Why CMOs Need to Win the Middle of the Funnel In Their Marketing Strategy
Updated: Sep 10
Updated: September 16, 2026
Experience & Expertise
This perspective is informed by Kaushik Bose's 14 years in B2B sales across Wipro, SAP, IBM and GBM, multiple startup ventures, and his work at Brain Box Catalysts helping founders, leaders and businesses build visibility, authority and trust through personal branding, PR, content and media.
For related context, see YouTube Marketing Strategy 2026: Video SEO and Connected TV, our thinking on founder growth, and our perspective on AI and personal branding.
TL;DR: The biggest growth opportunity for CMOs today is not creating more top-of-funnel content. It is maximizing the value of content that has already proven it can engage audiences. If a social post, video, webinar, podcast clip, or article is performing exceptionally well, it should either be scaled into TOFU distribution or activated through BOFU advertising.
The biggest growth opportunity for CMOs today is not creating more top-of-funnel content. It is maximizing the value of content that has already proven it can engage audiences. If a social post, video, webinar, podcast clip, or article is performing exceptionally well, it should either be scaled into TOFU distribution or activated through BOFU advertising. The real competitive advantage lies in the middle of the funnel, where interest turns into consideration and consideration turns into revenue.
The CMO Blind Spot: Too Much Focus on Awareness In Their Marketing Strategy
Most marketing teams spend enormous resources creating top-of-funnel (TOFU) content as a part of their marketing strategy:
Social media posts
Videos
Podcasts
Industry commentary
Brand campaigns
The assumption is simple: more awareness equals more customers.
But in 2026, awareness is becoming cheaper while attention is becoming more expensive. AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, LinkedIn algorithms, Instagram recommendations, and TikTok feeds are making content discovery easier than ever. At the same time, getting prospects to move from awareness to action is becoming significantly harder.
The real challenge isn’t generating impressions. It’s converting interest into buying intent.
Why MOFU Is Becoming the Most Important Funnel Stage
Middle of Funnel (MOFU) is where buyers:
Compare options
Validate expertise
Evaluate trust
Seek proof
Build confidence before purchasing
This is also where most marketing teams lose prospects.
A prospect may watch your video, read your LinkedIn post, visit your website or download your report. And then they'll disappear.
Not because they are not interested. But because nobody nurtured them effectively.
The New Funnel Reality: AI Has Changed Discovery
The rise of AI-powered search is fundamentally changing customer journeys. The research shows:
AI Overviews now appear on a significant percentage of Google searches, reducing traditional click-through rates by as much as 15-35% for many informational queries.
More than 60% of searches now end without a click to a website because users get answers directly from search experiences.
ChatGPT has surpassed 400 million weekly active users, and our perspective on AI and personal branding adoption continues to accelerate.
This means awareness is increasingly happening outside your owned properties. Your content may influence buyers without ever generating a website visit. And this is what makes the middle of the funnel even more important.
The Best Content Already Tells You What To Do
CMOs often ask: "What content should we create next?”
A better question is: “What content has already proven it resonates?”
Every week your team publishes signals. Examples include:
A LinkedIn post gets 5x normal engagement
A founder video generates unusually high watch time
A webinar attracts strong attendance
A podcast clip gets shared repeatedly
A case study drives significant website traffic
These are not content assets. They are market validation signals. The audience is literally telling you what they care about.
Read our blog on how to build your own Personal Branding Toolkit
The MOFU Content Multiplication Framework
So when a CMO is building their marketing strategy, it's critical that they focus on the MOFU. When a piece of content performs exceptionally well organically, it should move into one of two directions.
Route 1: Scale It Back Into TOFU
If the content is generating attention and engagement:
Repurpose it into multiple formats
Create short-form videos
Produce infographics
Build LinkedIn carousels
Turn it into podcast clips
Expand it into articles
The goal is to maximize reach. You’re taking a proven idea and exposing it to more people.
