How to Target Mid-Funnel Sales Leads

Win over your mid-funnel leads

When people move to the middle-of-the-funnel, they have already been researching their pain point and have begun to understand their various choices. A few company names start to stand out to them as they begin to form a ‘short list’ of potential companies that they want to buy from.

When you want to target customers at this stage of the marketing funnel, you will need to understand their comparison process. You want to create a strong sense in their mind that you are the authority on the subject and the solution they need, and that thus they should trust you and what you can offer them.

Know where your customers are

Your first step in targeting customers in the middle of the sales funnel lies in understanding what platforms you can use to engage with them.

The presence you nurture on the SERP and the authority on your website continue to be important factors. Customers may look for downloadable whitepapers and ebooks. Your email list and the content you promote to email subscribers will also play an important role.

Your social media profile should also offer a strong presence where you demonstrate a willingness to actively engage with prospective customers and answer their questions or address their concerns as they arise. Here are some places to begin.

• Target leads with content
• Understand main competitors
• Website traffic
• Conversations with customers

1. Targeting leads with content. As you build your presence on these different platforms, you need to know how to generate topic ideas that will interest your customers and continue to nurture them to conversion.

2. Understanding main competitors. Spend the time developing a thorough understanding of your competitors. Know what appeals to customers who elect to buy from them and how they nurture their leads towards sales. This can offer valuable information about strategies that you can try as well as potential gaps that you can capitalize on to grow your business.

Remember that leads at this stage have also begun to create a short list of companies they may buy from. Therefore, knowing your top competitors can also help you plan content that focuses on pointing out why your brand offers a better solution than the product or service offered by the other brand.

3. Website traffic. Your website itself can also offer valuable information about what people at the middle of the marketing funnel want to see from organizations. Look at where customers click on your website and the types of content that seem to engage them the most. Monitor the types of email messages that get the most click throughs and the content that encouraged people to click around the site.

This information will help you gain a more complete picture of what customers want to see and what interests them the most on your site. This information can help inform the content creation process as you focus on the most relevant material.

4. Conversations with customers. Your customers can also provide helpful information about what they want to see. As you build relationships with your customers, ask them about their buying process. See what mattered to them the most as they headed into the mid-funnel area. Uncover potential topic ideas and themes as you create material that will also encourage new potential customers to learn more about your company and what you have to offer.

As leads progress through the top-of-the-funnel stages into the mid-funnel stages, you want to provide them with strong motivation to keep coming back to your organization. Creating content that helps to set you apart from the competition can build your business. Encourage people to submit contact information so that you can nurture these leads further plays a significant role.