customers through the rest of the marketing funnel hasn’t been wasted. It gives you the best possible opportunity to turn the leads you’ve nurtured into paying customers who engage with, and hopefully advocate for your business.
- Increasing customer loyalty: By delivering a tailored, satisfying, and memorable experience to customers at the bottom of the funnel, you don’t just secure conversions. You can also forge a stronger relationship with your customers, improving your chances of long-term loyalty. The right strategy can even convince customers to become advocates for your brand.
- Boosting brand reputation: If you help customers to make the right purchasing decision at the end of the funnel, and guide them through the transaction process, this can have a direct impact on your brand’s reputation. You can even expand brand reach, by offering customers access to exclusive benefits if they join a loyalty program, or refer a friend to your company.
The Top Bottom of the Funnel Marketing Strategies
Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating the perfect strategy for bottom of the funnel marketing. The tactics you use will depend on a range of factors, including who your target audience is, and how you’ve connected with them throughout the rest of the marketing funnel.
A full funnel marketing agency like The Graygency will help you to create a strategy that’s specifically tailored to your needs, delivering the best ROI and return on ad spend. Here are some of the techniques we recommend for our clients.
1. Paid Social and Search Advertising
Paid social media and search advertising campaigns are excellent for increasing bottom of the funnel conversions. Across various channels, you can target customers at a specific stage in the buying cycle with fast-paced, engaging content that highlights the unique benefits of your offering, or even inspires urgency with limited-time offers and deals.
While there are numerous ways to use paid ads for bottom of the funnel marketing, one of the best options is to invest in “retargeting” ads. These are ads specifically designed to reach customers who have already visited your website, interacted with your brand, or added products to their shopping cart.
With dynamic retargeting ads, you can deliver personalized messages to each customer, showing them the products they might have considered in the past, and reminding them of the distinct features or advantages they offer. You can even use various techniques, like limited-time offers, first purchase discounts, and more to significantly increase your chances of earning a conversion.
2. Personalized Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is a strategy you should be using throughout the entire marketing funnel. It’s the perfect way to nurture your audience, earn their trust, and introduce them to all the products and services they might be interested in.
Even after your lead becomes a customer, email marketing can help you retain their loyalty and increase repeat purchases. Just look at how our email marketing strategy for Bibado helped the company to increase their ongoing email revenue by 36%.
For bottom of the funnel marketing strategies, personalized emails highlighting specific product recommendations or offers are the key to success. This is your chance to show your customers you understand their needs and pain points, and convince them to seal the deal with your brand.
Consider creating email messages that include dynamic images of products that customers have previously viewed on your website. Or track which customers in your email list engage with specific messages, so you know exactly what products you should be recommending.
Once again, a good way to boost your chances of earning that final conversion is to create a sense of urgency. Tell your customers if they have a limited time to take advantage of a great deal, or if you only have a certain number of products in stock:
3. Product Demos and Free Trials
Obviously, this bottom of the funnel marketing strategy won’t work for every company. There are organizations that sell products and services that don’t really enable them to offer free demos or trials. However, there are also plenty of companies that sell products that are easy to “try” before customers buy them. For instance, in the software space, you can offer access to a simpler version of your solution.
In the automotive industry, you can invite a customer to take a car for a test drive. Even in the food and beverages space, or the retail sector, it’s easy enough for companies to create “samples” they can share with potential, uncertain customers.
A free trial, sample, or even a demonstration of what your product can do, delivered by a sales expert, can be extremely valuable. It’s a great way to highlight the value of whatever you’re offering, and answer any questions customers might have. Plus, it shows that you’re confident enough in the value of your offering to allow your product or service to “speak for itself”.
The key to success here is making sure you allow customers to test “enough” of whatever you’re offering that they’ll be sold on its value – without giving too much away. As an example, look at how OpenAI allows users to access ChatGPT for free to a certain extent – but limits them to a certain number of prompts and interactions per day – encouraging them to upgrade.
4. Customer Reviews, Case Studies, and Success Stories
Customers can only trust what you say about your products and services to a certain extent. They know that ultimately, your goal is to turn them into a paying customer – and they’re used to companies promising them the world to achieve that target.
That’s why so many customers turn to more authentic insights into what a product or solution can do before making a purchase. Up to 97% of customers rely on reviews, testimonials, and case studies when making a purchase. Rather than making your buyers search the web for these resources, make them easily visible as part of your bottom of funnel marketing strategy.
