Top Of The Funnel

Top Of The Funnel – TOFU Content Marketing Strategy [2025]

Building an online presence is tougher while your competitors are applying new strategies to their websites to grab the attention of customers.

So, you must have a whole marketing funnel in place to ensure you are generating enough traffic and setting up the right activities to convert potential clients.

The first stage of the marketing funnel is to build brand awareness and drive new traffic – Top of the Funnel (TOFU). 86% of B2C marketers and 91% of B2B marketers using content marketing to reach their audience through this startegy.

In this stage, you have to set up several activities that are created to attract new prospects to your website and introduce your brand.

Today, I will introduce you to the Top Of The Funnel so that you can start preparing your marketing funnel easily.

So let’s begin.

The Role of Top of The Funnel (TOFU) in Your Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is a process where you plan your customer journey from the first contact with your business to the final purchase. It is divided into three main stages –

  1. Top of the funnel (TOFU) Get new traffic and introduce your brand to new audiences.
  2. Middle of the funnel (MOFU) Educate your prospects to consider making a decision.
  3. Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) Convince your prospects to take action.

So, If you have these three stages in place, then you can expect to start seeing constant growth in your business.

As you can see, TOFU ensures you are getting more people to visit your website, which gives you a chance to take the next step and try and convince them to convert.

Why Top of The Funnel Marketing is Important for Your Business?

Since it’s the starting point for new traffic, Top of the Funnel (TOFU) marketing adds immense value to your business. This stage is crucial for growing your online presence and overcoming initial challenges. Here’s how TOFU can benefit you:

  • Attract More Potential Clients: By utilizing effective top of the funnel content, you can reach a broad audience and generate higher potential leads. This approach increases your chances of capturing mid-funnel leads and expanding your customer base.
  • Greater Brand Awareness: Implementing upper funnel marketing tactics boosts your brand visibility. Becoming well-known to a wider audience ensures that your brand stays on their radar when they consider solutions in the future.
  • Build a Database of Leads: With TOFU marketing strategies, you can drive more traffic to your site, leading to valuable email captures and the opportunity to build a robust database of leads. This foundational step sets you up for successful lead nurturing and future sales conversions.
  • Enhanced Customer Engagement: Effective TOFU content helps in engaging a larger audience, and establish a connection with potential clients. By providing valuable information and insights, you can build trust and keep your audience interested in your offerings.
  • Improved Conversion Rates: A well-executed brand awareness funnel increases the likelihood of attracting the right audience. As you move prospects through the funnel, you’ll see improved conversion rates as you nurture them toward making a decision and engaging with your sales team.

According to Adobe, 96% of website visitors may not be ready to make a purchase. But you can get their information in exchange for valuable resources. So this is a good opportunity to prepare for long-term business growth.

  1. Establish Trust And Credibility: Your content quality and usefulness will help you gain people’s trust over time.
  2. Understand The Metrics & Interest Of Your Target Audience: The type of people who visit your content will help you understand the areas you may improve on and how you may optimize your future marketing campaigns.

The main idea here is to create reasons for people to visit your website and consider taking action on your request. And you can do that with the right TOFU content & marketing activities.

According to a study by Edelman, 64% of consumers cite shared values as the primary reason for their relationship with a brand.

Types of Top of The Funnel Content to Plan Your Marketing Activities Effectively

The first thing you need to consider when it comes to top of the funnel content is ways to get organic traffic.

According to Search Engine Journal – 70% of respondents consider organic search as the most effective channel for attracting traffic at this funnel stage.

So, initially, you need to work on content that adds value to prospects in some way. It could be an article that teaches strategies, an infographic, a video about tactics or action plans, etc.

Let’s say you have a website with the title “HealthFit,” which specializes in fitness and wellness products. This means you want to connect with people who are concerned about a healthy lifestyle.

Following are some of the types of content you can produce to attract new potential traffic.

