Every business needs marketing skills (and Marketing Funnels) to become successful and attract new customers. Once you have a business plan in place, it takes hard work to provide excellent products and services to your clients in an ever-thriving and extremely competitive world.
Marketing has various major aspects that when all put together, it creates the perfect symphony for business growth and brand awareness amongst other. So, in this post, we’ll be taking a closer look at understanding the marketing funnel and how it can be used to effectively generate more business for your company.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a business strategy that takes prospects on a start to finish journey, leading them ultimately to purchase from you.
Digital marketing funnels in particular allow business owners to track customer progress regarding interest in their services, as well as products and other leads. To implement digital marketing strategies, it is essential to operate in the social media space as this is where a great deal of consumer attention is being spent.
Most funnels generally follow the AIDA principle:
Just like a regular funnel which guides something from the top to the bottom, the journey of a marketing funnel starts at a wide top with plenty of options and a wide playing field. As prospects progress, various steps will be taken in a strategic process to guide prospects to the goal of making a sale.
Lead generation
Lead generation is the first stage of the marketing funnel and it’s here where you will take a step closer to try and create a basis of trust for prospective customers. After having showcased your brand your leads help you to see more clearly which leads are working (hot) and which is a potential time waster.
Qualified leads are essential to generate new business
Lead generation can be done by means of content marketing, coupons and applications to help get prospective customers to interact while you build a level of trust with them.
It is important at this point not to try make a direct sale by bombarding or harassing your prospects. Think of the process like going on a date… you don’t propose marriage within the first five minutes of your dinner. This is a long process of wooing your potential customers and lead generation is one of the most crucial steps to navigate with care and tact.
Nurturing contacts
Once you’ve narrowed down the process and gathered your potential customers, you’ll take on the next step which is the “nurturing process”. Gathering your leads don’t seal the deal for you yet, this is why it’s important to nurture your leads and almost condition them in a manner of speaking. Even if the majority of leads are not ready to purchase, this is the time to provide even more value to your prospects to usher them further along the funnel. It takes persistence and patience to constantly refine your strategy in order to win over your ideal customers.
Loyalty and sales
The last stage of the marketing funnel is the part where your carefully nurtured and groomed leads should be in the position to generate sales. If you exceed their expectations, they will prove to be loyal to your business. This is the ideal end process of the marketing funnel: where your loyal customers turn into brand ambassadors for your business.
An effective funnel leads to sales
Who Invented AIDA Marketing Funnels?
During the 1800’s marketing mogul Elias St Elmo Lewis established the founding basics of AIDA. In 1896, Lewis founded a marketing agency in his hometown, Philadelphia, called “The Advertiser’s Agency”. He went on to use his gift and skills of effective marketing strategy to collaborate with several major companies like The National Cash Register Company, Burroughs Adding Machine Company, The Bookkeeper, and later was elected as the president of The National Association of Advertising Managers.
Lewis’ life’s work was dedicated to educating the public about effective marketing tactics and the implementation of AIDA. He was also honoured after his death by being inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1951.
AIDA Marketing Funnel Stages
Attract
The first step of the marketing funnel is to attract the audience by creating brand awareness. These potential customers, and, or clients can get to know about your brand or services by means of advertising, for example. This part is known as “gathering prospects” and it is a very important step and also the reason why it lies at the very top of the process, or the wider part of the marketing funnel.
Interest
The next step is to create an interest factor to the prospective customer so that it can ignite a need to want more. Show them that your services and or products can help better their lives and or businesses. This stage is the part where you’ll check which leads are qualifying in this process. This is also the part where you can lay foundations for a long-term relationship with your prospective customers.
Desire
You’ll need to try to spur on the customer’s urge or desire to make a decision and gear towards closing the deal. The best way to keep customers engaged is to actively follow up with calls, emails and really connect with your qualifying prospective in the attempt to convert or create a conversion into loyalty at the end process of marketing funnels.
This phase can also allow for some upsell tactics before closing the deal with newly generated leads. Here, your trained staff will be able to better the buyer’s choices by introducing “more” in the means of making a small purchase now or selecting the “upgrade” or “pro” version of their purchase. Despite this option sounding expensive for some customers, it is still a good “symbiotic” relationship, as it benefits new customers and the business.
Action = Sales
This stage is the final part and it’s here where you’ll close deals with your customers and clients by having successfully created loyalty and encouraging them to action their goals by buying your services and products. This is where you’ll rake in sales for your business.
Monitor your funnel strategy to ensure that it is actively generating sales for your business
Marketing Funnel Versitility
Today, even after so many technological developments that affect marketing, we still make use of Lewis’ strategy because it proves to be very effective for both the customers as well as the businesses using it. It’s also clear that every mode of business is different, so their marketing funnels will be modified to suit their needs and goals, while still using the basics of Lewis’ marketing funnel basics.
Many businesses are aware that the process is on-going and doesn’t end at the purchase or sales point but to continue that relationship of trust with buyers and clients. B2B and B2C marketing funnels can vary greatly from each other, and while B2B leads will interact with marketing representatives, in B2C, customers never truly have a firsthand interaction with the marketing representative of the business. In most cases, analytics tools also make the marketing funnel process more seamless and accurate as it’s able to help create a clear idea of warm leads and sales prospects.
In essence, because every business is different, not all prospects could start at the beginning of the funnel stage and could still end up being part of the sales generated.
Big Domino Marketing are experts at creating effective marketing funnels for our clients, some examples of which include:
- Free webinar funnel – hook customers to a free webinar and introduce the full product for sale
- Free sample funnel – with the goal of selling the full product
- Limited info, product launch funnel – creates anticipation and eager to purchase before the stock runs out
- Free consultation funnel – similar to the free webinar, after the free consultation an attempt to sell the actual product at full price
- The cross-sell funnel – after the customer bought the product, the team will continue in attempts to sell another (similar to upsell)
The Takeaway
Having a business is hard work, however using tactical marketing funnels pays off on the long-run. Implementing the tactics of a marketing funnel requires time, patience and persistence in order for it to work and be beneficial for you and your business.
Lead prospects down your marketing funnel to increase your profits
Marketing funnels can serve a crucial function of attracting your ideal customers, whilst repelling those who would never buy from you no matter what you do. It is also up to you whether you create a simple or elaborate funnel to lead prospects to a purchase.
There is a degree of skill involved, as well as excellent software that assists marketers to design the funnel process. If you have neither the time nor the inclination to build marketing funnels for your business, then hiring a marketing agency can help you achieve maximum results and free up time to focus on other critical areas of your business.
