tofu, mofu, bofu

ToFu, MoFu & BoFu (or How Should I Water My Flowers)

ToFu, MoFu and BoFu may refer to various things, but in this blog I am going to explain these terms simply as:

  • TOFU – top of the funnel 
  • MOFU – middle of the funnel
  • BOFU – bottom of the funnel

Watering flowers is my favourite analogy to describing and explaining the importance of ToFu, MoFu and BoFu for lead nurturing.

Imagine you own a few pots of flowers, you love them deeply and all you want for them is  to grow and flower. All your flowers are beautiful, but so different from each other, they will grow at different speeds and have different needs, so you’ll need to know how much water and sun each one of your flowers needs in order to grow and shine (one way to find out is to actually talk to them, but don’t be disappointed if them won’t talk back…).

Now think about your precious leads as your flowers. How do you know what their needs are or what content may answer to those needs? When would it be the right moment for them to find your content and product?  But most importantly, how would they feel after consuming your content? Yes, it’s not a quick one!

Managing the lead nurturing process is not an easy task, so here come ToFu, MoFu and BoFu to give you a framework aka some watering instructions. The image below summarises nicely the steps and the content to be considered for each stage.

Image: Inbound Marketing Funnel

There might be leads that go straight from site visitors into customers, but those won’t be many, let’s say those will be your 0,01%. So the show comes to stage when you have to create content that will engage the rest of the leads, content that will convert and make a difference for everyone.

You’ll need to think about content that will respond to you leads’ needs, content that will best describe your product, content that will best explain why your product is the solution to their problems. If you already have a product/market fit, it should be easier to get your content to reflect the ways your product can satisfy your targeted market. And although this is the ideal situation, you’ll still need to work hard on identifying the necessary content for your leads, and also work hard on distributing and automating content based on the lifecycle stage your prospects are.

The research shows that not everyone who ends up on your website, will ever become your lead or your buyer.

  • TOFU represent 85% of your overall website traffic
  • MOFU represent 10% of your overall website traffic
  • BOFU represent 5% of your overall website traffic

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