Nobody wakes up one fine morning with the thought, “I am going to buy a XYZ product from ABC company today.” The journey is far more convoluted than this.

With SaaS products, the path to purchase is even more complicated with all the varying specifications and different decision-makers, which can push the cycle to anywhere from days to years. As such, you need to ensure that you bring your A-game right from the start.

Since research and evaluation mark the beginning of such a buyer’s journey, marketers must perfect the art of top of funnel marketing.

The goal is to empower and inform prospects so that they can make a well-rounded decision regarding their purchase. At the same time, it allows companies to assess their lead pools and focus their energy on the target buyer persona.

Here’s everything you need to know about top of funnel marketing to maximize SaaS audience reach.

What Is Top of Funnel Marketing?

Allow me to preface the definition of top of funnel marketing with a brief on the sales funnel. 

A sales funnel (also known as the sales and marketing funnel) is the visual depiction of a customer’s journey as they transform from a looker to a booker! Typically, almost all customers go through the stages of awareness and interest, consideration and evaluation, and decision and purchase.

The script is not too different in the case of SaaS. Accordingly, the digital marketing and sales funnel are broken down into the following portions:

• Top of Funnel (ToFu): ToFu is the awareness stage where the prospect is unaware of your brand or the SaaS products/services you offer. The customer may have bumped into your website by pure accident or because you answered the queries behind their search intent; either way, this is where you get seen, stay seen, and start building trust.
  
  
• Middle of Funnel (MoFu): MoFu is the consideration stage in your customer’s journey. Here, they will know about your brand and your SaaS offerings and will be comparing it to your competitors. Here is where you continue engaging and subtly posit your brand’s USP to aid decision-making in your favor.
  
  
• Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): The BoFu is where you’ll find highly qualified leads who are ready to make the purchase. So, feel free to resort to overt selling and negotiations. After all, it is the slight nudge needed at this stage to win the customer over and translate your efforts into money in the bank.

Did You Know: It’s called a “sales funnel” because the number of leads reduces as they trickle down the subsequent stages of the sales cycle, forming an inverted triangle that looks like a funnel.

So, to recap, the top of the funnel is essentially the awareness phase of the sales funnel. As such, the goal of top of funnel marketing is to garner as much attention as possible to attract the maximum number of leads. You want your brand to be noticed, acknowledged, and trusted.

Why Is Top of Funnel Marketing Important?

For the uninitiated, top of funnel marketing may sound like shooting arrows in the dark. Also, as you are casting a wide net to capture as many prospects as possible, not all leads will make it to MoFu or BoFu.

So, it is natural to wonder why one should bother about upper funnel marketing in the first place. Isn’t marketing supposed to be hyper-focused than haphazard?

Unfortunately, here’s where a lot of SaaS businesses get it wrong. Here’s why you should take top of funnel marketing seriously:

• ToFu marketing is the foundation of your sales cycle. Unless people know about your brand, they won’t engage with it, let alone purchase from it! So, even if it isn’t yielding any instant results, it is paving the way for future business by replenishing your pipeline with fresh leads.
  
  
• It marks your first interaction with a prospect, which means that you have to make a solid first impression to move past ToFu. In other words, you have to be deliberate with your top of funnel marketing tactics to keep the leads moving through the funnel with little to no friction. One misstep and the customer will be pressing the eject button on you!
  
  
• Top of funnel marketing helps cement your reputation, which feeds the positive cycle of generating brand awareness. The more people buy from you, the more they will vouch for you or refer others to you. Here’s where your ToFu marketing strategies swoop in and guide the newly acquired lead toward the intended goal – a sale!
  
  
• The insights you gain from top funnel marketing would be instrumental in giving direction to your growth marketing efforts. Since growth marketing is all about experimentation to build rapport with customers, you can measure the performance and impact of your efforts through the top of funnel metrics (which we will discuss later).

In summary, SaaS businesses must give top of funnel marketing its due and invest time and resources into perfecting it.

How?

I recommend a few pointers in this direction in the next segment.

6 Top of Funnel Marketing Strategies

To refute the false impression that ToFu marketing is primarily playing it by ear, here are a few tried and tested top of funnel marketing tactics. I have paired them with real-world examples from successful SaaS companies to prove that upper funnel marketing is indeed a well-thought-out process.

Let’s dive right in!

1. Invest in Video Marketing

Of late, videos have become one of the fundamental pillars of the brand awareness funnel. And it makes sense for a host of reasons.

For instance, 73% of buyers have a preference for short videos to learn more about a product or service. Along the same lines, 78% of users have been convinced to purchase an app or a software solution after viewing a video. As such, you can leverage it to engage, delight, and win over your customers. 

What’s even more interesting is that video content is highly versatile to fit your top of funnel marketing strategy – from generic information to product-related details or updates to customer testimonials – the options are virtually endless.

For example, say you are in the market for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform. You run a quick search for “What is CRM?” to know more about it, and you find Salesforce topping the SERPs.

You click on the link and find a detailed blog explaining all that you need to know about CRM.

