What is the bottom of the funnel (BoFu?)

If you’re here, you probably know already what a conversion funnel is (or sales conversion), you’ve seen graphs of it and know that what the acronyms ToFu and MoFu mean.

What is a conversion funnel?

When a potential customer arrives at a site they will go through approximately 5 steps before making a purchase, but they may get bored and leave. If, hypothetically, we receive 10 people a day on our website, probably 8 will click on an item, 6 will look at colours and sizes, 5 will add it to the cart, 3 will enter the payment landing page and finally 1 will buy, well, that’s the sales funnel for you.

The conversion funnel is the graphical representation of the different stages through which our lead prospects will pass, until they become buyers, and because many of them will give up along the way, it takes the form of a funnel. The usefulness of the sales funnel will be in seeing where failures occur and to analyse what can be done to avoid them.

The bottom of the funnel or BoFu, as its name suggests, is the lower part of the funnel, where only those daring enough to discover us, fall in love and allow themselves to be convinced reach, but to get there we must first talk about the two previous stages.

ToFu y MoFu, what do they mean?

The Top of the Funnel (ToFu) refers to the beginning of our conversion funnel, where the first interaction between the individual and the brand takes place. The goal of communication is to attract as many people as possible, gain their trust little by little, make them spot us and stir their interest.

At this point in the funnel is when informative, valuable content that provides should be given to the user, such as webinars, conferences or blogs, which will help us to position ourselves in the consumer’s mind as experts on the subject. If we visit the website of a kitchen brand and find recipes, we will already know who to turn to the next time we need to prepare a dish.

In the Middle of the Funnel (MoFu), the second part of the conversion funnel, the goal is to make the customer spend as much time as possible on our website to achieve loyalty. We need them to notice us and then convert them into leads by asking them for their details.

In the middle of the funnel our goal is no longer to attract more people, but to convert those we have into leads. More work should be put into content and be much more focused, this way, there will be increased interest. Through success stories, infographics or ebooks, we will have to generate engagement in order to convince the customer to give us their data, to tell us about their tastes and interests.

After these stages are through, we’re ready to move on to the last stage of the conversion funnel.

The Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu): making a cold lead into a hot lead

Depending on the type of campaign, the end goal of the conversion funnel may vary, as they may range from gaining data, a form or a subscription, up to our lead making a purchase (which is usually the most common). This is the end of our conversion funnel.

The BoFu is the key moment where our lead decides to become a customer, so our goal is to get them to come back to us for more purchases or to recommend us so that more people will do so.

At this stage we can offer the customer direct content about the product, the brand and its qualities above others. This is where we should take the opportunity to launch coupons, promotions, demos, free trials and newsletters, because we already know what the customer likes, what they need and what we want them to buy again. At this point, retargeting strategies can (and should) also be used.

This is when the cold lead (the one who visits us at the beginning of the funnel) becomes a hot lead (ready to make a purchase on their own, or to be contacted and helped to become a buying customer).

Every beginning has an end, and every process too, however, the conversion funnel is in constant innovation, reinvention and movement. Although the bottom of the funnel or BoFu represents the end of our funnel, this only means that we must focus our efforts on keeping the customer, attracting new customers and seeing how to avoid losing them along our sales funnel, so this process is not over yet.