Webinars x TOFU = More Leads and Sales Than Ever Before
Have you ever read a blog post or heard the word “TOFU” and had no clue how it related to marketing your business?
While there’s a lot of slang and internet marketing jargon out there (ex. ROAS, CTR, Conversion rates, etc.), TOFU confuses a lot of people (not just meat eaters either). But when you understand the term, this marketing strategy can literally change your business.
If you’re a new entrepreneur or in the beginning stages of growing your business, this post will help you tons!
Why?
Because we’re going in depth to help you better understand sales funnels. Sales funnels, combined with webinars can help you get more leads and grow your business faster than ever. Plus, you’ll understand how TOFU can help your business in more ways than you could imagine.
Hopefully, you still have some of that new year momentum so you can use it to your advantage and start taking advantage of sales funnels!
Let’s go…
Webinar Funnels 101
You might be thinking, what is a sales funnel anyway?
A sales funnel is a way to guide new leads into a buying cycle. The goal of any sales funnel is to take leads from the top of your funnel to the very bottom, resulting in a sale or conversion of some sort.
In general, there are three parts to a sales funnel (but in more advanced funnels, there can be more parts as well). For this example, we’ll break down the three stages of the funnel; top, middle, and bottom.
Top of Funnel (TOFU)
The top of the funnel, also known as TOFU is also called the awareness stage. At this point, it’s all about building awareness about you, your products, and the problem that your offers address.
The aim in this stage is to educate your audience more than anything else. This part is where new people enter your world for the first time ever. This can come from paid ads, referrals, social media, and organic strategies.
Some examples of this part of the funnel might include:
- Blog posts.
- YouTube videos.
- Podcast episodes.
- Expert interview series.
- Educational webinar/free training (pitch optional).
Middle of Funnel (MOFU)
Below the top of the funnel is the middle section, which is often considered the evaluation stage. This is where you teach people a solution so they can determine if your product or service is the right one for them.
The aim here is to engage with your audience so that they have a higher interest in you and your brand. Please remember, this only happens after someone has already gotten to know who you are and what your business is about from the first part of the funnel.
Some examples of this could include:
- Case studies.
- FAQ page or AMA style webinar.
- Customer testimonials and success stories.
- Product focused webinar (live or automated).
Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)
Finally, the bottom of the funnel explains why your product is ultimately the best solution for your audience. This is the purchase stage where you are asking people to make a decision to work with you or wait until a future launch.
Regardless of if they convert on your offer, it’s about getting people off the fence. During the final stage, the aim is to get conversions from the top of the funnel and retain existing clients as well.
Some examples of this phase of the funnel could include:
- Free trial.
- Phone consultation.
- AMA or traditional sales webinar.
The best part? A webinar can work in all aspects of your funnel and help get your leads one step closer to becoming paying customers. Don’t forget, a webinar funnel is very different from a traditional sales funnel (click here to read our full post about it).
Ultimately, the TOFU-MOFU-BOFU 3-part funnel is vital for your business as it helps address the problem, teach a solution, and explain why your offer is what they need! Since there’s a lot of details for each stage, we’ll focus this post on the top of funnel and the other two as part of a series of future posts.
How to Use Webinars in Top of a Sales Funnel
Remember, the top of funnel is all about brand awareness more than anything else.
This is not the time to come out of the gates hard selling and looking desperate for business. At this point, you hardly have a relationship with them and the last thing you want to do is act like Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall St trying to sell penny stocks.
Don’t force the issue as you might ruin the relationship before you ever give it a chance to succeed. Instead, during the awareness stage it’s all about building rapport and letting your audience get to know, like, and trust you.
Think about it from the other side of the coin (as I’m sure you join people’s funnels all the time). At this point, you may or may not have a problem that you want to solve. Or, maybe you’re in the research side of things on something you want to start doing in the near future.
As a prospective buyer, you probably start looking for a brand and person that you connect with. You’re looking for someone to guide you through the journey to success and that usually starts with free content. Whether it’s a lead magnet, a YouTube video, or something else to help you build momentum.
From the expert side of things, you want to do everything you can to build authority and trust quickly. Webinars are the fastest way to do that and one of the million reasons that I love them for all parts of your sales funnel.
Here are some of the best ways to use webinars in this part of the funnel:
#1. Automated Webinar as a CTA to Free Content
If you’re like most online marketers, you’re likely putting out some type of new content each week to attract new leads. Whether it’s a weekly blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video related to your niche and offer.
The cool thing is that a webinar can help make this free content become even more effective. Instead of just consuming more content, a webinar can help them learn more about you and your brand. Plus, it helps build trust quickly!
Regardless of which piece of content you put out each week, having some sort of CTA is vital to your success. Ideally, your CTA should give your audience a quick win and get them on your email list so you can further segment and cultivate the relationship.
For example, if you put out a weekly podcast, make sure to have links in your description to get people to sign up for a free, educational webinar. This will help move them along in their own journey and help build your email list. It’s a true win-win scenario!
