Hannah BeattyBottom-of-the-Funnel Marketing Needs Decision Stage Content
You’ve made it to the final stage of your buyer’s journey marketing content: decision!
In this stage, at the bottom of the funnel, your audience is actively seeking a vendor/partner. Their expectations are high, and they’re asking specific questions like “Who is the best orthodontist in my area?” and “Which is better for large sales teams: HubSpot or Salesforce?”
Your audience is looking for demos, trials, testimonials, reviews, and pricing to evaluate which product or service to choose—and at the decision stage of the buyer's journey, they're searching for those solutions by name.
That means your content should focus on your unique approach to the solution. Differentiate yourself from competitors by showing off your results, your customer support, and your commitment to your brand promise.
Decision-stage content can take the form of website service or pricing pages, vendor comparison sheets, battle cards, onboarding planners, cost comparisons, and more. While much of this content should be available on your website, there are times when it's a good idea to host this hyper-specific content behind a gate or login, easily accessible but away from wandering...competitive...eyes.
✨ Need a refresher on the buyer’s journey? ✨
Consider Bottom of Funnel Keywords
As you move away from the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer's journey, your SEO content will shift from broad educational, problem-based queries to specific vendor or product selection terms. Queries such as best option, ideal way, best partner, most ROI, and best solution are often tied to bottom-of-the-funnel content. Remember, different kinds of keywords align with different stages of the buyer's journey.
This shift means your keyword, branding, and language strategy becomes more specific to you. BoFu content allows you to:
- Use branded keywords more often.
- Use your specific value propositions and your brand promise.
- Put your product, services, and solutions at the forefront.
- Highlight client successes and customer stories.
Great formats for this content include:
- Service/Product website pages
- Case studies
- Pricing pages
- Trial/Demo landing pages
- Client testimonials/demo videos
- Gated or login/membership-protected website pages
- RFP templates
- Vendor comparison guides and Battlecards
- Partner evaluation guides
- Product spec sheets
16 BoFu Content Ideas
- “Our approach to XYZ product/service” content: Your “why” is completely different from your competitors. Tell the story of your motivation, your philosophy, and your process.
- “Trial/demo of XYZ product/service” signups: What better way to display how your product/service works than letting your audience take a test drive? Allow for a limited time test period to fully present your product/service.
- “XYZ Product/service reviews” content: Your existing customers should be your biggest cheerleaders and advocates. Testimonials from people who have used your service or product can provide non-biased validation that your solution truly works.
- “Best product/service for XYZ” content: At this point, your audience may just type “Best property management app” into their search engine and click the first result that pops up. Make sure the first result is you, and you explain the benefits of using your product/service.
- Deeper dive case studies on your results: Case studies at this stage should include more details on the problem, your problem-solving, your execution, and the end results.
- “Our top features lookbook” content: Images can be a powerful way to show the details of your features up close and show how they contribute to the overall benefits of your product/service.
- “Before/after using our product” content: Show what daily activities look like with customers using your product or how your service makes their life easier. Think: “Before: manual sales emails; After: video of HubSpot sales sequences”
- “Example of our XYZ Deliverable” content: Do you have special process documentation or features? Give an example of a report you customize, a monthly update, an audit sheet, or an onboarding process to show what it’s like to work with you.
- “Who does XYZ well?” content: Your audience simply may not know who the doers and industry leaders are yet. Be honest, but also include yourself on the list!
- “Who doesn't XYZ well?” content: Not every company is a good fit for every buyer, and that's OK. Owning what you don't do well helps your buyers decide.
- “XYZ near me/in (insert location)” content: Adding a specific location to a query is one indicator your buyer is ready to...buy. Creating content that builds your affiliation with the physical community adds marketing appeal and tells the searcher you can help.
- “Where our product comes from” content: Sustainability and ethical production are becoming more and more important to consumers. Pull back the curtain on how raw materials become your final product.
- “Day-in-the-life of a worker” content: People appeal to people. Showing how your employees create the product/service can humane your business. It can also show how customers can expect to interact with your team.
- Customer Story content: Simply sharing what other businesses or influencers use your product/service can influence a purchase decision. Your audience will tell themselves: “If it worked for them, it will work for me!” or “If I use this product/service, I can be as successful as them.”
- Case Study content: Similar to customer stories, case studies are a valuable part of the decision-making process. Case studies should go beyond a testimonial, they should also share the improvements your clients have seen through your work together.
- Battlecard content: Battlecards are often lumped in with sales collateral (which is part of BoFu content!) they are short, visual comparisons of your solution versus a competitor. They're often most effective when they're simple and can focus both on what kinds of customers you are a great fit for and the kinds of customers who might not be successful working with you. Here are some great examples from the HubSpot team.
Other Resources to Help You With Bottom-of-Funnel Marketing Tactics
Conduct a Competitor Audit
One of the best ways to improve your bottom-of-funnel marketing is to do an audit of your competitors. How can you apply your competitor review?
- Do your competitors hide what their software or products look like? Share lots of images, videos, and interactive demos of yours. This will help your prospective customers understand that your solution is tangible and ready to install.
- Do your competitors gatekeep who their clients are or how they deliver their services? Give away sneak peeks and client lookbooks. This transparency builds trust with potential customers (and your content library).
Assess the Review Space
Reviews and ratings have never been more accessible or abundant. Does your company have a listing on your industry's most popular review sites? Have you claimed and optimized that profile? Do you have any current reviews? Optimizing these third-party review profiles is an excellent way to continue building trust
Be Ready to Respond
As your buyers start to make decisions, they may have specific questions that you don't have prepared in formal content pieces. Work with your team to ensure you're able to respond to these questions accurately and quickly - a little bit of dazzling service can seal the deal!
Want more content ideas? Check out the other blogs in the series.
