Whether you’re working in digital marketing or you’ve just brushed shoulders with it, you’ve certainly come across the term “marketing funnels”. It’s an essential part that every marketing plan should include to deliver the desired goals. So, if you’re wondering how you can make good use of marketing funnels, you’ve come to the right place. Without further ado, here’s everything you should know about marketing funnels.
Why Are They Called Funnels?
In short, you can think of marketing funnels as a system you can follow to attract customers. If you want the longer version, then marketing funnels allow you to implement the best strategies through which you can guide customers throughout their customer journey. It helps you start by attracting prospects, turning them into leads, and gradually building your relationship with them until they become loyal and paying customers. That’s why marketing funnels are also referred to as sales funnels, lead funnels, conversion funnels, and purchase funnels.
So, what’s up with the whole “funnel” term? If you turn the insights you get from the customer journey, it will look like a funnel. Once you measure the size of the audience you have at every stage of the journey, it gets smaller. So the visual data representation should start with the widest segment (potential customers), and then, gradually, it starts getting smaller the more you advance toward loyal customers.
What Are Different Types of Marketing Funnels?
It stands to reason that the kind of marketing funnel will vary according to your marketing strategy. For instance, the funnel strategy you use for an e-commerce platform will have to differ from that for social media platforms. To learn more about different marketing funnel strategies and tools, you can visit this site and get expert advice from the professional blogger, Calvin Lim. You’ll come across various types of funnels, like lead magnet funnels, webinar funnels, video sales funnels, email funnels, and more. You’ll also realize how every kind of funnel requires its own tools for the best results. At the end of the day, the kind of funnel and the tools you use will depend on your goals: whether you want to sell products or services, promote an event, or build a list of contacts.
Why Are Marketing Funnels Importance?
The most obvious reason why marketers use marketing funnels is to generate leads, all while having the right tool that helps them keep track of the analytics. Instead of waiting until a user makes the purchase, marketing funnels allow marketers to spot interested customers miles away and nurture them along their journey. That significantly improves the odds of turning them into loyal customers.
However, there are more benefits to using marketing funnels. Here are the top three benefits:
Simplifying Customer Journey
If you’re aware of the stage that each customer or prospect is at, you’ll have a better knowledge of how to customize your marketing efforts to suit their interests. For instance, using a sales pitch or direct advertising to a user who has just stumbled across your website may prove futile. On the other hand, if you’ve spent some time gaining their trust, then a customer who’s been following you long enough to trust your reputation will be more willing to make the purchase.
Connecting With Customers
Funnels help you connect with any kind of customer, thanks to the wide variety of tools and tactics available for every marketing niche. You’ll rest assured knowing that you’ll have direct and adequate connections with your customers by using marketing funnels, regardless of whether your goal is to generate traffic, drive sales, or build a customer list.
Better Planning
Marketing funnels give you insights into how your marketing campaigns are performing. Using these insights, you’ll be able to tweak your current and following campaigns to be more effective, which results in better planning for a more optimized workflow.
Phases of Marketing Funnels
We’ve been talking about the customer journey for a while, so it’s about time we get into deeper detail. Marketing funnels, in accordance with the customer journey, are divided into phases. While some divide it into four phases and others go as far as including seven phases, it’s common to divide marketing funnels into the following five phases:
Awareness Phase
They might have stumbled across an intriguing ad of yours or the search engine results pointed them toward your website, but the visitors at the point still have no idea about you. Something attracted them to your online presence, so you need to exploit this opportunity to position your brand by showcasing all the important aspects of your business. In other words, you want to leave the best impression on visitors in this phase.
Consideration Phase
In this phase, the visitors have already gotten an idea about your business and what it has to offer. They’re willing to consider your business, but they still can’t trust you enough -or aren’t interested enough- to buy your products or services. That’s when you need to create content that helps them choose you over the competition.
Conversion
By now, your leads know what you have to offer and trust your credibility. They’re just waiting for the final push to make their purchase, and that’s when you can start advertising your products and services.
Loyalty
In this phase, you’re following up with the current customers to nurture your relationship with them further. Your goal is to turn them into recurring fans who keep coming back to you for more.
Advocacy
Commonly referred to as the referral phase, the advocacy phase is where your customers have turned into loyal fans. They trust your credibility and like your services to the extent of being willing to refer you to their acquaintances.
When it comes to customer tracking and acquisition, there’s no better system to use than marketing funnels. These funnels will vary depending on your marketing strategy and goals, but they’ll always be effective in giving you the result you’re looking for. By using marketing funnels, you’ll be able to guide your customers through their journey and turn them into returning customers and loyal fans.