  1. Evergreen posts/articles: You can create informative articles such as “How to Start an Effective Workout Routine” or “Nutrition Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle” that people will be able to use for days to come, i.e., a long-lasting value to your audience. You don’t need to give any indication of what you sell or make any direct call to action. These contents will simply help you to get into their minds for the future.
  2. Educational/Informational Videos: Videos such as “5 Nutrients You Must Consume For Better Health” or “Benefits of Yoga for Mind and Body” could be used simply to provide education to people who want to learn. Here, the value you are offering is knowledge. Again, you don’t have to sell anything here. People will start trusting you more on the field just because you are able to offer valuable knowledge.
  3. Free Educational Live Sessions on YouTube & Facebook: You can host live sessions on social media simply to deliver knowledge and ideas on certain topics, as per your expertise. This will help you gain authority and trust in the same field.
  4. Infographics: Infographics on statistics, ideas, quotations, and processes are a good way to reach more people.
  5. Podcast: Host a podcast and discuss common fitness challenges, interview experts to get their ideas, and provide practical solutions to attract listeners who are seeking fitness solutions. This will help reach a whole new set of audience and have more potential for conversion.
  6. Free eBooks On Valuable Topics: People love to get some sort of handbook or guide they can keep for future reference. A free eBook, maybe on certain food habits or diet plans, could be perfect for the fitness industry. You can create a landing page for it to get organic traffic and even get people to provide their email addresses to claim the ebook, i.e., lead generation and organic growth at the same time.
  7. Forum & Social Media Participation: Often people will ask questions or share concerns on social media/forums that relate to your expertise. If you are able to answer their queries there, many will check out your profile and, eventually, your business.

There could be several other ways, such as building landing pages for different products, sharing your content on other social media groups/pages, etc.

However, you have to ensure you are focusing strongly on SEO because your content has rank on SERPs for people to find them.

FYI, if you really are a fitness trainer, you can read this guide on selling fitness products online.

How to Plan TOFU Content for Your Marketing Funnel Effectively

Now, you know what content to produce and why they are effective. But how do you start planning what topics to choose and what type of content to focus on more?

Let us look at how.

Step 1 – Identify your target audience

You have to invest time in understanding who your target audience should be. Conduct thorough market research to gain insights into the specific demographics, preferences, and challenges of your target prospects.

If we go by the fitness business example, then your target audience would be people who are,

  • health-conscious individuals,
  • aged 25-40,
  • primarily females,
  • seeking weight loss or wants to maintain good body fitness.

The challenges they usually face are,

  • limited time for exercise,
  • lack of motivation,
  • limited nutrition knowledge,
  • picky about food.

You may find out these details in several ways.

  1. Do competitor research to see what other similar businesses are focusing on.
  2. Monitor social media with keywords that relate to your business to find ideas.
  3. Check people’s testimonials on their experience with other similar businesses to find out what end result made them happy.
  4. Read case studies on people’s experience with other competitor businesses.
  5. Join Facebook Groups and forums where similar topics are discussed.
  6. Check Google trends and use keyword research tools to find out what people search for.

Based on this information, you may create customer personas that you want to entertain with your TOFU content.

So, going back to the example, we can think of the following two personas: So, going back to the example, we can think of the following two personas:

Persona 1: Active Professional

  • Name: Annie
  • Gender: Female
  • Age: 30yrs
  • Career: Corporate job
  • Fitness Goals: Weight loss, Increase Stamina
  • Pain Points: Limited time for exercise, lackings of motivation

Persona 2: Fitness Enthusiast

  • Name: Emily
  • Gender: Female
  • Age: 35yrs
  • Career: Dance Teacher
  • Fitness Goals: Shredding, Strength Training
  • Pain Points: Plateau in progress, maintaining a healthy diet

Once you have the personas ready, you can then move to the next step.

Step 2 – Identify Key Phrases And The Right Channels for Your Content

Now, research the pain points and desired outcomes of each of the personas and try to find out the terms people use when describing similar cases.

You can try to conduct a before-after grid to help you out with it.

If you consider the two personas above, we know what their fitness goals are. So, what you have to find out is what they search for online to get the solution. They may either search for the terms directly or search with the issues they are facing that can be solved with the same fitness goals.

For example, people who need to grow stamina may search for “Why can’t I run longer” or “stamina training,” etc.

