All stakeholders will embark on a journey to making a choice to being loyal to an organization. Marketers call this the inbound marketing funnel. As I am in the word of communications, I’ll be referring to this as the inbound communications funnel.
This journey from not knowing anything about a organization to being a loyal advocates is an important focus for any communications professional.
Knowing this flow and tailoring it towards your prospective stakeholders will greatly increase then becoming advocates. It is the flow of your impact story to draw prospective stakeholders in and keep them, is what makes the funnel crucial to your success.
There are three parts to this funnel. These are:
In this blog post, we will explore briefly the relevance of each part.
In later blog posts, we will explore relevant content types for each part of the funnel.
This will give you a full understanding of each part and how we can leverage go from unengaged to engaged stakeholders.
ToFu
As the name suggests this is the very top of the funnel. It is where you first attract potential stakeholders. It is where your organization builds awareness. Top-of-the-funnel efforts act to help establish someone’s interest in your impact; the next stage focuses on converting their interest into a more meaningful relationship (in marketing parlance it is called a ‘lead’).
Remember this is where your stakeholder’s journey begins. It is full of potential stakeholders or prospects who are looking for information on a particular topic and improve their lives in some shape or form.
Whatever they might be looking for they most certainly will not be in the mindset to make a purchase or investment of any kind (time, money, or emotional). Remember your prospects are just trying to start solving a problem/need/situation they are facing or know of.
MoFu
The middle of the funnel focuses on establishing your organization’s importance and value. This part of the funnel is where you begin showing your business value by enticing the potential stakeholder to align with you.
Now your prospects have collected sufficient information on their topic (might have even become a new lead), they’re more knowledgable, and now willing to invest more time digging deeper into the topic… they begin to zero in.
This is the beginning of the nurturing and conversion process.
BoFu
The bottom of your funnel is a crucial stage in nurturing. Now your prospects need a real solution, they are close to making a purchasing decision. Hopefully, they have enough affinity with your values that you have their details.
Now, your new leads just need some convincing of why choosing your product or service, over your competitors, is the best choice they can make.
At this point, you have a way to contact your leads which allow your selling strategies to begin. The goal is to show your potential stakeholder what your efforts can provide them and hopefully convert them to become a stakeholder.
Building trust
As stakeholders go through the funnel your impact story will build trust with them.
Get enough trust and affinity with your organization to convert into an engaged stakeholder. Each part of the funnel is linked to one another by way of content types and communication tactics.
This we will go into in later posts.
Let me and my team create an impact story that boosts the performance of your inbound comms funnel. Schedule a free discovery call today.
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