Unfortunately, the blog spans around 2962 words (trust me, I’ve counted), which is quite a lot of reading for someone who just wants an idea of what CRM is.

Fortunately, Salesforce captures your attention with a quick video that is 2:39 minutes long and covers all the basics to answer your primary question. In the process, you will become familiar with Salesforce as a brand.

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Plus, it has a notable presence on YouTube too:

That’s not to say that videos can replace content like blogs (more on that later). Think of it as a band-aid fix for dwindling attention spans or changing content consumption patterns.

For all you know, prospects would be bookmarking your detailed guide for further reading (again, more on that later).

Similarly, you can use videos to announce product launches or updates, as Poptin did while launching Poptin 2.0 on Product Hunt.

The company embedded YouTube links along with a list of features so that anybody searching for a particular feature may end up checking them out!

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2. Leverage LinkedIn Ads

While social media advertising is a great tool to create brand awareness, LinkedIn is the playground for SaaS ToFu marketing. With more than 875 million members (and counting), LinkedIn is one of the best professional platforms to get the word out about your SaaS company.

The best part about LinkedIn advertising is that you can clearly define your target audience. For instance, Bizible has written this guide on B2B Marketing Attribution for CMOs:

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Interestingly, you can replicate the success of such ads to suit your industry or target audience by following a set template. All you need to do is craft your LinkedIn ad along these lines:

“Your <buyer’s persona designation> will wonder how to . Here’s that helps . Read all about it here ”

Take a look at how Gong ran a similar LinkedIn ad by following this magical formula for an actionable copy:

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Or how Aha! offers value by comparing Product Managers, CEOs, and CTOs:

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The use of informational and attractive creatives can help audiences warm up to your brand – the primary objective of top of funnel marketing tactics!

You can even use your position to get vocal about a social cause that aligns with your business values or ethics. 

For example, women’s health app Flo ran a successful single-image LinkedIn ad that pitched new Slack emojis for period-friendly workplaces. The menstruation-related emojis empower uterus-havers to express themselves during their periods. 

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With such a powerful message, it is natural that the brand will garner immense support, thereby attracting traffic and creating brand awareness.

3. Perform SEO for Greater Reach

The role of SEO in top of funnel marketing makes absolute sense. When done right, SEO can boost your website’s search engine ranking, which will offer more visibility and generate greater brand awareness. 

After all, search engines account for 53.3% of organic traffic! As such, investing in SEO would grant long-term results and may even outperform short-term paid campaigns!

However, the trick for using SEO in upper funnel marketing lies in targeting non-branded, generic keywords. 

These must be aligned with the search intent of the user so that you can capture their attention and offer value in lieu of their clicks. In doing so, you would be establishing a trust-based connection with a potential customer.

We’ve already seen how Salesforce does an exceptional job at SEO across the digital marketing funnel and across different platforms. Thanks to their efforts, individuals can gain all sorts of knowledge on all things CRM.

Also, they will subconsciously draw the connection between the solution and the brand so that it features at the top of their list of considerations.

The roaring success of SnackNation is another example of effective usage of SEO to boost B2B lead generation. SnackNation, an office snack supplier, started targeting “employee wellness” as a search term to target potential clients.

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The blog featuring 121 Employee Program Ideas, Tips & Activities is a compilation of several contributions from authorities in various industries. It has 211 comments to date, which keeps up the engagement rates.

Interestingly, despite being written nearly three years ago, the piece is timeless enough that the company only makes minor updates and edits for relevance and it is good enough for the years to come!

SEO truly is a gift that keeps on giving.

4. Master Content Marketing

What SnackNation achieved is just one of the many examples of the prowess of successful content marketing.

71% of B2B marketers believe that content marketing has become increasingly vital for their organization. Such a figure comes as no surprise considering that content is a critical asset that shows up across the marketing funnel – from brand awareness to conversion to even post-sales customer service.

For the purpose of this blog, I will be focusing mainly on the role of content in top of funnel marketing.

ToFu marketing primarily deploys the following content types:

• Blogs and articles
• Social media posts
• Contributions to forums or Q&A platforms
• Whitepapers and eBooks
• Reports and surveys
• Guides and checklists
• Tools and Kits
• Videos and Webinars

As mentioned already, such content asset classes are closely coupled with the buyer’s interests and intent and have little to do with the product or services that you offer. The goal is to educate the prospect.

The enterprise-grade communication and collaboration platform, Slack, is a classic example of content marketing done right. Its blog section is a rich library of highly informational and instructional long-form content to empower prospects.

The ‘how-to’ guides, compilation of tips and tricks, and detailed eBooks are a treasure trove of ToFu marketing content that tackles real-world problems with practical solutions. 

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5. Make Use of Podcasts

54% of podcast listeners are more likely to consider a brand that they have heard of in a podcast. 

This statistic indicates that podcasts have become a new way to appeal to your target audience. In fact, podcasts can be a competitive differentiator as it allows you to break into a larger and younger user base.

