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How to Generate Top-of-Funnel Leads

How to Generate Top-of-Funnel Leads

Are you struggling to generate quality top-of-the-funnel leads? It is not as easy as it looks, is it? No matter the industry you’re in, you must keep the lead pipeline full.

If you don’t generate good leads, you won’t sell your product. It’s as simple as that. Moreover, competition is more ferocious than ever. Consumers are getting bombarded with countless marketing messages. To stand out, you need to be much more innovative when it comes to lead generation.

To generate top-of-funnel leads that you can nurture, you need the right strategies. In this article, we’ll tell you how to produce top-of-the-funnel interest and instantly boost your lead generation efforts.

What Is Top-of-the Funnel Marketing?

Top of funnel marketing is every activity concentrated on generating brand awareness. It helps you engage with most of your known and unknown target audiences. For this reason, you’ll need a brand awareness marketing strategy that will facilitate your lead generation efforts.

ToFu Conversion Funnel

Image Source: Moz

The goal of top-of-the-funnel marketing is to reach as many relevant people as possible. Popular forms of this include blog articles, visual content, and personalization. It consists of anything that increases brand awareness and shows people that you’re the solution to their problems.

Before you begin with top-of-the-funnel marketing, you need to understand how the conversion funnel aligns with the customer journey. You need to ensure that your future customers will receive relevant content at each stage of their customer journey.

Know Your Audience

The key to making your top-of-the-funnel marketing efforts work is to know your audience. Personalizing your marketing is key. The prospects won’t appreciate content that doesn’t help them solve their problems.

Audience analysis is the core element of every lead generation strategy. It will keep you well-informed about who your target customers are, and which approach you need to personalize your content.

Related Article: How to Build Strong Client Relationships [Expert Roundup]

For efficient top-of-funnel marketing, you need to reach only the target audience with the right content at the right time. If you waste your efforts on the wrong audiences, your conversion rate won’t go up. Quality leads are good, but the right ones are even better.

Where to Collect Data from?

You need all the prospective data that you can generate from top-of-the-funnel leads. But, where will you get that data from?

In-Market Audiences: Here users are actively searching and comparing your company to competitors. Of course, these are prospects who might be interested in your products/services. With this data, you can decide how to position your business to attract more attention and show people exactly what they’re looking for.

Affinity Audiences: Google Analytics also provides you with Affinity Audiences, which provides you with data about a person’s lifestyle, interests, and habits.

Facebook Insights: A platform that helps you assess your current and potential audience on your Facebook page. You can analyze demographics, interests, page likes, and affinities, which enables you to understand your Facebook audiences better.

facebook insights

Image Source: Facebook Business

Instagram Insights: Your Instagram business account includes metrics such as likes, follows, impressions, profile visits, actions taken on your profile, and account reach.

instagram insights

Bringing all your social media and website data into one place helps you put everything into perspective. When you know where you stand with potential leads, you can revamp your content to make it more interactive for your target audience.

Invest in Your Website

Your website is the first impression that users will have of your brand. That is why it’s crucial to invest in it. It’s the place where you need to convert your audience. Whether you want prospects to sign up for your newsletter or buy your product, optimizing your website for lead generation is key.

Start with the Right Message

pagely WordPress hosting

Image Source: Pagely

On your homepage, you need to introduce your brand to potential customers right away. A clear marketing message builds trust within consumers and helps them learn what your business is about. Some helpful practices to achieve this are:

  • Address the customer’s needs.
  • Provide information about your brand and services.
  • Present how prospects would benefit from working with you.
  • Be informative.
  • Incorporate an appealing promotional aspect.

Display the Key Pages

One of the first interactions of your top-of-the-funnel leads will happen on your homepage. They will want to browse your website and learn more about a specific product, service, or piece of content.

That is why you need to display the critical pages from the start through a design that lets prospects skim and browse with ease. It’s essential if you want to generate and convert leads faster.

key pages

Make every section of your homepage comprehensible for users. Emphasize your competitive advantages so that people can easily remember them. Differentiating yourself from your rivals will help you gain more leads.

homepage sections

Leverage Social Proof

One of the best ways to attract and convert leads with your website is to use social proof. It increases trust, and it’s a confirmation about your quality of service and experience. The following social proof sections on your website are a must:

Clients Portfolio: Show the potential clients that you can generate results.

homepage social proof

Image Source: NGINX

Testimonials: Collect testimonials from your clients and present them on your homepage and service pages. It makes your future clients understand what they can get from working with you.

testimonials AdEspresso

Image Source: AdEspresso

Case Studies: It’s perhaps the best way to present your approach and expertise. Case studies convince potential customers that you can deliver results.

devrix case studies

Image Source: DevriX

Use the Right Call-to-Action

dsc cta

Image Source: Dollar Shave Club

To attract potential leads in your ToFu, you’ll need the right CTAs on your website. With that, you will urge people to act on the spot, and discover more about what you offer. There are two major types of CTA that you can add on your website:

Primary: Messages that take users to the services/products page, or contact forms.

evernote CTA

Image Source: Evernote

Secondary: Messages that can reinforce the connection between your company and the prospects.

additional ctas

Publish the Right Content

People who are interested in your products will continue to browse your website to learn more about what you offer. Those who are not will leave the funnel. For that reason, you need to publish the right content at the top of the funnel to reach a wider pool of potential clients. Examples of such ToFu content would be:

  • eBooks
  • Tip sheets
  • Whitepapers
  • How-to videos/webinars
  • How-to blog posts
  • Guest blog posts
  • Overview reports
  • Online articles
  • Infographics
  • FAQ pages
  • Resource pages
  • Social media posts

The content at the top of the funnel is all about addressing the customer’s interests and needs. You need to get the attention of your target audience and persuade them that you provide value.