Find out similar phrases and related terms that your personas can relate to. You may either search for these manually using Google and SEO tools, or you may ask for suggestions from ChatGPT.

  • Once you have the set of phrases or terms, you can use an SEO tool such as Ahrefs, SE Ranking, SEMRush, etc., to find out more matching terms and determine the search volumes of all the keyphrases you listed down.
  • You can also use TubeBuddy or VidIQ to research the keyphrases for YouTube.
  • For Facebook or Twitter, you can simply search by the terms one by one and see what type of content received the highest engagement for these phrases.

Try to pay attention to both similar keywords and alternative keywords that have the same SERP results as yours. For example, if we enter “stamina training’ into SE Ranking, its keyword suggestion tool will provide you with related keywords such as “define endurance”, “cardiovascular endurance exercise”, “food to boost stamina”, etc.

SE Ranking search results

Although these keywords are different in meaning from our main keyword, they are keywords that the same audience often searches for. So targeting them will help you get a broader reach towards your target audience. Normally TOFU keywords have high search volumes and serve informational search intent. So you may use an intent filter in your SEO tool to find related keywords for the right stage of the funnel.

Next, you can also do keyword clustering to ensure you are not producing redundant content. You would rather rank for multiple keywords with a single content than create content for every other keyphrase.

By the end of this step, you will have a whole set of keyphrases clustered in groups, that you know are relatable to your target personas and you will have found out the type of content you want to produce and for which channels.

Step 3 – Prepare The Right Content Plan to Fulfill Top of The Funnel Marketing

Now, you have 3 options when planning your content, depending on the channel you are preparing it for.

  1. Manually check the first 20 pieces of content that appear on SERP when searching by a key phrase. Then decide on a similar content topic that most are writing about.
  2. You can ask for topic suggestions from your SEO tools (Ahrefs or SEMRush).
  3. Use ChatGPT to help you generate suitable topics.
Content Planning - Top of The Funnel

For example, if the keyphrase is “Stamina Training,” (or phrases in the same cluster) the following could be possible TOFU blog topics:

  • How To Increase Your Stamina – 10 Workout Hacks
  • Proven Stamina Training For Women
  • 15 Tactics To Grow Your Running Stamina

These will easily grab the attention of the target audience and will act as perfect TOFU marketing content.

Similarly, you may plan topics for different channels.

**Remember you are preparing content for TOFU. So the topics should be aimed at generating traffic.**Remember you are preparing content for TOFU. So the topics should be aimed at generating traffic.

Step 4 – Create content with high-quality

Now, it’s time to execute. Get your team (or yourself if a solopreneur) to start preparing content.

Remember, it is important to ensure high quality with no plagiarism. People will only visit and trust your business if the content is really helpful.

You can use a premium AI Writer such as ScaleNut, GetGenie AI, Closers Copy, etc., to prepare written content quickly. Or you can write on your own. (You can even hire professional content creators if you want.)

Step 5 – Prepare A Landing Page for Your Business

While the TOFU content will do a great job, you should still create a dedicated landing page for your business that people can search for and find in SERPS.

As per the example, you can design a visually appealing and user-friendly landing page that showcases the key benefits and features of your fitness and wellness products.

Tip:
To ensure you have a high performing landing page, conduct regular usability tests. You will find efficient usability testing tools that will help you gather insights from your potential customers to create the best landing page that brings results.

Let’s consider an example of optimizing the landing page for promoting a weight loss program. Here are key elements to include:

  1. Compelling headline: “Transform Your Body and Achieve Sustainable Weight Loss with HealthFit’s 12-Week Program.”
  2. Persuasive copy: Highlight the unique benefits, such as personalized meal plans, expert guidance, and a supportive community.
  3. Visuals: Display before-and-after photos of successful participants or images showcasing the program’s effectiveness.
  4. Clear call-to-action (CTA): Encourage visitors to sign up for a free consultation or enroll in the weight loss program.
  5. Testimonials: Feature testimonials from satisfied customers who have achieved their weight loss goals with HealthFit’s program.
  6. Responsive design: Ensure the landing page is optimized for seamless viewing and interaction.