At the same time, adding podcasts to your marketing mix can make the collateral more well-rounded, as audio content would complement the text, images, and videos. Plus, the fact that listeners can tune into a podcast at any time of the day and while doing anything makes this form of content highly consumable and accessible.

Not to mention that listening to someone’s life experiences and stories in their voice strikes a personal connection with them, which allows brands to connect emotionally with the listeners.  Such reasons are more than enough to add podcasting to your top of funnel marketing tactics.

If the thought of starting your very own podcast seems overwhelming, then you can also collaborate with influencers or other brands who are experts at podcasting. 

For instance, Chart Mogul regularly conducts a SaaS Open Mic podcast where entrepreneurs and industry experts can make guest appearances to get their voices heard – quite literally. Of course, the trick lies in making your talk more actionable and listener-centric than just droning on about your product or its features.

As an example, in the 18th episode, Marc Boscher, the CEO and co-founder of Unito, talked about pricing experiments.

Such an interesting topic is sure to make some waves in the SaaS industry – for vendors and customers alike. And thus, you have a ToFu marketing strategy that does its job – gets your brand seen!


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6. Sponsor Events

Sponsoring events is one of the smartest top of funnel marketing tactics to capture qualified leads. You can use it to work your way into the spotlight while connecting with like-minded individuals and businesses. Apart from that, simply attending SaaS conferences and events allow you to:

• Network with other brands, peers, communities, clients, etc.
• Learn about the new products and services in the SaaS ecosystem
• Get inspired by other SaaS success stories
• Connect with industry leaders and experts

Clearly, SaaS conferences and events have a lot to offer. So, keep an eye out for events related to your industry or business or that which will capture your customer’s interests.

Fortunately, the world of SaaS is bustling with virtual, on-site, and hybrid events and conferences where you can participate in various ways. In fact, the first quarter of 2023 has the following to offer:

• CES 2023 (5th to 8th January 2023) – hybrid mode (Las Vegas, USA and virtual)
• ProductCon 2023 (21st February 2023) – hybrid mode (London, UK and virtual)
• SXSW (10th to 19th March 2023) – on-site (Austin, Texas, USA)

Top of Funnel Marketing Metrics to Measure

As with any marketing campaign, ToFu marketing should also undergo rigorous performance measurement to monitor its efficacy in terms of the ROI. 

Here are some top of funnel metrics that you must track:

1. Impressions

Impressions are the most fundamental brand exposure focused top of funnel metrics. It displays how many times your content or ad appears in front of your target audience.

As such, it offers a high-level overview of the reach of a particular channel. You can use it as a baseline to calculate other metrics like cost per mille (CPM) or click-through rates (CTR) to calculate the effectiveness of the campaign.

2. Reach

While impressions may account for even repeat views, reach limits its scope to the unique individuals who have seen your social media content, web content, sponsored content, and paid ad across the different online channels.

Calculating the reach is easy if you already have the number of impressions at hand; simply divide the value by frequency, and you can see how many unique viewers see your ad/content.

3. Brand Lift

Brand Lift captures the direct positive correlation between a touchpoint and a brand’s image or position. 

Rather than measuring clicks and impressions, brand lift focuses on purchase intent, ad recall, and brand awareness as top of funnel metrics to ensure that prospects have a positive experience at every touchpoint, which boosts brand value.

4. Event and Goal Tracking

You can set up your SEO console to monitor when people perform a specific action or click on certain buttons that qualify as micro-conversion. In doing so, you get to visualize the effectiveness of your top of funnel marketing campaigns and how they are translating into desired results.

Since not all events and goals are alike, you can assign values to them based on impact and importance to have a better understanding of their effectiveness.

Conclusion

Top of funnel marketing for SaaS brands is a trial-and-error method. You need to identify strategies that work and stick to them and discard the ones that fail to yield any results. Of course, that’s not to say that you can play it by ear – there will be some amount of planning involved.

However, if you were to ask me if there was a golden mantra to acing top of funnel marketing, it would be this – put yourselves in your customer’s shoes. 

Craft a journey such that every relevant search leads to your brand, and you will be enjoying the fruits of your labor!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Is Top of funnel demand?

Top of funnel demand relates to demand generation, where the person conducting the search will have little to no knowledge of your brand or services. 

Here, you will make use of top of funnel marketing to attract, engage, and delight your audiences so that they would be willing to consider you as an option in the next stages of the buyer’s journey.

What is top of funnel content?

Non-branded, unbiased, and non-promotional content counts as top of funnel content. Its primary objective is to satisfy the search intent – even if it means mentioning your competitors.

What are top of funnel ads?

Top of funnel ads refer to advertising campaigns or messaging that reach out to users even before they are aware of your brand, product, or service. Such ads serve the purpose of creating awareness.

How do you nurture top funnel leads?

The following strategies can help nurture top of funnel leads:

• Prepare a lead nurturing roadmap depending on your target client preferences.
• Focus on building trust.
• Follow a set cadence to follow-up or interact with leads periodically.
• Repurpose popular (and even third-party) content at different touchpoints.
• Stay persistent while offering value at every interaction.
• Know when to eject a lead that is less likely to convert.