Route 2: Push It Into BOFU With Paid Media
This is where many CMOs leave money on the table. If content is performing organically, chances are it can perform even better with targeting. Examples include:
Promote high-performing founder videos to decision-makers
Run ads on successful webinar snippets
Retarget website visitors with case study content
Amplify customer success stories
Turn popular LinkedIn posts into lead generation campaigns
Instead of guessing what message will resonate, you’re using real audience behavior as validation.
Why MOFU Content Outperforms Traditional Ads
Traditional ads interrupt.
MOFU content educates.
That difference matters.
According to multiple B2B buying studies, buyers complete most of their research before speaking with sales teams.
By the time someone enters a buying conversation, they already have:
A shortlist
Preferred vendors
Existing perceptions
Preliminary trust levels
MOFU content influences these decisions long before a sales call occurs.
The Modern CMO Growth Loop
The best-performing marketing teams now operate a simple loop:
Step 1: Create
Publish consistently across:
LinkedIn
Podcasts
Blogs
Newsletters
Step 2: Measure
You need to continuously track:
Engagement rates
Watch time
Shares
Saves
Comments
Website actions
Step 3: Identify Winners
Look for content that significantly outperforms benchmarks.
Step 4: Amplify
Move winners into:
Paid social
Search campaigns
Retargeting
Email nurturing
Sales enablement
Step 5: Convert
Drive prospects toward:
Demos
Consultations
Discovery calls
Product trials
Revenue conversations
This transforms content from a Beyond the Logo: The 80% ROI Formula Of Strong Branding For Businesses expense into a growth asset.
Why Founder-Led Content Is Especially Powerful in MOFU
One trend becoming increasingly clear is that buyers trust people more than brands. AI search systems, social algorithms, and audiences all reward:
Expertise
Experience
Original insights
Credibility
Research on Answer Engine Optimization shows that AI systems increasingly prioritize expert-driven, authoritative content and real-world expertise when selecting sources. This is why founder-led content, executive our thinking on founder growth, and our practical framework for personal branding are becoming strategic growth levers rather than vanity exercises.
The buyer isn’t evaluating a logo. They’re evaluating trust.
Read this blog on the our thinking on B2B sales and trust.
The Metrics CMOs Should Watch
Instead of focusing only on:
Reach
Impressions
Followers
Monitor:
Content-assisted pipeline
Lead quality
Retargeting conversion rates
Demo requests
Sales-qualified opportunities
Revenue influenced by content
These are the metrics that connect marketing to business outcomes.
The Future Belongs to MOFU-Led Marketing
The old model was simple:
Create awareness → generate traffic → hope for conversions.
The new model is different:
Create content → identify winners → amplify winners → nurture prospects → drive revenue.
The smartest CMOs are no longer asking how to create more content. They’re asking how to get more value from the content that is already working.
Because in a world where AI is commoditizing awareness and algorithms control distribution, the real battleground is no longer the top of the funnel.
It’s the middle. And that’s where growth happens.
About Brain Box Catalysts
Brain Box Catalysts helps founders, leaders and businesses build visibility, authority and trust through personal branding, PR, content and media. The focus is not simply on publishing more content, but on building an interconnected body of evidence that makes expertise easier to discover, understand and trust.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main idea behind Why CMOs Need to Win the Middle of the Funnel In Their Marketing Strategy?
The biggest growth opportunity for CMOs today is not creating more top-of-funnel content. It is maximizing the value of content that has already proven it can engage audiences. If a social post, video, webinar, podcast clip, or article is performing exceptionally well, it should either be scaled into TOFU distribution or activated through BOFU advertising. The biggest growth opportunity for CMOs today is not creating more top-of-funnel content. It is maximizing the value of content...
Why does this matter for founders and businesses?
The practical significance is that visibility, credibility, positioning and consistent execution increasingly influence how customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders evaluate a business.
What is the practical takeaway?
Use the central lesson in this article as a decision filter: understand the audience, make the expertise or value proposition explicit, and build the supporting evidence consistently over time.
Brain Box Catalysts
Your Catalyst for Personal Branding and PR Excellence.
