With so many different channels and complexities surrounding marketing, it can be difficult to stay organised. You’re doing a lot of work, but it isn’t always neatly linked together. After a few months of this, you realise that you don’t see results and, whilst each channel seems to be working, your conversion rate isn’t increasing. What do you do?
It’s a problem that many businesses face. Even with a good knowledge of marketing across various platforms, their audience just isn’t getting to the all-important sales point. Fortunately, there is a solution: building a marketing funnel.
What Is a Marketing Funnel?
Typically, 80% of new leads never end in a sale. The business manages to grab the attention of its audience, but it doesn’t manage to hold them and secure those all-important conversions. A marketing funnel is designed to change that.
By guiding your users from their first interaction with your brand, you have a roadmap to direct them to the end-point of a sale. Rather than letting them go after sparking their interest, you keep it growing and entice them to interact with you more and more, gently winning them over.
The marketing funnel is a cross-channel system. It can include social media, search engine optimisation (SEO), paid advertising, and many other marketing methods. A super simple example of a marketing funnel could be:
- 2000 people see your social media post
- 1000 read the blog you’re linking to
- 500 sign up for your newsletters after being encouraged to in the blog
- 250 people end up converting
Variables like why the customer is looking for your product, how aware they are of your brand, and which channels you’re working with all affect what your funnel looks like, but the principle is the same. You’ve created a direct path across these channels to increase conversions.
Is It Always a Linear Journey?
Before creating your own marketing funnels, something important to note is that it’s not always a linear journey. Users can jump around, taking an indirect route to your end result. For example, a potential customer might see an advert but not act on it. They’re retargeted later that week and click on the ad, leading them to a blog post. They sign up for emails but don’t convert. After a few emails, they read another blog post and do convert.
The simple route of social media ad > blog post > email sign-up > conversion has become more complicated. A different user may take another route and needs to be retargeted even more, but the end result is the same – eventually!
How Can I Create a Marketing Funnel For My Business?
If you’re building up a marketing strategy but haven’t yet created your funnels, you should start to develop them as soon as possible. To simplify the process, use AIDA:
- Awareness – Content that draws attention to the problem your products/services can solve
- Interested – Informational content that directs customers to the next stage and convinces them that you can help
- Desire – Content that convinces the user you’re the right solution for them
- Action – Content with a clear CTA (call to action) to convert the user
Each of these stages will incorporate different content. You’ll have multiple different funnels aimed at different sections of your target audience or users who have different first interactions with you. To get a better idea of how you’ll create the funnel, let’s take a look at each stage a little closer.
- Awareness
At the awareness stage, users probably aren’t looking for you. They may not even know they have a problem or that a solution exists to make their life easier or better. So, you need to make them aware of your brand and how you can help them, usually through marketing channels such as paid adverts (TV, radio, social media etc.), influencer marketing, and billboards.
These are all outbound marketing processes designed to build brand awareness. You may see some conversions from these, but on the whole, they’re designed to drive users down the funnel, not make instant sales.
- Interest
Your previous marketing methods used in step one will lead users to step two. At this point, they’re interested and want to learn more about you and your products/services. For more simple products, this could mean sending them directly to your products page, but it can also mean educating users via content marketing (blogs, podcasts, videos etc.), social media, and using SEO to stay visible.
- Desire
Now that your users know more about the solutions to their problems, they will be much more likely to purchase at some point (many people will bounce and return at a later date). You need to convince them that you’re the right choice now and show them why your solution is the best with retargeting, comparisons with competitors, and case studies.
- Action
Your users are aware of their problem, they know your solution is the best, and now it’s time to drive conversions. Use plenty of strong CTAs and offer incentives to encourage purchases, like discounts and money-back guarantees. Use FAQs to answer any apprehensions and make sure your customer service team is ready to answer questions and turn around last-minute objections.
Should I Track My Marketing Funnels?
Analytics are a huge aspect of marketing funnels, so keep on top of your data. By following your users from their first point of interaction, you can identify roadblocks and the suitability of your marketing channels. Keep analysing conversions, too, to determine how successful your new strategy is.
What If My Marketing Funnel Isn’t Working?
Funnels are a long-term tactic to turn prospects into paying customers, and they require a lot of knowledge to develop. If you think yours isn’t working, you don’t have the expertise to create them, or you don’t have the time, we can help.
At Got Legs Digital, we have a team of professional marketers on hand ready to grow your business. We’ll develop and implement a winning marketing strategy and use funnels to drive conversions, allowing your brand to flourish. Learn more about how our marketing funnel services can help you, and let’s build a business ready to succeed together.
