• by David Karel , June 3, 2013

In our Marketing Funnel Lexicon series, we have looked at how to balance marketing programs and drilled down into some specific top-funnel and mid-funnel strategies. Now let’s look at the final stage in the buyer’s journey: the bottom funnel.

With the awareness-building and nurturing work you have done higher up in the funnel, you should now have a healthy, growing pool of target prospects that are ready to share information, check out your free trial and possibly engage with your sales team. Bottom-funnel strategies can help move these prospects from consideration to conversion. 

Bottom-funnel tactics

There are many different tactics that you can implement at the bottom funnel, including:

• Corporate Web site.   Your Web site often serves as the catcher’s mitt for the rest of your program mix, as you endeavor to attract the right people to engage with your content and learn more about how you can help them. Your Web site should provide a rich and credible set of materials for prospects to engage with, such as solution-level data sheets and video clips, case studies and ROI calculators. Also make sure the user experience and navigation are designed to fluidly move visitors through the education process to conversion.   

• Search.   As you have started to create awareness in the market for your company and solutions, more prospects will begin actively searching for more information about you online. How high you rank in either paid or organic search will often determine whether you stay on their radar or fall off their short list. Branded search results, whether paid or organic, are key. 

• Email marketing.   Marketing automation and email nurturing play well in the bottom funnel. As you capture and begin scoring leads based on demographics, engagement, and other key behavioral signals (e.g., visiting the pricing page on your Web site), email marketing allows you to put relevant bottom-funnel content in front of people who need a final nudge to speak to a sales rep.

• Display ads.   While display ads can be designed to reach your target audiences across the entire funnel, display ad retargeting supports many of your bottom-funnel goals, including keeping your brand in front of prospects that are already familiar with you. Through Web site retargeting, you can retarget display ads to people that visit your Web site, blog, or landing pages that you set up in your marketing automation system. Social retargeting allows you to retarget people who engage with content you share through Twitter and other social channels. CRM retargeting enables you to target ads to prospects you have already captured in your house database, giving you a powerful new way to reach them beyond their inbox. 

Bottom-funnel measurement

Here are a few of the most prevalent metrics for bottom-funnel programs.

• Leads (total, cost per lead): Based on the trust you have built higher in the funnel and the content that prospects consume lower in the funnel, your target audience is now primed to share their personal info with you by filling out your Web forms.
• Overall Web site form conversion lift percentage: You should see a continued spike in Web form conversions as you deploy your bottom-funnel programs. In particular, measure lift in your “Contact Form” conversion rates to gauge success.
• Opportunity contribution: Since lower-funnel programs touch prospects close to the point of conversion, you can readily tie and attribute their influence to opportunities that make it into your sales pipeline.
• Revenue contribution: Similar to pipeline contribution, you can also tie lower programs more easily to revenue contribution, as you track opportunities to closed business.

Avoid the temptation to attribute ALL the credit to the bottom-funnel program that was last to touch a lead before it became an opportunity. That would overstate the value of the lower-funnel program’s contribution, and undervalue the program invested to create awareness and nurture higher in the funnel. If you’re doing a good job at the top of the funnel, then you’ll have more of the right prospects in your sights to educate, and a greater percentage of that “nurture pool” will in turn be ready to take the next step when you touch them with your bottom-funnel programs.