Mastering Mid-Funnel Marketing

I’m sure you agree breaking through the noise and connecting with your audience can feel like an uphill battle. 

This is why I frequently write about mid-funnel marketing. While top-of-funnel strategies attract initial interest and bottom-of-funnel tactics close the deal, it’s the often-overlooked middle of the funnel where the real magic happens. Mid-funnel marketing is where you nurture relationships, build trust, and guide potential customers toward a purchase decision.

The mid-funnel is also less crowded. Many businesses don’t focus on engaging prospects at this crucial stage. They skip straight to the close. They either overwhelm leads with sales pitches or fail to provide the value and information needed to move forward. Generating short-term wins is not how to achieve long-term success.

And that’s why mastering mid-funnel marketing is key to your success.

“”In the mid-funnel, you’re not trying to be the loudest voice; you’re trying to be the most helpful one.”
~ Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert

In this article, we’ll explore three powerful mid-funnel marketing tactics that will help you get the right customers for the right reasons. You’ll learn how to create personalized experiences, nurture leads effectively, and stay top-of-mind with your prospects.

Read on for actionable strategies to transform your marketing and drive more conversions.

Understanding the Mid-Funnel

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I’ve written about this before—90% of loyalty problems can be traced to a flawed sales process. This insight underscores a crucial truth: long-term customer loyalty and brand-building start long before the sale is made. And it’s in the mid-funnel that you lay the foundation for lasting relationships. The strategies and tactics you employ in the mid-funnel are pivotal and based on a simple idea: your customer is the hero.

The mid-funnel is where you nurture leads, build trust, and guide potential customers toward a purchase decision. By mastering this stage, you’re not just aiming for a one-time sale; you’re inviting prospects to join you and become loyal customers and brand advocates. 

OK? Are you with me? Perfect! Let’s dig in.

“Mid-funnel marketing is about nurturing relationships. It’s where you prove that you understand your customer’s needs better than anyone else.” ~ Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist

How the Mid-Funnel Marketing Differs from Top and Bottom Funnel Strategies

In the mid-funnel stage, your prospects are aware of their problem and are actively considering solutions. They’re not quite ready to buy, but they are open to learning more. Most marketers ignore this truth and push prospects to the sale. This is your opportunity to be different. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate value, build trust, and guide prospects toward your solution.

How You Can Go Wrong in the Mid-Funnel Stage

Navigating the mid-funnel can be tricky. Some common pitfalls include:

1. Lack of personalization: Generic content that fails to resonate with prospects’ specific needs becomes more digital noise.
2. Overwhelming prospects: Aggressively bombarding prospects with too many messages, interactions, or choices.
3. Misalignment with the buyer’s journey: Failing to provide the right content at the right time.
4. Weak value proposition: Not communicating how your solution solves their problem.

How Mid-Funnel Marketing Can Boost Your Business

Effective mid-funnel marketing can dramatically impact your bottom line:

• Builds trust: You position yourself as a trusted advisor by providing valuable, relevant content.
• Qualifies leads: Engagement at this stage helps identify which prospects are ready to move forward.
• Shortens sales cycles: Well-supported prospects move through the funnel more quickly.
• Increases conversion rates: Prospects engaging with mid-funnel content are more likely to become high-value customers.
• Enhances customer relationships: The trust built here lays the foundation for long-term customer loyalty.

By mastering mid-funnel marketing, you’re not just pushing for a sale – you’re creating a pathway for prospects to become loyal customers and advocates for your brand. 

OK, enough theory.

“The goal of mid-funnel content isn’t to close the sale, but to close the gap between what the customer knows and what they need to know to make an informed decision.” ~ Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute

The following sections describe three powerful tactics you can use to supercharge your mid-funnel efforts and drive meaningful results. For more on the theory and three more tactics you can use, ‘cause I know you want them, read our other post on mid-funnel marketing tactics: Mid-Funnel Marketing: 3 Tactics Every Marketer Should Use.

Tactic 1: Deepen Engagement with Personalized Content

Forbes reports that consumers are exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day. That’s a lot of noise, and generic content will be swallowed up in the noise. This underscores the critical need for personalization in your mid-funnel marketing tactics.

“Breaking through the noise is hard. How can my marketing compete?”

To cut through this clutter and truly engage your prospects, you need to speak directly to their unique needs and challenges. Personalized content will do this. Generic content won’t.

