Table of contents
- What is a marketing funnel?
- Different types of Sales Funnels?
- The New vs. old digital marketing funnel?
- What do You Need to Build Your Sales Funnel?
- Why does the digital marketing funnel even matter?
- Digital marketing funnel types and how they work
- How to reach TOFU users
- How to reach MOFU users
- How to reach BOFU users
- Conclusion
What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel more commonly known as marketing sales funnel is a model for understanding the process of converting leads into customers.
The marketing funnel can be used to illustrate marketing effectiveness by measuring conversion rates between each step in the funnel. It allows you to track your customer at each stage, giving you deep insights into how the lead is interacting with your business.
- Companies that create 30 or more landing pages get 7 times more leads than those that use fewer than 10. (HubSpot)
- 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure their sales funnel. (Pardot).
- Only 56% of companies have a system or toolset in place to qualify leads. (Clickfunels)
Different types of Sales Funnel?
- Business Types
There are several business types, but to keep this post simple, we’d categorize the type of sales funnels into the following:
- Ecommerce product sales funnel
- Service sales funnel
- Brick & mortar sales funnel.
2. Pricing
When it comes to pricing, commonly the more affordable your products are, the fewer steps you need to motivate people to buy.
Also, your sales cycle and the time it takes people to purchase is very essential.
The new vs. old digital marketing funnel
Old Digital Marketing Funnel:
- Focuses on a linear experience
- Consists of four steps
- Thinks about universal user behaviors
New Digital Marketing Funnel:
- Focuses on a non-linear experience
- Consists of up to 10 steps
- Thinks about the behaviors driving a user
For reference, the old marketing funnel (often called the AIDA model) includes these four stages:
1. Awareness:
The first stage where a visitor lands on your website for the first time. This stage aims to identify the target audience and make them aware of your brand and products by clearly telling them how you can be of help.
2. Interest:
Once leads are generated, they move on to the interest stage, where they learn more about the company, its products, and any helpful information and research it provides. Here is an opportunity for brands to develop a relationship with the people in their lead database and introduce their positioning.
3. Desire:
The stage where you develop a desire for your product(s) in the visitor. Communicate the benefits of your product and how it will help the visitors in solving their biggest challenge. Why should they buy from you?
4. Action:
Compelling your audience to take action and make a purchase.
Finally, you show customers how to turn that desire into reality ( click this, sign up,
sign here, etc.). It depends on your funnel and its objective.
What Do You Need To Build Your Sales Funnel?
Now, let us give you what you need to start building your sales funnel.
1. Use Google Analytics
You must track everything to be in a position to analyze your conversion funnel. The simplest and the free approach is to setting funnel in Google Analytics.
In Google Analytics, the Goals feature is used to create events in the funnel and the funnel visualization is used to analyze the entire funnel.
2. Optimise landing page
The funnel visualization shows that a lot of visitors leave your website from the landing page. What are you supposed to do?
The obvious answer is to optimize the landing page.
A landing page is a dedicated page on your website that new visitors go to. According to HubSpot, two critical elements on a landing page make it special:
1. A form.
2. The purpose of the landing page is to capture visitor information only.
3. Setup and analyze autoresponder
Your autoresponder and the content that you send to your list drives sales. The visitors who opted for the lead magnet are on your list. You now have to sell the tripwire and then the core offer.
Autoresponder does two things:
1. Nature leads
2. Turn prospects to customers
4. Optimise your website
Conversion funnel optimization is extensively related to your website. All the transactions take place on the website.
Imagine having a well-structured and fully-optimized conversion funnel that’s filled with relevant content and autoresponders but the website is poorly designed.
During the awareness stage, visitors will explore your website. A poor design will turn them away.
Why does the digital marketing funnel even matter?
Understanding and adopting a digital marketing funnel can help your business in several ways, including:
- Discover the strategies, like content marketing, that will help your audience the most.
- Understand the motivations that drive your target audience to research and purchase
- Realize why specific strategies, like downloadable content, only work at certain stages
- Build an effective plan for marketing to users at different stages of the funnel
3 types of digital marketing funnels (and how they work)?
In today’s world, from businesses to customers, the digital marketing funnel captures the non-linear journey of shoppers. There are several versions of the new online marketing funnel, as every user takes a different path.
Here are the three most common forms of the website marketing funnel of 2019.
1. HOURGLASS DIGITAL MARKETING FUNNEL
The hourglass digital marketing funnel emphasizes the significance of building and maintaining customer relationships.
The pre-purchase stages of this marketing funnel include:
- Engagement: Building brand awareness
- Education: Identifying a problem
- Research: Discovering a solution
- Evaluation: Determining how a product or service resolves a problem
- Justification: Validating the purchase of a product or service
- Purchase: Buying the product or service
The post-purchase stages of this funnel include:
- Adoption: Using a product or service
- Retention: Ensuring a user’s satisfaction
- Expansion: Upselling a user
- Advocacy: Becoming a brand advocate
2. LOOPING DIGITAL MARKETING FUNNEL
The looping digital marketing funnel adopts a less-structured format. It only features six stages, which allows flexibility for every user’s unique journey to purchase.
