Gone are the days of infomercials, billboards, and flyers the internet has changed the landscape of modern marketing! Of course, those old-fashioned methods are still in use, but trendy brands and small businesses are taking it all to the web. When you set out to be a blogger, you may not have realized how powerful your website could be for generating revenue, but we’re sure you’ve discovered just what your voice can do in terms of marketing!
If you monetize your blog via selling digital products, promoting affiliate links, offering courses, running a monthly membership, or something similar, you need to know a thing or two about marketing. It’s true the search engine optimizing your blog posts will get your content in front of a LOT of organic search engine users, but how do you get those website visitors to convert? Like, they read your blog post . . . and actually respond to your call-to-action?
To generate the most income from your brand, understanding the concepts of “upper funnel” and “lower funnel” marketing is essential. These principles will help you create content intentionally to drive readers through the “customer’s journey” to make more sales and build your brand!
What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Upper Funnel vs Lower Funnel Marketing
Everyone who has ever made a purchase through you has gone through some sort of journey. They didn’t just randomly click your blog and get their credit card out. (We wish, right???) Instead, they go through different stages where they first become aware of your brand, then consider what you’re offering before ultimately deciding to purchase and become a loyal follower. There is more to it than that, but that’s the gist of the customer journey! Often, marketing pros break the process down into what they call a “marketing funnel.”
This marketing funnel is a great way to build out your content calendar and make sure all of your blog posts are working for you. Search engine optimized blog posts already convert WAY BETTER than pretty much any other form of digital marketing, but if you really want to make that sale, your uploads need to be more than high-quality and optimized they need to be targeted and intentional. Here’s how to do that using the marketing funnel:
What Is A Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a model that displays the stages a potential customer goes through before they decide to buy what you’re selling. They call it a “funnel” because the process moves from a super broad audience at the top to the most engaged audience at the bottom. A blog post at the top of the funnel would be about just generating awareness and interest with some helpful info whereas a blog post at the bottom of the funnel would be more of a direct sales pitch.
How Does A Marketing Funnel Work?
A marketing funnel works by guiding your audience gradually through a series of super intentional stages that are each designed to move them closer to making a purchase. Think about it like this: someone randomly showing up at your door and trying to sell you a product you’ve never heard of will probably not be successful. That’s jumping straight to the end and you’ve had literally no time to even think about your need/want for the product.
However, if a brand you already love comes out with something new, you’re likely to buy, because you’re already a believer in their company. What we’re trying to curate are those loyal brand ambassadors . . . but you can’t do that overnight! The marketing funnel is the perfect long-term strategy to generate sales and build a strong brand following!
What Are The Stages Of The Marketing Funnel?
- Awareness: This stage captures your audience’s attention through blog posts and social posts centered more around general information they’d be interested in.
- Interest: Here, potential customers seek more information from your blog and engage with your content to learn about your brand and offerings.
- Consideration: Here’s where your audience is pretty familiar with your content and what you offer in terms of products and services. This is where they’ll compare you to competitors, read your reviews, and look more into your blog and social posts that showcase their need for what you offer.
- Intent: Now, your follower wants to buy! They show they intend to buy by adding items to their cart, requesting a trial, or something similar!
- Purchase: Finally, your follower completes a transaction and becomes a paying customer.
- Loyalty: Efforts are made to retain the customer and build loyalty through excellent service and engagement.
- Advocacy: Satisfied customers recommend your brand to others, becoming advocates and driving new business.
What Is Top of The Funnel Marketing?
This is where you attract and engage a broad audience, build brand awareness, and generate interest in what you have to offer. The stages of the marketing funnel that are considered the “top of the funnel” are Awareness, Interest, and Consideration. Potential customers are basically going from having no idea who you are to slowly falling in love with you during the top of the funnel!
How to Use Top of the Funnel Marketing Strategies as a Blogger
So, as a blogger, how do you use this info to your advantage? Well, if you want to get to the bottom of the funnel where you actually make sales, then you have to do the top of the funnel right! Search engine optimization is one of your main funnel tactics to draw in that big, broad audience full of potential.
