Mike Templeman is the founder of Foxtail Marketing and spoke to us about demand gen strategies. Demand gen is marketing that drives awareness and interest in a company’s products and services. Consumers are a lot more aware and savvy and you need certain techniques to get them through the funnel. Most marketers obsess with bottom of the funnel, but you must think full-funnel and create content and strategies for every section. Here are Mike's best tips for each stage of the funnel.
Top Funnel Strategies
Blogging
People blog because they feel like they have to blog. You need a blog to stand out. Beyond making your blog posts engaging and fun, you need to consider promotion. It's hard to get content to rank and share naturally. Take $10-30 and target people on Twitter or Facebook to promote it. This is a great way to build up a target audience that interacts with your brand. Every click with your targeted audience is better than your general promotion audience. Don’t use your ads to sell them, use them to engage with them
Digital PR
Create custom audience in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for journalists and thought leaders. As digital marketers, we are digital gods. We understand a lot of stuff that goes on the Internet that other people don’t. We can create ads for any custom audience Mike explained, "If I’m going to pitch people on something, I run ads on them and set it on a very high impression rate for 2-3 weeks before the pitch to create a name recognition. For that split second, your name clicks in their mind."
Middle Funnel Strategies
In the middle of the funnel, you want people to commit to sharing information with you. It’s content related, but it’s also social, SEO, remarketing, and more. White papers, eBooks, audits, and webinars are all great content ideas for this stage in the funnel. If you’re giving away something, ask for something. If you’re giving away something cheap, just ask for email. If you’re giving away something really good, ask for more info. But above all, remember that while it’s great to get information, make sure they still get your content if you can't get their information.
Bottom Funnel Strategies
Retargeting and remarketing is one of the most effective means of persistent marketing. Install tracking cookies everywhere. With this, you can display ads for guides, webinars, audits, and more. You should also be using custom audiences. Take every email address you have and segment it into a group. Plant a kernel of recognition so that they'll return later. Thanks to Mike for sharing his tips on how to use content at every stage in the funnel.