#2. Paid Ads
While organic traffic is great (and free), it won’t guarantee that you will grow your email list. As you probably know, sometimes you can create the best piece of content ever, only to have it fall flat and not resonate with your audience. This is a momentum killer for so many entrepreneurs as you don’t build the necessary awareness that you want (and need) to grow your business.
I think the solution to this is to use a combination of organic and paid traffic like Facebook ads. While you should have an organic traffic strategy, don’t forget about the power of paid ads as well.
As I discuss in-depth in my upcoming book about webinars, paid advertising is one of the best ways to get targeted leads into your funnel. Yet, so many entrepreneurs hold back because they get overwhelmed and think of it as an expense, instead of an investment.
But I challenge you to think differently. Instead, understand that paid ads with organic content can help you gain more awareness and get people to the next phase of your funnel.
#3. AMA Webinar
Finally, one last type of webinar to help you in the TOFU stage is an AMA (ask me anything) webinar. These are great ways to build rapport with your audience and provide them with answers to their biggest questions. It also instantly helps you stand out as an expert in your niche and someone who is there to serve their audience.
One entrepreneur I’ve seen implement this lately is Amy Porterfield, creator of Digital Course Academy. She’s also a wildly successful entrepreneur who serves her audience with tons of content on building an online course business. And webinars are her secret weapon for success!
Aside from her podcast episodes on “Online Marketing Made Easy,” she now does monthly live Q&A sessions. These are 100% free for her audience to attend and very informative, yet informal compared to some webinars. When you join her email list, she sends these out and runs an AMA style webinar all about list building and/or digital courses.
These are three of the best ways to use webinars in your top of funnel. Start to think about how one (or all) of them can help you gain awareness about your business.
Webinar Best Practices
Regardless of whichever webinar strategy or strategies you choose, I had a few pointers I wanted to share with you. Because here’s the thing, you need to make sure you’re engaging your audience and making it a fun process, otherwise they’ll sign off!
Here are three of my biggest tips to help you run exciting and inspiring webinars:
Show Excitement and Authenticity
Since this webinar is at the top of the funnel, this is likely the first real interaction with your audience. So make sure that you give them a great first impression by showing passion and excitement about your niche!
This is the time to show them who you are, what you’re about and why you love your topic. And please, be yourself during these webinars!
One of the biggest mistakes I see so many entrepreneurs make is trying to be like everyone else. Or the version they think people “want” to see.
In reality, this is the time to be 100% your authentic self. People will see right through you if you’re faking it and phoning it in. In a world where and more people are showing up online, you need to show up as your 100% genuine self!
Remember, you are truly unique and unlike anyone else in the world… so own it! Some of the best ways to do this are to share personal stories and get vulnerable with your audience. While it might feel awkward at first, I promise it’ll help you create a better relationship with them and pay off big time.
Connect With Your Audience
Remember, this part of the funnel is all about connecting and engaging your audience. A great way to do that is to use empathy and let your audience know that you understand their pain and current struggles. Because whether they realize it or not, they’re in some sort of pain or else they wouldn’t be looking for a solution in the first place.
Show that you care but also start to future pace them by showing that there is a way out of their pain!
Provide Helpful Content
Finally, make sure your webinar content is helpful and not some cookie cutter presentation they could find on your YouTube channel. Instead, make it 100% unique and insanely valuable.
You want them walking away thinking, “If their free content is this good, I can’t imagine how good their paid stuff is too.”
Also, since this is the top of your funnel, make sure you’re not pitching something every other slide either. Otherwise, they’ll probably never show up to another webinar again.
Want more tips and tricks so that you crush webinars? Click here to read “25 Webinar Best Practices to Increase Registration, Attendance, and Sales.”
Final Thoughts on TOFU Strategies
Hopefully, you aren’t confused by the word “TOFU” in regards to internet marketing anymore. Remember, this part of the funnel is all about building brand awareness and getting more eyes on you and your business.
I also hope you can start to see the potential of webinars as a vital tool in your top of funnel marketing too. Don’t forget, webinars allow you to connect with your audience unlike any other medium and build trust fast!
But it’s up to you to implement them in different ways so that you can build rapport fast and move people one step closer to a sale.
The middle and bottom stages (MOFU & BOFU) require their own unique strategy. Make sure to join our email list by entering it below so that you get notified when they go live!
Next Steps
As you can see in this post, webinars work in all parts of your funnel!
When you join a plan with one of our FREE trials, you instantly gain access to:
- Live webinars: Run highly engaged events, engage with your audience via live chat, and share your message to an audience worldwide. Live webinars will also help you test out new offers, learn what your audience needs, and build tons of trust quickly!
- Automated webinars: We love automation and evergreen webinars can help you scale your business quickly. These can help with your top of funnel marketing and allow you to increase awareness without always running live webinars.
- Integrations: Finally, EasyWebinar integrates with your favorite software to make your tools and software work together.
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