“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell”- Seth Godin.
Companies face hardship in building a profitable marketing funnel and media mix. Managing the right metrics takes a lot of time and effort. Usually, the early-stage startups don’t have a high budget to build an effective full-funnel strategy. They focus more on getting immediate cost returning lower-funnel tactics.
From who it owns to marketing and sales, there is a lot of debate going around the marketing funnel. In this article, we will tell you everything about the marketing funnel. We will also dive in, how to get pro in the marketing funnel and the right tactics and metrics to translate it into effectiveness.
First, let’s understand the basics of the marketing funnel for a better understanding.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Marketing Funnel is a process primarily of telling prospects about your brand and then feeding them over time to get customers to buy the product.
The top funnel ensures that you have brand awareness with potential buyers in the marketing funnel. The center funnel ensures that your brand is actively considered in the market. And the bottom-funnel does its best to attract well-known active buyers in the market to buy your products.
The next step, which most businesses usually forget, is to turn your customers into loyal repeat customers and, more importantly, into passionate brand advocates bypassing positive word-of-mouth recommendations to new prospects. For selling your product consumer mapping is also important.
Stages of Marketing Funnel
It is important to note that there are many marketing funnel stages with different names and actions taken by the business and the consumers.
Awareness
Awareness is the topmost level of the marketing funnel. During this phase, potential customers are attracted through marketing campaigns and consumer research and discovery. Trust among the consumers is built through events, advertisements, content (blog posts, infographics, etc.), webinars, direct mail, viral campaigns, social media, searches, media mentions, and more.
As information is collected and potential customers are downloaded into the potential customer management system to go through the funnel. In this process, the lead generation of the consumers takes place.
Interest
After the lead is generated, move to the interest stage. This is when the consumers learn about the company, its product, and its services. This is an opportunity for a brand to develop its relationship with the consumers on the basics of database and introduce its positioning. Marketers can nurture leads through targeted content, newsletters, email marketing, and many more.
Consideration
In this stage, the leads change into marketing qualified leads and are seen as the prospective customers. In the stage of consideration, marketers can send more and more information about the product and services through emails and campaigns. Also, they nurture them through free trials, case studies, and tagged content.
Intent
Before getting to this stage, the prospects must demonstrate that they are interested in buying a brand’s product. This can only happen through a survey after the product’s demo. This is an opportunity for marketers to stand out in the market. And to tell the consumers why their product is the best choice for them.
Evaluation
In this stage, the buyers make a final decision about the purchase of the product. Mostly, the marketing and sales work together to closely nurture the decision and to convince the buyer to buy the product.
Purchase
Here you are! This is the final stage of the marketing funnel. In this stage, the decision to buy turns to a customer. A positive experience of a buyer with the product can lead to referrals that fuel the top of the marketing funnel. The process begins again!
Using Media tricks at Each Stage of Marketing Funnel
In the topmost funnel, you try to increase the reach in the market. Big brands do this with television and newspaper advertisements. The startups choose affordable social media campaigns.
Once the consumers are aware of the product, make sure they are aware of the positive reviews during the middle funnel consideration stage. Finally, the lower funnel tactics will take over with things like digital retargeting ads and email follow-ups.
Making the consumer buy your product is the half exercise; you have to make them buy the product again and again. You can do this by asking for a genuine review of the product or asking them to share their love for the product with their social media followers.
Getting customers with positive word of mouth is cheaper than trying to get them through the practice of the upper marketing funnel.
Using Measurement Metrics at Each Stage
One of the biggest mistakes a new business makes is to use the same marketing metrics across each funnel stage. Building a customer base in the market is important.
The topmost funnel is measured on a cost per impression (CPM), the middle one is measured on a cost per lead (CPL), and the lower funnel is measured on a cost per acquisition (CPA). Using proper metrics at each stage is important for long-term brand awareness among the consumers. The practice may be less profitable initially, but it will help build a proper and profitable business.
Conclusion
Doing marketing funnel planning and proper media is a tough task. So make sure to surround yourself with great mentors for consultation and guidance with expertise in this area. Read about the marketing funnel, take the guidance and grow your business.
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