Top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel sound like marketing jargon — and they're three genuinely different problems that need different content, offers and metrics. Get TOFU, MOFU or BOFU wrong and the funnel quietly leaks. Here's a working definition of each, the tactics that fit each stage, and the metrics that show whether each stage is doing its job.
By the time your marketing team has captured a few hundred leads, sales is asking which to prioritise — and the answer can't be "all of them." Lead scoring assigns numerical priority based on standard criteria, so the highest-value leads get human attention and the rest get nurture. Here's a practical lead-scoring approach you can stand up this week, plus the wrong ways to use it that quietly kill the program.
The buyer's journey and the digital marketing funnel get used interchangeably — they shouldn't be, and the confusion costs you. The journey is what the buyer does; the funnel is what you do about it. Here's the side-by-side, then a stage-by-stage walk-through of the digital marketing funnel — awareness, consideration, decision, loyalty, advocacy — with the assets and metrics each stage needs.
Without a buyer's journey, your B2B marketing is essentially guessing — what prospects want at the top of funnel versus the bottom is a different problem, and treating them the same gets neither right. Here's how to build an accurate buyer's journey for your business, starting with the buyer persona, walking through awareness, consideration and decision, and lining each stage up with the seven typical pre-purchase touch-points.