If your business has a website, you’d want visitors to engage and take action. Perhaps you want them to fill up a form or make a purchase. And when they do either of the two, you...
If your business has a website, you’d want visitors to engage and take action. Perhaps you want them to fill up a form or make a purchase. And when they do either of the two, you get a conversion. To reach this conversion, your guest goes through what is called the marketing funnel.
Every customer goes through this process before purchasing your product or service. As potential buyers pass through the marketing funnel, they become more familiar with your brand and can more accurately assess your reliability and consistency.
Of the countless people who’ll stumble upon your product, only a select few will convert into customers. You can picture the process as rice being poured into a funnel: the top acquires a lot of it but only a few grains will trickle down and out of the bottom. The idea of a marketing funnel can be viewed this way because your pool of potential customers gets smaller as it passes through the various touch-points down the funnel.
The top of the funnel is where people discover your products or services and are made aware of your brand. The middle portion is narrower since there are fewer people who’ll consider purchasing your products or services. Meanwhile, the bottom of the funnel is the smallest because even fewer people will end up buying.
There are four stages in the marketing funnel:
Marketers closely align the marketing funnel with their existing marketing strategies to optimize the sales and conversion process. The marketing funnel is also a great way to breakdown the buyer’s journey and lead your target audience from simply being aware of your product to making a decision to buy it.
Quality leads should have high potentiality and require minimal input. Converting them should be easier and take less effort. This is why, based on this logic, the leads who are closest to purchasing your product are the best ones to target.
When approaching the marketing funnel, concentrate on nurturing the high-intent users in the consideration stage. Their behavior tells you that they’re close to buying your product.
You can do this by creating and providing valuable content like case studies, product comparisons, or feature videos that will pique their interest even further. One of the best tools you can use is Google Ads, since it’s the only platform that allows you to target high-quality leads and their search queries.
At the top of your marketing funnel, you’ll find the largest pool of leads. Most of them are unqualified; nonetheless, they’re still potential customers. So make sure to guide as many as you can towards the bottom of the funnel to maximize conversions and remain competitive.
Performing organic search and a mixture of paid and social advertising is what you need to target these prospects. Many of them won’t purchase your product or service immediately. But for any potential buyer, you’d want to establish top-of-mind-awareness—which means that your brand or product is the first thing that pops into their mind when a particular industry or category is mentioned.
When capturing these leads, Facebook is your friend. Use its targeting options and slim down users based on the following:
Once you’ve narrowed down the leads you want to target, guiding them is your next step. To do this, develop a solid content strategy that aims to provide them with relevant information that addresses their pain points. Once they’ve signed up for your email newsletter, segment audiences and send them eye-catching subject lines with useful messages that will drive them further down the marketing funnel.
Marketing funnels shouldn’t just create one-time buyers. You want to gain customers that would keep buying your products, become long-term customers, and spread the word about your brand. So once you’ve converted leads into customers, your next move is to make them into advocates.
The overall experience of customers with your brand is their main driving force for coming back to you. There are key elements to observe when turning first-time buyers into repeat customers:
Because you’ve successfully led your customers down the marketing funnel, focus on developing the best experience for them. This way, they’re more likely to develop loyalty and trust in your brand.
Sales and marketing models have been transformed by the Internet. The latter has modified and expanded the traditional funnel to focus on brand engagement, education, and non-linear approaches that facilitate a more meaningful online customer experience.
Knowing the four key stages of the basic marketing funnel and using them for your digital marketing strategy are still important. But the stages have transformed as well to accommodate the evolving marketing playing field in the digital space.
So if you need help in developing your digital marketing funnel, consider reaching out to Growth Rocket’s marketing strategists to assist you in creating quality content, developing excellent UX design, and automating email marketing campaigns.
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