2021 MARKETING FUNNEL ESSENTIALS — D Digital Mark
2021 MARKETING FUNNEL ESSENTIALS
The classic sales and marketing funnel dates back to the late 1800s and provides a simple metaphor to think about the path a customer takes on the way to purchase. So you can have a better understanding of your business efforts, which gives you the ability to analyze & improve.
Logically this model hasn’t survived 200 years for nothing, no?
If you don’t have a proper sales/ marketing funnel and your business somehow is doing great (on-demand products, recognized brand, etc.) this article is also for you.
We can see the true power of having a complete funnel strategy mostly when something goes south.
Let’s say suddenly you get fewer conversions, less traffic etc. You wouldn’t know why, nor how to overcome that challenge without wasting tons of time & money trying literally everything.
The funnel gives you an in-depth close-up at every stage of your customer’s journey.
Their journey starts from their first glance at your brand up until they’ve purchased your product. Having a funnel also means that you will know exactly where the problem is & you will be able to make the adjustments accordingly without wasting time & money on “blind improvements”.
Now that you got the idea of the true powers of marketing funnel strategy, let’s see how it works and what you should pay attention to.
THE ORIGINAL FUNNEL
The most effective funnel model we all love & use today is based on the AIDA principle.
AIDA Model identifies cognitive stages an individual goes through during the buying process for a product or service, basically the definition of sales/marketing funnel, that’s why it works so well.
This is maybe the first time the concept of stages in a consumer journey being illustrated as a funnel and the four stages of Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA) are being used.
How an effective marketing funnel looked like two years ago?
Well, let me say it became a bit crowded among the stages & thousands of variations came up.
Everybody was adding steps making it more organized & that’s how we ended up with so many funnel strategies & templates that are just one google search away. You can start googling the perfect funnel strategy that fits your business right now.
BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT, IN FACT, YOU WILL GET ONLY MORE CONFUSED IF YOU GO THERE
If you ask me, the only thing you should do is to understand the basic principles of the sales/marketing funnel.
Only then you can understand what works best for your business. It may be a simple funnel or a bit crossed strategy with added steps.
Either way, as shown above, in 2021 we can not miss the 5-stages funnel.
Nowadays, this is the base on which you should build your marketing funnel.
WHAT ARE THE BASIC STAGES IN 2021?
This five-step sales funnel will help you do this.
You can call these steps whatever you like, but every successful sale requires consumers to go through the first three stages. As for the other two, you want every customer to reach these stages of the buying cycle.
The key thing here is that your marketing funnel doesn’t end with the purchase. There is plenty more work to be done at this stage. You can add as many stages into this funnel as you deem necessary to your brand but, again, it’s up to you how complex your marketing funnel should be. You can also expand it with time as your strategy becomes more efficient and new opportunities arise.
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Another important principle of this sales funnel is that we’re not talking about a linear process here. You don’t want to limit your marketing strategy to generate leads at the top of the funnel and then guiding them all to the end. There are thousands or even millions of people out there who already may know your brand but simply aren’t interested in it yet.
There are even more people out there who are interested in what you’re selling but don’t even know that your brand exists yet.
DON’T FORGET THAT YOU ARE SELLING
You don’t want to limit your marketing strategy to generate leads at the top of the funnel and then guiding them all to the end. There are thousands or even millions of people out there who may already know your brand but simply aren’t interested in it yet.
There are even more people out there who are interested in what you’re selling & even know your brand. They just wait for their right offer.
This means that you can not afford to miss an opportunity to get leads in every stage of the funnel!
Map them according to their interactions and assign them to each stage of your marketing funnel.
You can then target each user based on their previous actions & simply take actions to move them to the next stage.
Awareness
At this stage, we are making sure the right people notice us, whether we do it with (SEO, Paid advertising, social media, etc.)
The most important thing at this stage is making sure you target relevant audiences to bring traffic to your website that actually has the potential to buy into your offer.
You’re wasting budget, time, and other valuable resources if your stage one lead generation strategies are bringing in traffic with no actual interest in your product or service.
Consideration
With awareness building in the first stage of your marketing funnel, you’re now ready to target new users already in the consideration stage. You’ll want to target existing leads who are aware of your brand/message and then bring them into this second stage of the funnel.
I might have forgotten to mention but segment your audience through this funnel wisely!
There is no universal message after the awareness stage, some wait for the right offer while others want to be charmed, so give them exactly what they need.
Conversion
We literally do everything for this stage right here!
Everything you’ve done so far has been building up to the point where users complete some kind of conversion. Purchases are normally the most valuable type of conversion but there are dozens of others you might be targeting with different campaigns: email signups, content downloads, account creations, free trials, demos, upgrades, etc.
Even if you have activities in the second stage such as webinars, demos, etc. It’s still a conversion, and while we are at it it’s highly recommended to give additional value to your service or product. Let’s say if you sell a catering service you might do tutorials on how to decorate the cake table.
This is also what is called a lead magnet & maybe it belongs in the first stage, but anyway, once you have a segmented audience you can use it among all stages accordingly if that action could push them to purchase.
Loyalty
Turn customers into repeat buyers.
A lot of brands make the mistake of thinking the marketing funnel ends once their primary conversion goal is accomplished, normally a purchase of some kind. However, this is just the beginning of the customer experience and your return on investment from all the work you’ve put into accomplishing that conversion goal.
And also, there is a ton of work to be done here as well.
Make customer service a priority!
It’s inevitable to have problems with customers from time to time, but whatever you do, don’t take it personally!
If you want to succeed you have to provide the best experience for your customers because you want them to return.
Advocacy
Happy customers are more likely to keep buying from you but they’re also more likely to recommend you to other people. Let's not forget that also 83% of buyers say recommendations from their friends/colleagues have the biggest influence on their purchase decisions.
So you want to work on encouraging them to talk about your brand & sometimes reward them for it.
If you want to learn how to master this, there are many tips & tricks online that can help you achieve this without making any serious investment.
I know funnel it’s more complex than the AIDA model, but definitely is a 2021 essential funnel strategy.
So go & conquer your market!
Originally published at http://www.ddigitalmark.com on July 23, 2021.
