Having a clear idea on the marketing funnel is essential to plan strategies for different stages of it. Moving a potential customer through the funnel until he becomes a loyal customer is important. This blog article will explain how to build a powerful marketing funnel for your business.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
In 1898, Elmo Lewis first introduced the marketing funnel concept. The basic principles of this marketing funnel concept have not changed much over the past years.
In 1904, Frank Hutchinson Dukesmith introduced four stages that led to a sale. The four stages are Attention, Interest, Desire & Conviction.
After 50 years, Arthur F Peterson has published a book with the illustration of four stages in the marketing funnel. It is the first time someone has used a funnel to show the four stages of the consumer journey.
For decades, the funnel concept would remain one of the most fundamental concepts in sales and marketing.
The marketing (sales) funnel shows the key stages that a customer goes through before purchasing something.
The actual purchase doesn’t happen at once. A person goes through a series of stages to consume something.
Stages of Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel has four stages that lead a person to a sale or conversion. Following are the stages of a marketing funnel.
- Awareness
Awareness is the starting stage of the funnel. It is on the top of the funnel. Businesses can attract potential customers into this stage through marketing campaigns.
During this stage, you should use effective strategies to increase awareness of your brand among potential customers.
You should have a strong brand strategy to show who you are.
It’s your first opportunity to make a long-lasting positive impression on your ideal prospects.
The awareness stage is critical because you should do a good marketing campaign to help potential customers remember your brand name.
For example, if your target audience is a younger generation, you can run a good social media campaign with free trials.
Following are some marketing tools you can use in the awareness stage.
- Television commercials
- Billboards
- Newspaper/ magazine ads
- PR
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Display Ads
- Viral Campaigns
- Events
- Trade Shows
- Direct mails
- Blog posts/ infographics.
- Consideration.
Consideration is the second stage of the marketing funnel. In the awareness stage, your potential customers have heard about you.
Now, they are familiar with your brand. In this stage, you should interact more with them to encourage purchasing from you.
In this stage, content creation and meaningful, engaging touchpoints are essential. It’s critical to define your unique features and be relevant.
Use marketing tools like free trials, videos, blogs, emails & social media in the consideration stage.
- Conversion.
In this stage, people prefer to make a purchase decision. Try to increase TOMA (Top of the mind awareness) about your brand in this stage. Your prospects should have a good brand recall & preference for your brand.
It makes the buying decisions favourable to your brand over the competitors.
Marketing tools examples,
Search Engine Marketing, customer service, search engine optimization.
- Engagement.
When you make a conversion or sale, it is necessary to maintain positive interaction with them. Through brand loyalty, brand engagement, & referrals, you can build loyal customers.
Loyalty programs, social media, and customer relationship management are the marketing strategies for this stage.
New Marketing Funnel
Now we can describe the marketing funnel as follows. Unlike the awareness, consideration, conversion & engagement stages, this funnel has three stages.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU) – Your potential clients are learning about your brand and the key challenges you tackle during the awareness stage.Because they may not know much about your product or service yet, this stage focuses on creating content and marketing materials that will help them become more aware of your brand.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) – When a customer has identified a problem and is seeking a solution, they are in the consideration stage. They may have heard of you, but you’ll have to persuade them that your brand is a good fit for them. It’s up to you to convince them.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) – Stage of decision-making. It is where your brand must encourage your potential customer to complete the sales funnel’s last step and convert.
Example for Marketing Funnels
Ann is a marketing assistant who works in a good company. One day she saw an advertisement for a handbag from a well-known brand. She got attracted to that handbag & became aware of that product. This stage is the awareness stage.
Then later that day, Ann goes to that particular brand’s website to get more information about that handbag. She needs more information such as price, colours, sizes & more. Ann reads about the product descriptions & evaluates the social media posts about that handbag & reads customer reviews. This stage is the consideration stage.
Then Ann saw another social media campaign about that handbag collection on Facebook. This campaign has persuaded her more to purchase that handbag. It increased the TOMA (top of the mind awareness).
Because of that, Ann decided to buy that handbag. She clicked a link & visited the brand’s landing page & added it to her shopping cart & made the payment. This stage is the conversion stage.
After she purchased it, they gave a discount for her next purchase. Due to that, she built up a good image of the brand. This stage is the engagement stage.
How to build a powerful marketing funnel ?
Now we came to the most important part of our blog post. “How to build a powerful marketing funnel?” That was the main thing I wanted to tell you through this blog post. However there can be many ways to do this.
Following three steps are to create a powerful marketing funnel for your business.
1.Understand your target audience.
Understanding your target audience is the first step to creating a marketing funnel. You have to identify who you want to target in your marketing funnel.
You can study your target audience through direct inputs from existing customers, surveys, social media, research & website analytics.
You should also know how they interact with your website and content. Their online habits will show you how to shape your funnel and which steps to include.
2.Plan the stages in the funnel.
Now you have a clear idea of your target audience. The next step is to plan the stages on your funnel. I have given a good explanation of the stages of the funnel previously.
You should plan well how to direct people in the right direction of their journey.
Let’s consider the three stages of the marketing funnel here.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
Reaching more people & giving awareness about your products are the goals of this stage. You have to give a good 1st impression at this stage. You need as many customers as possible in the funnel because the number will continue to decrease as they progress.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
At this stage, people know about your brand & they have an interest. In this stage, you need to convince your potential customers that your products are better than others.
You should convey the POD (point of difference) & the value you offer. Prospects will go to the next stage if they generate buying intention.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
This is the final stage of the marketing funnel. The prospect customers already have a purchasing intention.
You need to push them to make an actual purchase through your marketing efforts. Then they will be paying customers for your business.
3.Add Marketing Tactics to the stages.
This stage is the last step in creating a powerful marketing funnel. Now you have identified your target audience & planned the stages in the funnel. The final step is to add marketing tactics to each of those stages.
Following are some amazing marketing tactics for your marketing funnel.
TOFU
- Influencer marketing campaigns reach more audiences.
- Social media campaigns to increase awareness.
- Paid advertising.
- Blog posts & other content to educate potential customers.
- Search engine optimization to get more organic traffic to your website.
- Video content to attract more people.
- Give free trials & samples to get attention.
- Email Marketing.
MOFU
- Product reviews.
- Unboxing videos & tutorials by influencers.
- User-generated content to build trust.
BOFU
- Discounts & offers for generating leads.
- Limited offers & limited editions give a sense of urgency to buy.
- Remarketing campaigns.
- Free trials & demos.
- Limited stock on the market.
Conclusion
Customer retention is very important for a business to be successful. That is why you have to plan a powerful marketing funnel for your business. I hope you have sound knowledge of “How to build a powerful marketing funnel for your business?”
If you need any help related to digital marketing services, our team at DigiFix is more than happy to help you. Visit our website for more information.
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Hi, we are an Australian digital agency doing groundbreaking work to help a business like yours reach its full potential. My only question is will you qualify for our services?
Great Article. Thank you for this.
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