Basically, you optimize your content for search engines, so that when someone searches for something having to do with your brand, your website pops up at the top of the results page. Then, if you have a blog post that precisely answers their question or provides solutions to their problem, suddenly the person becomes aware of your brand. They then come back to you again and again as they work through the consideration stages and start to see you as a true authority in the niche!
If you didn’t catch it, the key here is to have lots of SEO-friendly blog posts uploaded to your site that will draw in lots of organic search results. For example, let’s say you’re a fashion blogger trying to sell personal styling services. At the top of the funnel, you might post things like “How to Dress for Your Body Type,” “Wardrobe Essentials Everyone Should Know,” or “How to Discover Your Color Season.” These are common searches that are going to bring in a lot of visitors!
You could also repurpose a lot of this content for social media to reach more people and continue to engage those who found you via Google and other search engines!
What Is Bottom Of The Funnel Marketing?
The bottom stage of the funnel is where your visitors become more than just casual readers. Now, they totally believe in you and want to invest in your product or service. This part of the funnel includes the Intent, Purchase, Loyalty, and Advocacy phases of the funnel. You’ve nurtured an authentic relationship with a smaller, more intentional group of your followers for days, weeks, or months at this point as they’ve traveled through the funnel and now they’re ready to pull out their debit card!
How to Use Bottom of the Funnel Marketing Strategies as a Blogger
At the bottom of the funnel, you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. These followers already know you’re legit and believe your products or services have merit. So, your blog posts need to more directly lead to conversions with targeted posts and stronger calls-to-action. You can also use other digital marketing tactics to make these sales, like a strategic newsletter or lead magnet (think a free printable, a discount code, or an exclusive event)!
To give you a good example of what we mean, let’s go back to that fashion influencer example. If you’re a fashion influencer looking to sell personal styling services, your posts at the bottom of the funnel are going to be things like, “Why Everyone Needs a Personal Stylist” or “What Does a Personal Stylist Do?” Or, you could even write out case studies, testimonials, and client success stories as blog posts!
Each of these blog posts should have CTAs incorporated throughout the article that motivate readers to buy! You could link them to a service page, a product page, a free trial offer, a consultation scheduler, or something else that will finally get that conversion!
Of course, SEO is still SUPER important at the bottom of the funnel. Because search engine users are naturally already motivated to take action. Basically, you may be able to bypass the whole “top of the funnel” and filter organic visitors right to the thing they want to purchase. For example, you may get plenty of organic traffic for the keyphrase “online personal stylist” or “affordable personal stylist.” These searchers want to take action ASAP, so you want your bottom of the funnel blog posts to pop up first on those search results pages to ensure YOU are the person they hire/buy from.
Top Of Funnel vs Bottom of Funnel Marketing: Which Is More Important?
If it’s not clear, both upper and lower funnel marketing are SUPER important. Don’t prioritize one over the other, and, instead, craft an effective strategy for all stages of the customer journey. This will bring you consistent conversions for years to come!
Now you know all you need to know about upper funnel vs lower funnel marketing!
When you make a business out of blogging, you’ve got to know more than just how to write great content if you want to take your brand to the next level, right? You’ve got to get a little business savvy, gain some graphic design skills, and even learn a thing or two about sales! This is why knowing upper and lower funnel marketing strategies can be super helpful for taking your blog to the next level!
You may have noticed that search engine optimization was a big piece of both levels of funnel marketing. You can learn more about that on the InfluencerSEO blog or you can leave it to the experts and hire us to do the optimization for you. Learn more about our SEO packages HERE! Let’s do this!
Jordan Becerra, founder and Lead SEO Strategist at InfluencerSEO, has spent almost 15 years in the creator internet space, the last nine building InfluencerSEO into the go-to SEO partner for content creators, with 500+ creators served from pre-launch to massive publication. She learned creator monetization and community building strategy from the inside working for Lauryn Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential prior to founding InfluencerSEO, so she understands both halves of the game: how search actually works AND how creators actually build a strong community online and make money. Her job now is to stay ahead of where search engine optimization is going, especially as AI rewrites the rules, and to make sure the creators she works with get there first.
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