And of course, do not forget to optimize for SEO. This page will in itself rank and perform. Plus, you can use internal linking to drive traffic from your other content to this page.

Note: Once you have the content ready if they are hosted on your website, then you have to invest some time into link building, i.e., getting backlinks and social shares from other relevant sites/individuals.

Tools and Resources to Help with Top of The Funnel Marketing

Here are some tools and resources, that can help you with the overall top of the funnel plan.

  1. SEO Tools: You will need SEO tools such as Ahrefs, SE Ranking, SEMRush, etc, to research and identify keywords to focus on. And then you can plan the right TOFU topics to focus on.
  2. Landing Page Builder: Consider using a sales funnel builder to create visually appealing and conversion-optimized landing pages. This will allow you to plan your Middle Of The Funnel Step for visitors. In WordPress, WPFunnels, along with Elementor, would be a great option.
  3. Email Automation Tool: Once your content is ready, you can send an email newsletter to your leads to get some instant traction. This will help the content rank faster on SERPS. You can use reliable email marketing automation tools such as Mail Mint, FluentCRM, Brevo, etc. as it will save you time and money.
  4. Content Management System (CMS): Utilize a CMS like WordPress or HubSpot to easily create, manage, and publish your content across various channels. These platforms offer user-friendly interfaces and features for organizing and optimizing your content.
  5. Social Media Management Tools: Tools such as Bulk.ly, Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social can help you schedule and automate social media posts, track engagement, and monitor brand mentions.
  6. AI Writers For Content Creation: As mentioned above, you may use tools such as Scalenut, Closers Copy, or ChatGPT to make your content creation process faster.

Conclusion

Learning top of the funnel marketing is important for your business to attract a larger audience and build brand awareness.

By focusing on top of the funnel marketing, you set the stage for generating mid-funnel leads, which are essential for guiding prospects through the awareness stage and toward making a decision.

With upper funnel marketing tactics, you launched a wider net. It ensures that your marketing leads reach the right audience. WPFunnels will help you optimize your top of the funnel strategy, providing tools to gather valuable contact information from potential customers.

By providing high-level topics and valuable content, you engage in-market buyers and drive more customer engagement. This approach improves conversion rates and builds trust, leading to long-term benefits for your business.

** FAQs **

What are some effective strategies for TOFU marketing?

  • Effective strategies for TOFU marketing include creating high-quality content like blog posts, videos, and infographics. Optimizing for SEO is crucial to appear in organic search results and reach a broader audience. Using social media and paid ads can also help you generate local leads and increase brand awareness.

How can you optimize your content for TOFU marketing?

  • To optimize your content for TOFU marketing, focus on thorough keyword research to include relevant terms like “top of funnel marketing” and “brand awareness funnel.” Create engaging and informative content that addresses your target audience’s needs. Promote your content across various channels and use analytics to track and improve engagement rates.

How does WPFunnels help with TOFU marketing?

  • WPFunnels helps you create effective TOFU marketing strategies by providing tools to build optimized landing pages and automate your marketing activities. It simplifies the process of attracting and capturing TOFU leads, making it easier for you to increase brand awareness and generate more qualified leads for your business.

How can TOFU marketing benefit small business lead generation?

  • TOFU marketing is especially beneficial for small business lead generation. By implementing strategies like content marketing and SEO, you can attract a larger audience to your site. This approach helps you generate local leads and build brand awareness at a low cost, which is crucial for small business owners looking to grow their customer base.

What role do lead magnets play in TOFU marketing?

  • Lead magnets are vital in TOFU marketing as they provide value to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. Effective lead magnets, such as free eBooks or webinars, help capture email addresses and other details from new visitors. This allows you to build a database of qualified leads and nurture them through your marketing funnel.

Sakiba Prima

Sakiba Prima, the Content Editor at WPFunnels is passionate about making WordPress work wonders for your business. With a flair for simple yet effective sales & marketing tactics and handy tooltips, she turns complex ideas into easy reads.

Sakiba Prima
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