Related article: The 8 Practical Blogging Trends You Really Need to Follow in 2020

Optimize for Search Engines

Top of funnel leads typically search for something educative about a specific topic. They don’t purchase immediately. Instead, they are researching with phrases such as “how to <action>” or “why is <something>”.

how to google search

How to Attract ToFu Leads Through Search Engines?

The most effective ways to attract top of the funnel leads through search engines are:

  • Creating content that can rank high in the search engines for terms that TOFU leads use.
  • Creating online educational content that will grab the users’ attention on social media.

Finding the Right Top of the Funnel Keywords

To discover what type of content you need to create for better SEO, you have to know the keywords that your target customers are searching for.

List the Best Competitive Websites: Decide who your top competitors on search engines are. List all the websites that rank better for the keywords that you want to target.

Find the Best Performing Keywords: Discover the keywords that bring in the most traffic from your competitors. Analyze the keyword popularity and competitiveness first.

Filter out the ToFu searches: Narrow your list to possible ToFu keywords that include the terms “what”, “how”, “why”, “when”.

Choose Your Keywords: Go through your list and find phrases that would attract your target customers when they’re searching on Google.

Create ToFu Optimized Content: What type of content can you create for ToFu leads? Here are some ideas:

  • How-to article.
  • Infographic based on the article information.
  • Video tutorial that explains one of your articles.
  • Ebook that is a broader version of one of your articles.
  • Visual content with tips.

Utilize Social Media

When done right, social media can help you generate quality top-of-funnel leads for your brand.

Social media facilitates lead generation because of the information that people share, and the wide range of users. People interact on social media just as they would in person. Social media is the perfect place to find target users that can be qualified as top-of-funnel leads.

Facebook Lead Generation

Generating leads through Facebook will eventually lead you to paid ads. The network’s algorithm changes have made attaining organic reach more difficult. However, the good news is that spreading brand awareness on Facebook can be budget-friendly. Here are some tips that might help:

Run a Contest: Contests attract a lot of attention on Facebook. They’re an excellent way to gather leads for your funnel.

dollar shave club contest

Image Source: Facebook

Have a Custom Tab: Through this option, you can create contact forms that allow you to collect leads without having to send the users to your website.

facebook custom tabs

Image Source: Facebook

Shift the Focus: You need to stop looking at Facebook engagement as “Likes”. Turning your Page into a lead generation tool will help you generate interest that goes beyond branding.

Twitter Lead Generation

Twitter is an excellent platform to generate interest, find new information, deliver customer service, and network with your followers. The following tips will get you started with Twitter lead generation:

Tweet Better: Post tweets that the audience will want to engage with. Use the right mix of content as well. Not everything that you post should be your content. Have the least possible amount of promotional content.

ga twitter

Image Source: Twitter

Monitor Brand Mentions: Listen to what users are saying. Monitor the brand mentions and never miss a good opportunity to engage with your future and current customers.

wendys reply

Image Source: Twitter

Use Hashtags Intelligently: Learn which are the hashtags that are popular in your industry and use them prudently. Don’t overdo it because you can turn off users and sabotage your lead generation approach.

hubspot hashtags usage

Image Source: Twitter

LinkedIn Lead Generation

If you’re in the B2B niche, LinkedIn should be your number one focus when it comes to generating leads via social media. After all, it is one of the largest databases of business professionals. Here’s what you can do to successfully use LinkedIn for top-of-funnel lead generation.

Have a Content Strategy: Whether you’re creating or repurposing content, you need to stay consistent with your content strategy on LinkedIn.

Use Inbound Marketing: Inbound marketing can bring 54% more leads than outbound tactics. LinkedIn’s Publishing platform is perfect for showcasing thought leadership and providing value.

linkedin content marketing

Image Source: LinkedIn

Use Slides: Concentrate on developing relevant slide decks. Connect your SlideShare and LinkedIn accounts so that your slides are visible on your LinkedIn Profile or your Company Page. Include a call-to-action at the end of your slide presentation.

linkedin slides

Image Source: LinkedIn

Instagram Lead Generation

Instagram is a marketplace that you can’t ignore for top-of-funnel lead generation. Here’s what you need to focus on:

Don’t Ignore Comments: Instagram posts look much cooler with loads of likes, but you shouldn’t ignore the comments. Responding to them shows you care, which may instantly turn them into leads that you need to nurture.

Starbucks Instagram comments

Image Source: Instagram

Share User-Generated Content: Instagram is brilliant for sharing user-generated content. It increases social proof, users’ trust in your brand, and engagement.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Zua_ZJVIV/

Be Consistent: To break through the noise, you should post on Instagram at least once a day. There are tools like Buffer to help you schedule Instagram posts in advance and monitor them.

dailypeshev Instagram

Image Source: Instagram

Wrapping Up

Streamlining your top-of-funnel lead generation will enhance your conversion and retention rates. It will come as a direct result of spreading the right awareness about your brand.

Top-of-funnel lead generation allows you to create more sales opportunities. You’ll prove that your brand can provide value. With that, your potential customers will be more interested in your business, and they will become your brand advocates in the process.