So you see, to break through, personalized content is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have tactic that can significantly boost your mid-funnel marketing effectiveness. Personalization creates meaningful connections that guide prospects closer to a purchase decision by tailoring your message to specific audience segments.

But what does all this mean?

Obviously, you can use merge tags to insert a prospect’s name into an email, and you should do this. But personalization can and should be bigger than this. By using the buyer’s journey and the avatar together, you can personalize the marketing messages so that they feel like the marketing was designed for the viewer.

Using the Buyer’s Journey to Create Tailored Experiences

The key to effective personalization lies in understanding your buyer’s journey. By mapping out the steps your prospects take from awareness to decision, you can create content that resonates at each stage:

1. Awareness: They’re just realizing they have a problem.
2. Consideration: They’re actively researching solutions.
3. Prospecting: They are considering two or three choices.
4. Decision: They’re ready to make a choice.

Personalized content is valuable in all stages of the funnel, but in this post, we’re focused on the mid-funnel tactics used in the consideration and prospecting stages. In these stages, prospects evaluate options and are open to learning more about their choices. Your personalized content will be seen, and when it’s seen, it can impact their journey.

“Effective mid-funnel marketing doesn’t just move leads through the funnel; it accelerates their journey by providing real value at every touchpoint.” ~ Pamela Vaughan, Principal Marketing Manager at HubSpot

An example of this is the people-like-you pathways on your home page. These cards call out to subsegments in your audience and invite them to click a button to learn more. Then, when they click a button and are taken to a landing page, you know who they are, and they’ve given you permission to give them more information. How awesome is that? Because you know who they are, the landing page content can be highly personalized and will feel like it was tailored specifically for them.

Using the customer avatar and the buyer’s journey map to craft the content results in a highly personalized experience that draws prospects along their journey and builds trust.

Best Content Types for Mid-Funnel Engagement

To deepen engagement, consider these content types:

1. Case Studies: Showcase real-world examples of how your solution has helped similar businesses. This builds credibility and helps prospects envision success with your product or service. Case studies can be stand-alone assets or incorporated into blog posts. 
2. Comparison Guides/Reviews: Help prospects evaluate different solutions objectively. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors. Use the insights from the avatar and journey map to highlight the things that will be important to your audience.
3. Expert Webinars or Masterclasses: Invite prospects to experience your in-depth knowledge on topics that are important to them. This builds trust by sharing valuable information that supports their journey and positions you as a thought leader.
4. Personalized Email Sequences: Use their name and data from your customer avatars and journey maps to create emails that address specific pain points and objections and offer tailored solutions. More on this below.
5. Video: How-to videos feature deep dives, step-by-step instructions, product reviews, and other topics that prospects are researching in the mid-funnel.
6. Assessment Surveys: Assessments that help prospects understand their needs better and see the value of your solution.

The goal isn’t to push for a sale but to provide value and build trust. By offering personalized, relevant content, you’re not just moving leads through the funnel but laying the groundwork for a lasting relationship.

Tactic 2: Nurture Leads with Targeted Email Sequences

Email marketing should be a key part of your mid-funnel marketing strategy. 

Call Out – According to a study by Campaign Monitor, email marketing delivers an impressive ROI of $44 for every $1 spent, significantly outperforming other channels. 

Targeted email sequences can be used to nurture leads, build relationships, and guide prospects toward a purchase decision. When used correctly, email is the engine that could.

Designing Email Sequences That Move the Needle

Effective email sequences are more than just a series of messages; they’re carefully crafted to align with your prospect’s needs and decision-making process. 

Here’s how to design sequences that drive results:

1. Start with a warm welcome: Your first email should set expectations and provide immediate value.
2. Educate and inform: Share insights, tips, and industry knowledge that addresses your prospect’s pain points.
3. Showcase your solution: Gradually introduce how your product or service solves their problems.
4. Provide social proof: To build credibility, include customer testimonials, case studies, or success stories early and often.
5. Create urgency: Towards the end of the sequence, invite readers to continue their journey with time-limited offers or highlight the cost of inaction.

Drip Campaigns vs. Triggered Emails: Either or Both?

Both drip campaigns and triggered emails are important in mid-funnel marketing.

