Hi Reader,

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It’s been a tough couple of weeks for marketers and I hope you’re all doing great. From fighting for the right to rest on public holidays to proving our worth to tech founders, a lot has been going on. I’ve made a point to block out all the noise and focus on what’s important instead. In this case, that’s this newsletter.

Today’s edition is another power-packed one with some insights, tips, and of course, a sweet discount too. Let’s get into it.

In today’s edition:

• BOFU content essentials
• Short form vs Long form video marketing
• Why should you learn to create HTML emails?

Estimated read time: 5 minutes 20 seconds​
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Hacks for creating great BOFU content ✍

Of all the funnel stages, writing BOFU content is probably my favorite. I like that it has just one aim—to convert your audience to users. However, I know many people feel the opposite way about BOFU content, and this section is for you.

Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content is focused on converting highly-qualified leads, or your audience with high intent into users. It’s all about giving them that final push—information, encouragement, or validation, to make that final decision. BOFU content can take on many forms. Some of them are:

• Case studies
• Competitor comparison articles
• Customer testimonials
• Tutorial videos or articles
• Product alternative listicles
• Pricing pages

Writing BOFU content is a little different from writing for other funnel stages. You need to be direct with your audience about the unique value of your product but also ensure the content isn’t too ‘salesly’, engaging, and compelling enough to convert. There are a few things I pay attention to when writing BOFU content, and I’ll give you the low-down.

Be direct with your audience

When it comes to BOFU content, you’re not playing around. Content like this works best when you’re straightforward and real with your audience. What can your product do? What can’t your product do? What’s your product’s pricing like? All of these shouldn’t be hard to find if you’re writing BOFU content the right way.

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Include social proof

There’s a high tendency for your audience to convert if they can see the impact your product has made on other users. This is where content like case studies and customer testimonials come in. One mistake I’ve noticed content marketers make is that they write case studies, gather testimonials, and publish them, but it ends there. Social proof content should never be one-use. You can always include quotes and data from your case studies and testimonials in other BOFU articles.

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Write clear CTAs

BOFU content isn’t the stage of the funnel to include indirect or abstract CTAs. Tell your audience what they should do next so your content marketing efforts don’t go down the drain. You need to optimize your article for conversions as much as possible.

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Ensure your content is up to date

Imagine a potential user reading a blog post comparing your product’s pricing to a competitor’s and being interested enough to click on your pricing page. But your pricing page tells them a very different story than what’s in the article. All this means is that the pricing of your product has been updated but your BOFU articles addressing pricing are still in the past.

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Be intentional with your product/feature mentions

You should limit how many of your products or features you include in one piece of content. Be so intentional with your content that only one or two features can organically fit into the content without sounding too salesly. This allows your audience to focus on a little at a time and will help them decide on your company faster.

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I’ve been loving a lot of product-led content lately and BOFU content is at the heart. If you’re writing for a SaaS business, these tips will help you create much better BOFU content at scale.
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Short-form or long-form? 📹

Content marketing is a lot more than just long-form written content and SEO. A few years ago, video marketing became a huge thing. Remember the saying “video is king”? There are several ways to execute a great video marketing strategy, but one of the first things you should consider is whether to ‘delve’ (pardon my AI) into long-form or short-form videos.

The good news is that both short-form and long-form videos have unique benefits. There is also no one-size-fits-all approach to video marketing. However, I’ll tell you the advantages and limitations of each of them and hope that helps you decide.

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Short-form videos

Short-form videos typically range from 5 to 90 seconds long and are popular on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. They are known to be very entertaining and engaging. From my experience, the benefits of going through the short-form videos are:

• They grab attention quickly
• They’re affordable to produce
• They bring in higher engagement
• They have a higher potential for virality
• They’re easily shareable

Everything has its limitations and so do short-form videos. Here are some reasons why you may not want to go ahead with a short-form video strategy:

• There is high competition for your audience’s attention
• They lose relevance quickly
• They have limited SEO impact (although this is changing with TikTok search)
• They have limited messaging depth
• They have a short engagement lifespan

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Long-form videos

Long-form videos are much longer than short-form videos, typically ranging from a few minutes to over an hour long. You can find them mostly on platforms like YouTube, and long-form content can be anything from webinars to interviews and tutorials. There’s a common misconception that long-form content is dead, and these benefits will tell you why:

• They help build trust and credibility
• They’re great for thought leadership
• They’re more likely to build a loyal audience
• They have more SEO opportunities
• They have an evergreen engagement lifespan

The benefits of short-form videos also serve as the limitations for long-form videos. Here they are:

• Difficult to grab your audience’s attention
• Expensive and complex production process
• Limited distribution opportunities

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With all this information, I hope I’ve guided you through why any of these options will either be a good or bad idea for your content strategy. Of course, this all depends on what you’re trying to achieve and what audience you’re targeting. No matter what you go with, don’t forget to listen to your audience and adapt your strategy along the way.
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Why learn HTML for emails? 📧

Earlier this week, someone replied to my newsletter and asked me a valid question. They wanted to know how important it is to learn to create HTML emails from scratch if they already use an email marketing tool with a HTML template and a powerful drag & drop editor.

For more context, T E M S I Africa is hosting a practical workshop on email automation and creating HTML emails from scratch later this month, so you can see why I said the question above is valid. Just like we answer almost any marketing question out there—it depends 🤷

What kind of company do you work in? What tools do you use for email marketing? What are the goals for the emails you send? What career path are you on? And finally, what skills will you need in your future/dream roles? Learning to create HTML emails from scratch isn’t an essential marketing skill. But it’s a great skill to acquire if you eventually want to end up in any email marketing, customer lifecycle, or even some content marketing roles, it’s a good idea to learn this skill.

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If you’ve decided that this is the path you want to go through, then you’re in luck. Touchpoints by T E M S I has been moved to Saturday, the 18th of May, and you can still use my discount code TP20RE to sign up with the button below!

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I got some responses from you guys about putting up my newsletters on my website so I’m going for it. I also have some free time in the next couple of weeks, so I’m finally working on the email course I teased earlier. Can you guys guess what it’s going to be on? Hint: we’re going back to the basics!

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Until next time,

Olohireme