Post reviews and quotes from customers on social media, or add them to your paid advertising campaigns. Highlight reviews and positive comments from customers on your website home pages or product pages. You could even create a dedicated section of your website to customer success stories.
For instance, check out Lick’s page of reviews and “transformation inspiration” guides here.
Reviews are authentic, engaging, and informative – and most importantly, they’re trustworthy. Just make sure the reviews you share are authentic and genuine.
5. Exclusive and Limited-Time Offers
There are a lot of reasons why customers might dither over making a purchase. They might be unsure of what they really need, or nervous about spending money. However, even if your customer isn’t sold on the decision to buy your product or service yet, a great offer can change all that.
For many customers, the risk associated with missing out on a great deal is much greater than the risk of making the wrong purchasing decision. Sending your customer an offer when they reach the bottom of the marketing funnel, either via text, social media, email, or a bot on your website, can encourage them to make a purchase a lot faster.
If you really want to take advantage of the “fear of missing out” that drives customers to make purchases quickly, make the offer temporary. If your customer knows they only have a certain number of days, hours, or minute to get a deal, they’ll be less likely to waste time over-thinking a purchase.
Pro tip: don’t make the mistake of telling customers they only have a specific time to access a deal if you’re going to offer it 24/7. That kind of practice can erode trust.
6. Bottom of the Funnel Marketing Content
Finally, content marketing is a strategy that most companies focus on heavily during the earlier stages of the marketing funnel. After all, you need to create a lot of content to introduce customers to your company, brand values, and products. However, content can still have a role to play at the bottom of the funnel – particularly if your customer still has questions or concerns.
At the bottom of the funnel, the main types of content you should be focusing on include:
- Buyer guides: Step-by-step guides that introduce customers to the various different types of products or solutions you offer, and help them decide what they need to purchase.
- Product comparisons: Comprehensive reviews that compare the features and benefits of your solution to the products offered by a competitor.
- Video content: Product demonstration videos, or videos showing how to use your product for certain things can help encourage customers to complete a purchase.
- FAQ guides: Content addressing questions your customers might have about delivery times, refund policies, returns, and customer service options.
Quick Tips for Better Bottom of the Funnel Marketing
At this point, you should have a pretty good insight into the importance of bottom of the funnel marketing, how it works, and what kinds of strategies you should use. Before you rush off and start creating your own BOFU strategy, however, we have some additional tips to share:
- Know your customers: Make sure you understand what actually triggers your customers to make a purchase. What kind of pain points are they trying to address, and what goals do they want to achieve? What’s going to make them decide that your products and services are worth their hard-earned money? Conduct extensive market research to find out.
- Address concerns and objectives: Customers are always going to have concerns and questions when they’re buying products from a new company. That’s particularly true if you’re selling expensive, high-ticket items. Pay attention to the queries your customers have when they contact your sales team, and make sure you’re ready to provide answers.
- Personalize your approach: Remember that all of your customers are different. Segmenting your audience into different groups and delivering personalized content, in the form of custom social media marketing campaigns and emails, will significantly increase your chances of conversions, and improve your brand reputation.
- Know how to measure your results: Ensure you’re ready to track the results of your bottom of the funnel marketing campaigns. Invest in incrementality testing strategies, and leverage technology to measure things like conversion rates, customer lifetime value, customer acquisition costs, and even retention rates.
- Be authentic and transparent: Draw attention to the benefits of your products and services, but don’t promise your customers anything you can’t deliver. Hyperbolic marketing statements and strategies don’t deliver results as well as honesty and authenticity.
Seal the Deal with Better Bottom of the Funnel Marketing
Your approach to bottom of the funnel marketing is more important than you might think. Just because you’ve successfully nurtured your customers through the majority of the sales funnel, doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a conversion. If you make a mistake at the final hurdle, you risk not just missing out on a sale – you could also harm your brand’s reputation and potential for long-term growth.
Ultimately, developing a strong bottom of the funnel marketing strategy is all about understanding your customers, and finding the best way to convince them to “take the plunge” at the end of their journey. At The Graygency, our marketing experts excel at encouraging customers to do just that.
Because we work with companies on comprehensive full funnel marketing campaigns, we give them the end-to-end tools they need to not only convert customers, but build valuable, long-term relationships with their target audience. Are you ready to upgrade your marketing efforts, and achieve a measurable growth in your conversion rates?
Contact The Graygency today to start working on your personalized strategy for full-funnel marketing.