Drip Campaigns: Think of these as a lazy river. Your leads hop in and are gently carried along a predetermined path, encountering various touchpoints (or, in this case, emails) at regular intervals. Just as a lazy river provides a relaxing, controlled journey, drip campaigns offer your prospects a steady, nurturing flow of information. They’re great for consistently engaging leads over time, keeping your brand top-of-mind, and gradually moving prospects through the funnel at a comfortable pace.

Triggered Emails: But pay attention. Have a plan to respond to a prospect’s actions. For example, if they click a link in a Lazy River email to download a lead magnet, they’re signaling that they’re ready to take action and move forward. Send a highly relevant email based on the link they selected. The triggered email should be a balance of urgency and convenience. Encourage them to take action while making it easy to work with you. Triggered emails are particularly effective for moving leads through the funnel.

The best approach combines both strategies. Use drip campaigns for consistent nurturing and supplement with triggered emails for timely, action-based communication.

Remember, the goal of your email sequences is to build trust and provide value, not to bombard prospects with sales pitches. But if they’re ready, you need to be ready, too. Email marketing nurtures leads effectively by focusing on their needs and delivering relevant, helpful content that paves the way for conversion.

Tactic 3: Leverage Retargeting to Stay Top of Mind

Busy people don’t mind being reminded. This human tendency makes retargeting a powerful mid-funnel marketing tactic. By reminding prospects who’ve shown interest but haven’t yet converted, you’re not interrupting—you’re supporting them and nudging them along on their journey.

How Retargeting Ads Can Re-Engage Prospects

Retargeting works by serving ads to people who have previously interacted with your website or content. According to a study by SharpPring Ads, website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert on your website. Numbers like this make it clear that mid-funnel retargeting works.

Here’s why retargeting is effective:

1. Relevance: You’re reaching out to people who have already expressed interest in your brand or offerings.
2. Timeliness: Ads are served while your solution is fresh in the prospect’s mind.
3. Frequency: Multiple touchpoints reinforce your message and keep your brand visible.
4. Cost-effectiveness: Unlike broad awareness campaigns, retargeting allows marketers to focus their ad spend on interested prospects.

“Mid-funnel marketing is about nurturing relationships. It’s where you prove that you understand your customer’s needs better than anyone else.” ~ Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist

With retargeting, there’s no need to “spray and pray”—you’re delivering ads to an audience that’s already shown interest, maximizing your marketing ROI.

Choosing the Right Platforms for Mid-Funnel Retargeting

Your customer avatar and buyer’s journey map are invaluable tools when selecting platforms for mid-funnel retargeting. They provide crucial insights into where your best prospects spend their time online and what content they engage with. 

Get the right message to the right person at the right time.

~ Direct Marketing Axiom

Let’s look at a few popular channels.

1. Facebook and Instagram: If your avatar suggests your audience is active on social media, these platforms offer robust targeting options and visual ad formats. They’re particularly effective if your buyer’s journey map indicates that prospects seek social proof or lifestyle-oriented content.
2. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is often the go-to for B2B companies. If your avatar represents professionals or decision-makers and your journey map shows they value industry insights and networking, LinkedIn’s professional focus makes it an ideal choice.
3. Pinterest: This platform is excellent for mid-funnel marketing, especially if your avatar describes a research-oriented and visually driven audience. Pinterest’s focus on discovery aligns perfectly with the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey. Pinterest can be a powerful retargeting platform.
4. YouTube: If your avatar describes an audience that prefers visual learning, and your journey map shows that product demonstrations or how-to content are important in decision-making, YouTube can be an excellent platform for engaging prospects with video content.

By aligning your platform choices with your customer avatar and journey map, you ensure that your remarketing efforts reach the right people in the right places with the right message. This targeted approach not only improves the effectiveness of your campaigns but also maximizes your marketing ROI by focusing on the platforms most likely to yield results.

Creating Ad Content that Aligns with the Best Customer Avatar and Buyer’s Journey

To maximize the effectiveness of your retargeting efforts, align your ad content with your best customer avatar and their position in the buyer’s journey. Here’s how:

1. Segment your audience: Create different retargeting lists based on the pages visited or actions taken in emails.
2. Tailor your message: Craft ad copy that speaks directly to your best customer avatar’s pain points and desires regarding where they are in their journey.
3. Match content to funnel stage: Offer educational content for those early in the consideration stage and more product-focused information for those in the prospecting phase.
4. Use compelling visuals: Choose images or videos that resonate with your target audience and showcase your value proposition.
5. Include clear CTAs: Guide prospects on what to do next, whether downloading a whitepaper, signing up for a demo, or making a purchase.

