The consume-producer market is full of thousands of strategies when it comes to marketing your brand & online sales. These include social media planning, calendar designing & a lot more, but when it comes to jotting the customers’ journey there seems to be a bridge.
With careful analysis & analytical studies, a marketing funnel lets you know what your company has been doing to churn out the profits. What is a marketing funnel/sales funnel?
A buyer’s journey is entailed with expert digital marketing strategies & tactics depending on where a person is in their buying journey. Marketing funnels map routes to conversion and beyond. A customer goes through various steps before a customer.
Only 2% of people turn to the customer at the first contact moment. On average 5-8 contact moments are required to turn people into customers. To drive the potential customer’s loyalty & strong brand awareness for digital sales, a marketing funnel is used extensively.
When marketers target people at different stages with different tactics, aimed at sending them further along the path, they are using a marketing funnel.
The process works just as the name says, if you start with 100 customers only a small share of these will finally make it to the last stage and make a purchase. Therefore, the number of people keeps decreasing with each stage and that’s why it is called a funnel.
No single model is universally accepted by all companies. Some prefer to keep their model simple, using the “TOFU-MOFU-BOFU” strategy which refers to the top of the funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of the funnel as distinct elements.
Strategies for Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel works as a unified whole. This means that every section needs to work perfectly for the journey to be successful. There are many things that reduce friction in their marketing funnel. For instance:
Awareness: The social media marketing funnel begins with potential customers finding your brand and becoming aware that you exist. As a business, you should be able to identify a problem that your audience needs help solving. Even if your audience is not aware of your brand, you can relate to them by offering a solution to a common problem.
Consideration: During the consideration, the phase is when you provide more detailed information to guide potential customers into the action phase. Providing potential customers with the right information such as case studies or webinars can help build more trust during this phase.
Conversion: Striking the minds and changing the potential buyer into customers is what changes the game of the marketing funnel.
Loyalty: When your customers really love your product and find it useful, their delight turns into loyalty. Keep offering them reasons to love you more.
Advocacy: Now is when you convert your customers from fans into brand advocates. Show gratitude to your customers and reward them for spreading the word about your brand. Originally the marketing funnel evolved from the AIDA model at the end of the 20th century & a few people prefer the most popular & commonly followed AIDA model which is explained below: The AIDA model
B2C customers often navigate the funnel alone or with trusted advisors like family and friends. B2C clients may never interact directly with a company representative.
B2B customers have larger, more focused buying groups. B2B consumers interact directly with sales representatives in the lower stages of the marketing funnel. Adjusting your funnel to suit your user personas instantly makes it more effective. Beyond & Above Funnel Traditional sales funnels have their time and place. But social media marketing funnels can engage your audience, build trust, and create an authentic tribe of fans for your brand. Now you know what a marketing funnel is and what strategies you can use at each stage to best target your prospective customers. However, a marketer’s job does not end with a customer making a purchase. You should have a clear customer retention strategy in place to ensure that these hard-earned customers stay with your brand for a long time. When you design a marketing funnel for your brand, don’t forget to add an extra stage at the end, focused on retaining your customers. This strategy can go a long way to keep your business profitable. So, go ahead and start working on your marketing funnel now.