#33 A tiny actionable guide to mysterious MOF content
Middle-of-the-funnel (MOF) content is the least discussed, the most ignored, and often misunderstood across the marketing funnel. Let's get MOF right for your business. The Content Consumption JourneyYou need clients for your business but no one knows about it. So you write an article or create a video telling the world about your product. Since no one knows about your business, no one read that article or watched that video except your supportive college friends. Good sense prevailed and in the next content piece, instead of talking about your product, you talk about the problems it solves. A lot of people struggle with those problems, and they come flocking to your content anticipating quick hacks and solutions. Many enjoyed the content, learned a lesson or two, pressed the like button, left a nice comment, and returned to their lives. Never to come back again — no one remembers mundane one-off events unless they are extraordinary. A handful of visitors loved the content, looked around for more information about your work, watched the product demo, and decided to do business with you - sign up or book a demo. ✅ You acquired new customers. ❌ They are far too less. 🤷 Mixed feelings! Let's analyze what happenedWhen you created content on the problem your product solved, you attracted a lot of people struggling with that problem. They might not be at a stage to buy a solution, but they were interested in learning to solve the problem. Thus, you cast a wide net by building Top-of-the-funnel (TOF) content. A handful of them were also looking to buy a solution. When they liked your TOF content, they looked around for more information and chanced upon your product-specific Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOF) content. When they understood how your product solves their problems and liked it, they took a leap of faith and made a purchase. Between the two ends of the people, from no interest in buying a solution to looking to buy a solution right now, lies a group of people who can be brought to purchase with a bit of nurturing the interest, convincing of the value, and hand-holding. In a corner of their mind, they are considering different options: using a new software, designing their own ad hoc system, hiring a consultant, maintaining the status quo, or delegating the work to someone else. And they have no urgency to make a decision. It's not easy to scope the journey to these people. It's not easy to acquire them as clients. Not easy, but possible and profitable. The content that nurtures, convinces and hand-holds is called Middle-of-the-funnel (MOF) content. It brings new customers and more revenue to your business. Since it works with prospects who have already interacted with your business and/or potentially have an inclination towards buying, it helps acquire clients at lower costs than a pure cold start. Igniting the MOF flameCommonly suggested MOF content includes a wide range of content from webinars to whitepapers to infographics. Many of these work but they need a lot of effort and resources. But as an early-stage SaaS team, you probably have your plate full to create and publish any infographic consistently for months. So, what can you do within the available resources to deliver the highest impact? Here's a strategy to build MOF content easy way. But first, let's look at the four goals for MOF to achieve:
In terms of system design, this translates to three requirements:
With that out of the way, let's look at the most actionable strategy of all time for building MOF content during the early stage: Daily Research notes Don't have time to create lengthy blog posts? No worries. No knowledge of SEO? It's alright. Don't know copywriting? Fine Can't write viral social media posts? You don't have to. Spend five to ten minutes every day writing a short note about your product, the problems it solves, the struggles of your target market that moved you to build the product, the new changes you are observing in the market, and so on. Can't write? Go for an early-morning or late-evening walk, turn on the recorder on your phone, and speak your mind. Send the audio file to an audio-to-text LLM and voila, have your daily note ready. Alright, so you've got a repository of your daily research notes. Now what? Here are a few ideas, pick one that suits you best: Idea I
Idea II
💡Enterprise won't build research notes, it's below their proud standards. Growth stage companies won't do it either, it's not lucrative enough for those fast growing companies, but your tiny scrappy early-stage SaaS can do it, proudly flaunt and gain from it. ✅ Here's a second-order benefit of research notes: these daily notes will go a long way in building your content engine, just pick a note, elaborate, add creatives, and turn it into a blog, LinkedIn post, or video. Whenever you are in a position to hire a content creator, simply give them access to these notes. You will accelerate their progress significantly by providing them with deep domain insights for creating high-quality content. Building a repository of research notes is that behind-the-scene exercise that no one talks about but many actively do. A word of cautionIrrespective of the content type you create for MOF, please ensure that it's part of your overall funnel flow and not standing alone. Disconnected content does not help. For example, let's say you are selling a CRM for construction companies and to get new leads you've created a simple CRM spreadsheet template. Users can download the template on your website by providing their email. Now, my question to you is, what happens after they have downloaded the template? Are you going to hope that they will love the template, use it, and eventually reach a point where the template wouldn't be enough, and then they would come back to sign up for your product? I hope not. Instead, integrate MOF content with the rest of the funnel. So, for our CRM template example, right after users download it, add them to an email sequence. For the first few days, send them emails that educate them about best CRM practices and help them use the template efficiently. Gradually, your email can lean towards establishing the differentiated value of your product. Build continuouslyDaily research notes form the basis of multiple content types and open many opportunities for you to design MOF content depending on the resources available to you. You should also build one-off MOF assets: comparison pages, alternatives pages, and case studies. Have more ideas on MOF content or questions about the process discussed in this post? Hit me up in the comments! :) ❤️ Thank you for reading issues #33 of the Organic SaaS Growth newsletter.Until next time Ankur Tiwari Founder, Thoughtlytics If you liked this, please forward it to a friend! Or send them to the Organic SaaS Growth newsletter. Were you forwarded this email? You can subscribe to the newsletter or explore the past editions. Organic SaaS Growth is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Organic SaaS Growth that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. |
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#32 The Strategic Relevance of Riskiest Assumptions
Thursday, August 1, 2024
On avoiding costly mistakes and building momentum ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
#31 How to design a SaaS growth strategy (with free templates)
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A step-by-step guide with strategic and tactical details ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
#30 A lean content flywheel to win as a new entrant
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With examples - content marketing flywheels design for five new SaaS companies ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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Early-stage SaaS founders are busy, but they don't have to be. Here is an early-stage SaaS growth model around only the highest-impact things (80/20 rule) that I've developed over the years.
#28 Maneuvering the biggest content marketing challenges
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