Remember, the goal of mid-funnel retargeting isn’t just to make a sale but to build trust and provide value. You can nurture leads effectively and move them closer to conversion by delivering relevant, helpful content through retargeting ads.

What is the Goal of Mid-Funnel Marketing?

Mid-funnel marketing isn’t just another buzzword—it’s where the magic happens. 

Your communication in the mid-funnel can be the difference between a one-time buyer and a lifelong fan. Forget about pushing for that quick sale; we’re in the business of building relationships and earning trust. It’s like planting seeds for a bumper crop of loyal customers. And at the risk of repeating myself, “90% of loyalty issues can be traced back to the sales process.” 

So, what’s the goal of mid-funnel marketing? 

“The middle of the funnel is where the magic happens. It’s where you build relationships, establish trust, and truly differentiate your brand.” ~ Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital

When you’re crafting your mid-funnel strategy, the ultimate goal is sales, but you are making the sale with an eye on long-term value. By connecting with the needs and desires of your best customers, your marketing will cut through the noise and build trust with your audience. That’s the ticket to turning warm prospects into your best customers—the ones who’ll stick with you through thick and thin.

Building Relationships and Trust Through Solutions, Not Sales Pitches

When engaging with mid-funnel prospects, your primary goal should be to provide value. 

Here’s why this approach is crucial:

1. Establishes Credibility: You position yourself as a trusted advisor by focusing on solving problems rather than pushing products.
2. Builds Long-Term Relationships: Value-driven communication lays the foundation for lasting customer relationships, not just one-time transactions.
3. Differentiates Your Brand: In a sea of sales pitches, valuable content stands out and leaves a lasting impression.
4. Aligns with Buyer’s Journey: Prospects, especially those in the consideration phase, seek solutions, not sales talk.

By prioritizing value-driven communication and addressing obstacles, you’re doing more than just moving prospects through the funnel—you’re building a powerful brand. 

Remember, a brand is created when you deliver value beyond functional benefits. Mid-funnel tactics are an excellent way to accomplish this, allowing you to provide insights, solve problems, and build relationships before a sale is even made. 

This approach nurtures prospects and lays the foundation for long-term customer loyalty and advocacy. Effective mid-funnel marketing leads to a sale, but it gets the sale in a way that resonates with your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

Measuring Success: Leveraging UTM Tracking for Mid-Funnel Marketing

While there are numerous metrics to consider in mid-funnel marketing, gathering actionable data can be challenging. UTM tracking provides a practical solution to this problem, allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your efforts across different channels.

Water the Flowers, Prune the Weeds

UTM tracking embodies our guiding principle of “water the flowers and prune the weeds.” 

Here’s how to apply this concept:

1. Identify Top Performers: Use UTM data to pinpoint your most effective channels, content types, and campaigns. These are your “flowers,” that are driving engagement and moving leads through the funnel. 
2. Allocate Resources Wisely: Once you’ve identified your top performers, allocate more resources to these areas. This might mean increasing your email frequency if that’s your most effective channel or creating more of the content type that resonates best with your audience.
3. Optimize Underperformers: Use the data to understand why channels or tactics aren’t performing well (the “weeds”). Is the messaging off? Is the timing wrong? Use these insights to improve or, if necessary, discontinue these efforts.
4. Continuous Refinement: Review your UTM data regularly to ensure you’re always focusing on what works best. The digital landscape changes quickly, and what works today might not work tomorrow.

By leveraging UTM tracking, you’re not just collecting data—you’re using data to make informed decisions that continuously improve your mid-funnel marketing efforts. This data-driven approach ensures that your strategy evolves with your audience’s needs and behaviors, maximizing the effectiveness of your mid-funnel marketing.

For a detailed guide on how to set up and use UTM codes, check out our comprehensive blog post about using UTM codes to increase marketing effectiveness.

Case Study: Rover Cars (Europe) Mid-Funnel Success

Background 

Rover Car was my client many years ago when I worked in Europe. I don’t recall all the details, but this case study reflects the situation we faced and how we used mid-funnel marketing to improve the brand’s position in the European marketplace. 

Rover, a mid-size automotive manufacturer, was struggling to convert interest in its vehicles into actual sales. It had strong name recognition, several new models, and broad advertising campaigns. Its bottom-of-funnel tactics were solid with attractive financing offers. Its market share was tiny, so they needed to get creative to break through.

