Digital Marketing Basics

The marketing funnel is a journey. What this journey looks like depends on your industry, customers and their expectations. The funnel is a multi-step process a customer goes through from being aware of a product or service to becoming a loyal customer. It provides a framework to engage and convert leads into customers.

Why do you need a marketing funnel?

Successful marketing campaigns often use the funnel framework to map out the customer journey. As you understand each stage, you can tailor your marketing efforts to meet the specific needs and expectations of customers at different points in their journey.

The marketing funnel helps to:

Attract and capture leads – The first phase of the process is to create awareness and generate interest in your product or service by capturing attention.

Build relationships – Once you have captured attention, the focus shifts to nurturing your leads to build trust and credibility.  

Guide decision making – With strategic marketing tactics at the right stage in the journey, you can influence, and guide leads towards making a purchasing decision.

Retain and engage customers – Often overlooked, the funnel also extends to post-purchase activities such as customer retention and loyalty.

With a deeper understanding of the marketing funnel, you can optimise your marketing, allocate resources effectively and gain clarity with your goals.

Next, we’ll dive into the stages of the marketing funnel so you can build an interesting customer journey for your business.

Stages of the Marketing Funnel

The traditional marketing funnel is divided into four key stages: awareness, interest, decision and action. There is an additional stage we like to use which is retention. Each stage represents a different level of engagement from potential customers.

Let’s take a look at each stage in more detail.

Awareness

At the very top of the funnel is the awareness stage. This is where a potential customer becomes aware of your business, product or service. The goal at this stage is to capture their attention and pique interest. Marketing strategies that are effective for awareness building include:

Content Marketing – Crafting informative and engaging content that appeals directly to pain points and interests of your target audience. Content can take the form of blog posts, videos (short form and long form), social media posts and infographics.

Search Engine Optimisation – Optimising website content to appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPS). This will increase brand visibility and bring in more organic traffic.

Social Media Marketing – Choose social platforms to reach and engage with target audience. Create content that creates connections and conversations to encourage social shares.

Influencer Marketing – Collaborate with industry influencers or experts who have a strong following and lots of credibility. Borrow their audience to amplify your brands reach and increase awareness.

Interest

Once potential customers are aware of your brand, the next phase of the process is to generate interest and maintain engagement. Strategies to foster interest include:

Email marketing – Grow an email list and create targeted email campaigns to nurture leads and provide valuable information. Offer subscriber only content, discounts and promotions to incentivise engagement.

Content Marketing – Your content efforts should step up, providing prospects with case studies, testimonials, product demonstrations and descriptions and interactive content such as quizzes or assessments to explore their needs in more detail.

Mini Training – If there is a small problem you can help your audience with, getting them from A to B for example, is there a free mini training you can run to help them? Showcase your expertise and build credibility. In doing so, you will position your brand as a leader in your industry.

Decision

As the prospect moves closer to making a buying decision, they will evaluate their options and consider a purchase. It’s important to provide information and incentives to make the decision in your favour. There are hundreds of other businesses to choose from so you need to be clear on why they should work with you. Effective strategies at this stage:

Product samples – Is it possible to package your product or service into a free trial or sample? This will allow potential customers to experience the value of your product or service first hand. Show rather than tell.

Consultation – Can you offer a free strategy session or consultation for the prospect with the aim of providing free help? The consultation should naturally guide the prospect to the next logical phase of the journey – to work with you.

Action

The stage at which a prospect becomes a customer. It’s where you overcome objections, remove risks and offer guarantees. Techniques to improve the number of people who convert include:

Clear call to action – Direct prospects to the next step but show them what will happen if they continue. People don’t like uncertainty, so make it clear by briefly explaining what to expect.

Streamline the process – Make the buying process easy. Offer a seamless checkout or buying process.

Retention

The final stage in the journey is to retain existing clients. How can you turn a one off customer into a long term loyal buyer and brand advocate? Strategies you can use in the retention phase include:

Post-Purchase Follow-up – Once a purchase is made, follow up with customers to express gratitude and provide further assistance. This helps build a strong relationship and encourages repeat purchases.

Content Marketing – Provide guides and content to help customers make the most of their purchase.

Knowledge Base – Create knowledge base content to include frequently asked questions.

When you implement strategies that align with each stage of the marketing funnel, businesses can effectively guide potential customers through their journey and increase their chances of converting them into loyal customers.

How to Map the Marketing Funnel

The process of mapping the marketing funnel involves understanding the customer journey and creating a tailored funnel that aligns with your business goals. By outlining each stage of the funnel, you can guide potential customers through the decision making process.

