Close the Deal with These Direct, Data-Driven Resources

Having content for each stage of the buyer’s journey allows you to track buyer intent at each stage of the funnel and nurture leads. Top-of-the-funnel content attracts leads, while middle-of-funnel content keeps them engaged and interested. The bottom of the funnel is a crucial stage — this is where the sale is or isn’t made.

BoFu content usually persuades prospects to purchase from your company by addressing your products or services in a direct manner. This close-the-deal content is often leveraged by the sales team during their outreach. Inbound leads that convert on this highly-targeted content are also the most valuable as you can be confident they’re more likely to close.

Below are some of our favorite BoFu offers and the unique benefits they offer.

1. Free trial/freemium

This type of premium is popular for SaaS companies, which sell at the bottom-most price points and thus need to generate leads at the bottom of the funnel.

Free trials should offer an amount of functionality that allows the user to understand the capabilities of the software, but the time should be kept to just a week or two weeks, so that users are motivated to explore and buy. Freemium offers take this one step further by giving access to the most basic features for free with the option to purchase an upgrade. The most successful freemium offers never expire.

Some CEOs may be reluctant to offer freemium versions, but research from the AMA has shown that creating high-quality premium products and tools can influence customers to pay for them.

A free trial can:

• Mitigate the risk of unmet expectations
• Gain trust
• Erase any preexisting skepticism

2. Webinar

Webinars are versatile — they can be created for any stage of the buyer’s journey, including the bottom of the funnel. They are a popular tool for creating leads, but they can also be used to close business.

A high-quality BoFu webinar invitation sent to a targeted prospect is likely to generate a good response. As with all of these resources, a good bottom-of-funnel webinar educates your audience on your product or service. A webinar lets your prospects interact with you without the commitment and pressure of talking one-on-one with a salesperson. Questions and polling participation reporting lets you gauge the interest each attendee after the webinar is over, prioritize leads and give context to the resulting outreach.

Benefits of webinars:

• Leverage multiple content formats (screenshare, images, video, links to case studies, etc.)
• Provide interactivity through Q&A and polling questions
• Easily offer a follow-up consultation, demo, free trial or another bottom-of-funnel resource at the end of the webinar and in your thank you email.

3. Buyer's guide

It’s no secret that today’s buyers educate themselves online. And according to Demand Gen’s 2018 B2B Buyers Survey report, 46% of B2B buyers consulted vendor websites directly to help them make their decision.

You can take an active approach to this buyer behavior by offering a buyer’s guide on your website. Designed to simplify the purchasing decision, a buyer’s guide provides the information and comparisons needed in order to make the best purchasing decision.

A buyer’s guide may include product specifications, customer testimonials, comparisons to similar products or services.

Buyer’s guide benefits:

• Educates prospects about your product or service and your competitors’
• Inspires them to make a purchase
• Dissuades ill-fitting prospects
• Serves as a great piece of sales enablement content

Prospects that download your buyer’s guide should be prioritized. A buyer’s guide is unmistakably bottom-of-funnel — if someone downloads it, then there’s a high chance they are going to buy a solution, and it might be yours.

4. Demo

Demos are similar to free trials in that they allow your prospects to see the product in action, but they have unique benefits. For example, a demo lets you get to know your prospect personally, and a guided presentation ensures they see and understand features that may otherwise be overlooked during a free trial period.

Demo benefits:

• Provide a tailored experience at the individual level
• Build a relationship with your prospect at the individual level
• Provide direct feedback on your leads’  issues and concerns

Keep in mind that demos do not need to be live, either. Consider creating multiple demo videos for different use cases. The sales team can use these demo videos during training as well as the sales process.

5. ROI calculator

An ROI calculator gives your prospect an idea — in metrics — of how they will profit should they purchase your product or service. An ROI calculator makes for an attractive addition to your website because it’s interactive, transparent and user-driven — not to mention it’s relatively easy to create.

An ROI calculator could tell a user how much revenue they will produce, how many leads they will generate or whatever metric that matters to your prospects.

ROI calculator benefits:

• Helps visitors measure the value of your produce of service
• Positions your business as a helpful and trustworthy resource
• Collects valuable prospect data, helping you make smarter marketing decisions

6. Model RFP

A model request for proposal (RFP) is one of rarer types of content marketing, but it can harness a huge amount of potential for your business.

Creating a RFP can seem like an overwhelming task, even for industry experts. Your model can help your prospects create their RFPs by starting with criteria and sample questions that cover the most valuable information for their buyers.

We’re big fans of the model RFP because it presents the unique opportunity to influence the criteria that prospects consider to make a purchasing decision.

Downloading a dry piece of content like a model RFP probably means your lead is close to making a buying decision. If they visit several other pages of your site, especially your pricing page, then that gives you even greater evidence that they are in the bottom of your funnel.

By creating a model RFP, you can:

• Understand purchase intent
• Differentiate your organization from the competition
• Influences criteria by which someone makes a purchase decision

On top of all these great aspects, model RFPs are easy to create, too! Just start by inverting RFPs your business has already answered. If you need help getting started, download our model RFP template.