Challenge: Rover Cars, a relatively minor player in the European market, needed to nurture potential customers who were aware of their brand but not yet ready to purchase. Rover wanted to guide these prospects through consideration to get them closer to a purchase decision.

Mid-Funnel Strategy: Rover implemented a pan-European database marketing solution to support a mid-funnel marketing strategy. The campaign used Direct Mail to deliver personalized content to prospective buyers. They created in-depth comparison guides showcasing how their vehicles compared to competitors in various categories (fuel efficiency, safety features, price, etc.).

Results 

After six months of implementing these mid-funnel tactics:

1. Lead Quality Improved: Dealers reported that leads were more informed and closer to deciding when they visited showrooms, increasing conversions.
2. Customer Satisfaction Rose: Post-purchase surveys showed increased awareness and customer satisfaction, with many customers citing the helpful information provided during their research phase.
3. ROI Boost: The cost per acquisition decreased, and sales increased as targeted mid-funnel communication increased the efficiency of the broad advertising campaigns.

Key Takeaway

By focusing on mid-funnel marketing tactics, Rover could nurture prospects more effectively. By providing valuable information and a positive shopping experience, Rover built trust and guided interested customers toward a purchase decision. This improved their conversion rates, led to more satisfied customers, and resulted in a more efficient marketing spend.

The Long-Term Benefits of Mastering Mid-Funnel Tactics

As we’ve explored throughout this article, mastering mid-funnel marketing is crucial for long-term business success. Let’s recap the key benefits and provide some actionable steps you can take today to enhance your mid-funnel strategy.

The Power of Mid-Funnel Marketing

Effective mid-funnel marketing:

1. Builds trust and credibility with your audience
2. Nurtures leads, increasing the likelihood of conversion
3. Creates a foundation for long-term customer loyalty
4. Differentiates your brand in a crowded marketplace
5. Provides valuable insights into customer needs and behaviors

It’s crucial to remember that while mid-funnel tactics focus on relationship-building and providing value, sales are still the ultimate goal. The beauty of this approach is that by aligning your mid-funnel tactics with your customer avatar and buyer’s journey map, you’re creating a path where the sale becomes the next logical step in the customer’s journey, rather than something they feel pressured or tricked into doing.

This strategy results in higher-quality customers with significantly higher lifetime value. They’re not just making a one-time purchase; they’re entering into a relationship with your brand based on trust, value, and alignment with their needs. By focusing on delivering value and building relationships in the mid-funnel stage, you’re setting the stage for long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty.

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Actionable Steps You Can Take Today

1. Revisit Your Customer Avatar: Ensure you have a clear, detailed picture of your ideal customer. Use this to inform all your mid-funnel content and tactics.
2. Map Your Buyer’s Journey: Understand the steps your customers take from awareness to purchase. Identify key touchpoints where mid-funnel tactics can make a difference.
3. Audit Your Content: Evaluate your existing content. Does it provide value beyond selling your product? Does it address your audience’s pain points? Is it aligned with the buyer’s journey?
4. Implement UTM Tracking: Start using UTM codes to track the performance of your mid-funnel efforts across different channels.

5. Personalize Your Approach: Use the data you gather and the insights from customer avatars and journey maps to create more personalized, targeted mid-funnel campaigns.
6. Focus on Value: In every mid-funnel interaction, prioritize providing value over making a sale. The sales will come, but this approach builds trust and sets the stage for long-term relationships.
7. Continuously Refine: Review your mid-funnel performance metrics regularly. Based on the data, be ready to “water the flowers and prune the weeds.”

By implementing these mid-funnel marketing tactics, you’re not just improving your marketing performance—you’re building a stronger, more resilient business. You’re creating a real brand, not a product with a name, that resonates with your audience, solves real problems, and builds lasting relationships.

Mastering mid-funnel marketing is an ongoing process. It requires consistent effort, a willingness to adapt, and a genuine commitment to understanding and serving your audience. But the rewards—customer loyalty, brand reputation, and long-term business success—are worth the investment.

Author: James Hipkin

Since 2010, James Hipkin has built his clients’ businesses with digital marketing. Today, James is passionate about websites and helping the rest of us understand online marketing. His customers value his jargon-free, common-sense approach. “James explains the ins and outs of digital marketing in ways that make sense.”

Use this link to book a meeting time with James.