The stages in this marketing funnel include:
- Awareness: Becoming aware of a problem or need
- Consideration: Finding a solution
- Research and Discovery Loop: Uncovering potential solutions and brands
- Purchase: Buying the product or service
- Post-Purchase Experience: Improving the experience of the buyer
- Loyalty Loop: Building shopper loyalty
MICRO-MOMENTS DIGITAL MARKETING FUNNEL
Your business focuses on the motivations driving a user to enter the funnel with the help of this online marketing funnel.
Your components in this marketing funnel include:
- Want-to-Go Moment: Going somewhere
- Want-to-Buy Moment: Buying something
- Want-to-Know Moment: Answering a question
- Want-to-Do Moment: Doing something
Digital marketing funnel: How to reach TOFU users
TOFU is short for Top of Funnel. For businesses, consumers at the top of the digital marketing funnel offer the most opportunity. While they’re not ready to buy, they’re ready to explore and find their next purchase — or solution to their current problem.
That’s why you can reach top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) users with multiple digital marketing strategies, including:
1.SEO
With SEO, your business enhances its visibility in search results relevant to your business. SEO also enables your team to build brand awareness for your company, as you can become a go-to resource for users in the TOFU or early stages of buying.
2. CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is essential in today’s digital marketing funnel. Over 70 percent of users would rather learn about a company through articles instead of ads. Not to mention, more than 60 percent of users prefer businesses that create custom content, from blog posts to infographics.
Your business can develop relevant content for users looking for an answer to their problems, with a user-focused content marketing strategy.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
On social media, the average user spends 28 percent of the Internet. It’s a fact that indicates the value of social media marketing, which is an outstanding digital marketing strategy for reaching top-of-the-funnel users.
For building brand awareness, social media is a trusted platform. It’s even more appropriate for this section of the digital marketing funnel. Via your target audience’s preferred social media platform, you showcase your brand and demonstrate how it matches user expectations and needs.
4. VIDEO MARKETING
Today, videos dominate the digital marketing funnel. They can provide users with information on products, brands, and more. When it comes to resolving a problem with a product or service, all this information offers users multiple options.
That’s why video marketing is a helpful strategy for reaching TOFU consumers.
With video, your team can create a range of content like:
- Question-and-answer videos
- Informational videos
- How-to videos
- And more
Digital marketing funnel: How to reach MOFU users
Users’ actions vary. While some are focusing on a specific product, others are comparing brands. It’s a stage with a lot of action, but there are proven strategies for reaching middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) audience members.
You can use these trusted Internet marketing tactics, for example:
EMAIL MARKETING
Your team can reach users ready to learn more about your brand or products with email marketing. These are users that have opted-in to receive emails from your business. The motivations for signing up vary, though.
A few reasons why users may sign-up for an email newsletter include:
- Promotions
- Exclusive content
- Updates
2. SEO
For the middle of the digital marketing funnel, your company can also use SEO. You can also reach users that missed your business earlier by using SEO for the middle of the Internet marketing funnel. You can even capture users resuming their journey, as it’s not uncommon for consumers to start and pause their shopping.
3. CONTENT MARKETING
For the middle of the online marketing funnel, you can also adapt your content marketing strategy. It’s also beneficial for businesses to develop in-depth content, like online guides, as shoppers become serious about buying.
Digital marketing funnel: How to reach BOFU users
Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) users offer the most value For many businesses. They’re ready to visit your location, buy your product, or call your business. That’s why companies use not only digital marketing but also paid advertising to reach these users.
A few ways your business can reach audiences at the bottom of the online marketing funnel include:
1. PPC
Companies use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to attract users ready to buy.
This strategy is useful for users in a “want-to-buy” micro-moment. PPC, however, can still help you reach consumers that have conducted in-depth research into brands and products. You can even use PPC to remarket to users that visited your website in the earlier stages of the digital marketing funnel.
2. EMAIL MARKETING
Email marketing is a proven strategy for BOFU users with the ability to generate 50 percent more sales than any other lead generation method. To make a purchase, use your email marketing campaign to drive subscribers.
It’s worth segmenting your BOFU audience, like your email marketing strategy for MOFU users, For example, maybe some of your audience is ready to pre-order your latest product but needs a notification for when it’s available to pre-order.
3. SEO
To reach bottom-of-the-funnel users, your business should also use SEO. You’re focusing on actionable keywords when you use SEO for this part of the digital marketing funnel. For example, keywords that feature “buy” tend to indicate a purchasing intent.
SEO that focuses on the bottom of the buying funnel, however, is often competitive. Like you, your competitors also want to reach those customers. That’s why every business optimizes its website for these high-value keywords. PROS is one of the best companies in san diego search engine marketing ranking
Conclusion
Every business has a conversion funnel, whether you believe it or not. Businesses that optimize the conversion funnel for conversions and improvements outperform their counterparts.
Optimize your conversion funnel or just leave it the way it is. Decide what you want to do now. Yes, optimization seems to be a lot of work but it is worth the resources and time. You’ll never regret spending money, time, and resources on your conversion funnel.
