Some Top-Of-Funnel Brand Choices

I have been playing a bit over in the TikTok sandpit recently and amongst other things it’s like the Wild West with so much bad behaviour.

The young demographic and the anonymous nature of it reminds me a lot of trolling that happens in darker places on the internet.

Everything from using Kobe Bryant’s death for more fame to the photographer who only posts bullying videos (more on this soon).

This got me thinking about Top Of The Funnel marketing.

You know, attention and awareness (the knowing and liking parts of a customer journey) of your brand or the problem domain solves.

To make a sale you need people to know, like and trust you: but that is not enough, you also need them to have gone through the problem, solution, product awareness journey also (I have talk about this here).

This leaves you with three Top Of Funnel options:

1. Create awareness of your brand based on the problem, solution or product domain;

2. Create awareness of your brand based on something not in the problem, solution or product domain your brand solves that you are passionate about or know a lot on; or

3. A combination of the above.

All work!

But, what you choose should be (is) based on resources.

In an ideal world, with unlimited resources we would be creating as much awareness as physically possible — number three.

No one can do that just yet (maybe AI and machine learning will help us do this in the future), but creating the volume of customized messages for every single human in your Total Available Market, let alone your Serviceable Available or Obtainable Markets is so far off from reality right now.

And as we don’t live in an ideal world, we have to choose.

Number one is far more targeted than number two.

Number two, relies on someone coming into your world based on (for example) the bullying videos you post, enjoy what you create, then so happens to need a photographer.

Chances are lower, but because that style of content gets a lot of attention, maybe the ratio swings back.

What used to happen back-in-the-day on Facebook (when you used to be able to change the names of Facebook Pages) was people would mass a high amount of fans, either paid or earned, based on a wide appeal topic like memes, then do a bait-and-switch and change the page name to their Business and start selling a complete unrelated product.

Most fans would be thinking “WTF is this, I never signed up to it” and would opt-out or report the page.

Obviously, a lot trust was evaporated in doing that.

Of course, some would buy, but the ratio would have to be quite small — I actually don’t have any stats on this.

Now, number one, replies on someone coming into your world based on the problem, solution, product domain around photography, enjoy what you create, then happens to need a photographer because they don’t want to do it themselves.

The chances of this happening are much higher than choice number one, but because that style of content does not get a lot attention, the conversion numbers are a lot smaller.

Most people opt for more awareness as a general rule, but there is a brand implication for this if not chosen wisely.

In the extreme example of sharing bullying videos, you are branded as a bully, but like-attracts-like.

In a less extreme example, where you share your love for ice hockey, there is far less brand repercussions, but again, you fall into the territory of less attention (because who likes ice hockey in Australia but myself and bunch or North American and Russian expats)!?

As I said, both work and the choice is a personal one, but it does require some consideration.