Understand the Customer Journey

The first stage is to decide how the customer journey will look for your customers. What are the touchpoints potential customers interacting with along the way? What feelings should they evoke? Take the time to research audience behaviour, preferences, pain points and motivations. What are the key decisions they make at each stage to move them to the next step?

Stages in the customer journey include:

Market research – Conduct market research to gain clarity on your target audience, their needs and buying habits. This helps you create targeted messaging and a personalised customer journey.

Buyer Personas – Develop customer profiles to represent your ideal customer. These profiles help better understand behaviours, preferences and actions.

Touchpoints – Identify the various touchpoints where potential customers will interact with your brand. This can include social platforms, your website, search engines and email.

Funnel Personalisation

With a clear understanding of audience needs and their journey, it’s time to create a tailored funnel that closely aligns with your business goals.

To personalise your marketing funnel:

Define stages – Identify the stages of the marketing funnel based on the customer journey. What does awareness, interest, decision, action and retention look like?

Marketing tactics – Map the marketing tactics and channels you will use at each stage to engage potential customers. Think about the content types you will use and the goal of this content.

Content strategy – Craft a content strategy for each stage in the funnel. Make the content valuable and relevant to the audience that addresses problems at each stage.

Lead nurturing – Implement lead nurturing strategies to guide potential customers through the funnel. This can include tailored email campaigns or targeted messaging based on interests and behaviours.

Tracking and Measuring Success at Each Stage

Regular monitoring of your funnel will help you optimise the customer journey. It’s essential to track and measure key metrics at each stage to identify areas for improvement and make data driven decisions.

Metrics for each stage of the funnel:

Awareness – Website traffic, social media reach, impressions and engagement rates

Interest – Click through rates, time spent on site, social media followers. This will measure audience interest and engagement with content

Consideration – Lead conversion rates, form submissions, sign ups and content downloads

Conversion – Conversion rates, average order value and return on investment.

The process of continuous monitoring and analysis will allow you to identify bottlenecks, optimise marketing tactics and improve the performance of the marketing funnel.

Common Challenges (and Solutions) in the Marketing Funnel

Although the marketing funnel is effective, it’s not without its challenges. You may face obstacles at each stage which can stall progress and affect business results.

Lack of Awareness

One of the biggest hurdles you may face is generating awareness and capturing attention.

• A practical approach to generating awareness is therefore needed. It’s no longer enough to post content and wait for people to find you. Changing algorithms and reduced reach mean you must be active in bringing people into your world.
• While high quality content creation that serves your audience is important, collaboration and connection is equally so. Content promotion strategies and outbound marketing is particularly beneficial in the awareness stage.

Low engagement and interest

Potential customers may be aware of your brand but lack interest or engagement, making it difficult to move them further down the funnel.

• Tailor your campaigns to your audiences. Segment content based on interests and needs. Incentivise content to boost engagement.
• Take advantage of interactive content to create a sense of community.

Decision Making

A prospect may hesitate to decide or face obstacles causing them to drop out of the funnel. This reluctance can be due to perceived risk.

• Share customer testimonials and case studies to show what you have done for other people. This builds trust and confidence in your brand. Highlight success stories and positive experiences to reassure potential customers.
• Ensure that all necessary information about your product or service is accessible. Address common concerns and questions and provide clear pricing and return policies.

Low Conversions

Even if a prospect makes it all the way to the action stage, there’s no guarantee they will buy. If prospects fall away at this stage, there are several problems.

• Optimise the checkout process to be user friendly and efficient. Reduce the number of form fields and give a range of payment options. 
• Provide guarantees to reduce the risk, but make sure you follow through on them.
• Add in support elements such as chat features to address any questions or concerns.
• Use abandoned cart recovery strategies such as sending automated emails to remind potential customers about their abandoned cart and offering incentives to complete the purchase.
• For service providers, create a comprehensive onboarding process and ensure the client has access to support if they need it.

Retention and Repeat Business

Retaining customers and encouraging repeat business can be a challenge, particularly in competitive markets.

• Maintain regular communication with customers through personalised emails, newsletters and exclusive offers.
• Implement loyalty and referral programs that reward customers for repeat business. Offer incentives such as discounts, exclusive benefits and early access to new products or services.
• Make customers feel important and well looked after.

When you identify and address common channels in the marketing funnel, you can enhance customer engagement, boost conversion rates and increase long term loyalty. Used in the right way, the marketing funnel is an effective framework you can use to attract, engage and convert potential customers.