Marketing funnel is one of those terms that you hear a lot in the world of marketing and advertising, especially in the field of digital marketing. The marketing funnel helps us to have a clear path to convert the audience or users into a customer and even then into a loyal customer, and we can help our audience reach what they want more easily at each stage.
In this article, we are going to discuss the concept of marketing funnel or sales funnel and talk more about its different stages. Finally, we will analyze the marketing funnel.
What is a marketing funnel?
We are all familiar with the word and appearance of funnel and have used it many times. You must know that the funnel has a large opening and the closer we get to the end, the opening of the funnel becomes smaller. The marketing funnel or marketing funnel actually has the same meaning. That means, first many people enter our marketing funnel under the title of lead, audience or potential customers, and after going through a specific path, they will become actual and real customers.
Therefore, it is natural that as we get closer to the end of the funnel, we will see a drop in the number of people who entered, and finally a few will become customers. The reason for this is completely natural; Because definitely, many of the audience who entered the funnel will stop buying our product for various reasons. So we must try to implement the steps of this funnel correctly so that we can attract more customers.
The path that the customer takes from the beginning to the end is known as the customer journey and includes the marketing funnel. The marketing funnel also has a specific goal from the beginning to the end and tries to convert potential customers into actual customers. Of course, the real customer does not mean only the sale of the product, and other processes such as registration or filling out a specific form are also among the actions that are performed at the end of the funnel.
Of course, in recent years, experts and specialists in the field of digital marketing believe that there is another funnel in the continuation of this marketing funnel to keep customers, and if we can’t keep current customers well, many of them will leave the opening of the second funnel.
What are the stages of the sales funnel or marketing funnel?
Various models have been provided for the marketing funnel, some of which have more and more detailed steps. In addition, some people show these steps in the form of a pyramid. Models of the marketing funnel that have fewer steps have actually considered the path and journey of the customer in general and have turned it into several important and essential parts.
In many cases, the AIDA model is used for the marketing funnel, which includes the following steps:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
But in some models, we see more steps that include even after the audience becomes a customer. In the following, we will take a detailed look at the different stages of the marketing funnel:
Awareness
The stage of brand awareness or branding, which is also known as Awareness, is actually the highest point and mouth of the funnel that many audiences enter the funnel from this stage. Using different methods, you try to inform many audiences and leads about the existence of your brand or products, tell them that you can help them.
Audiences try to search for their wants and needs through various methods such as research and be able to solve them. At this stage, you can attract such audiences by using different methods such as collecting leads, producing practical content and content marketing, running different campaigns, social networks, etc.
At this stage, there are two very important discussions, some believe that the more we can get the audience into our marketing funnel (i.e. get more traffic), the more customers we will probably have. But others say that this is not the case and that the quality of the obtained leads is important, and we should go to the target audience, most of whom we are sure will become customers.
INTEREST
At this stage, when the audience gets to know more about us and our products or services, they express interest in getting more information and a more detailed review. Will try to browse the site more and see how much we can help him.
CONSIDERATION
The next step is the attention step, which is also known by other names such as evaluation and consideration. At this stage, the audience who entered our marketing funnel and as a user showed interest in our products, services or solutions after checking the site, decides to have a more detailed review.
This step is almost the pre-purchase step; Because the audience almost knows that we can meet their needs in the best way and tries to determine the product or service they want by checking more closely and then enter the purchase phase. We know this stage of the user as an attracted customer, so that in the next stage he becomes a real buyer.
CONVERSION
All our efforts in the marketing funnel and customer journey are to convert him into a real buyer. Therefore, it has not fully occurred until this stage, so we should not be happy and optimistic; Because there have been many times, customers have stopped buying at this stage for various reasons, and we have had to bring them back with various campaigns such as retargeting.
Of course, since the final conversion is not only related to the purchase of products, any other action such as registration, filling out the form or downloading the desired application can also be done at this stage. But in general, the most important goal is to sell the product, and when the purchase happens, our marketing funnel is complete. In fact, the buying stage is the last part or the end of our marketing funnel.
Steps after purchase
The marketing funnel actually ends when it reaches the purchase stage, but as we said, some such as the Aweber site believe that these stages continue and our relationship with actual customers should also be maintained. For this reason, we have two more important steps:
LOYALTY
The main work begins only after the purchase stage; Because many people think that buying the product is the whole story and when it is done, we have succeeded. But it’s not really like that and we shouldn’t let our customer be just a passing customer. We have to make him remain our customer and for this we have to make him loyal.
Therefore, the stage after purchase is the stage of loyalty, and by providing better services, establishing constant communication, providing new offers, discount codes, high-quality products, etc., we must make our buyer a loyal customer who will not buy from us anywhere else.
ADVOCACY
This stage is the ultimate trust and loyalty of a customer towards our brand. At this stage, not only is the buyer a loyal customer, but he appears everywhere as a lawyer defending our brand and products and defends us with all his might. If the buyer and customer reach this stage, then the most valuable step has been taken for us; Because this customer no longer goes to competitors and even defends us with all his strength.
The most important indicators of analysis in the marketing funnel
To know how successful our marketing funnel is, we need to define key performance indicators or KPIs. The analysis indicators in the marketing funnel include various items, the following are more important items:
Sales funnel convergence rate: This rate is actually very easy and simple to obtain. To calculate the convergence rate of the sales funnel (Sale Funnel Conversion), it is enough to see how many of the audience who entered the funnel bought from you at the end of the funnel. This is where you’ll find out how successful you’ve been, how high-quality your inbound audience has been, and which stage of the funnel has struggled.
Inbound sources: Checking which sources have given us the most inflows will help us widen the opening of the funnel and in turn invest more in those sources.
Stage time: The time spent in each stage of the marketing funnel or Time in Stage tells us how much time the customer has spent in each stage. The marketing funnel and stages of the customer journey should be done in the fastest time and the customer can reach the desired result on the same day.
Engagement rate: Calls to action are very important to encourage the audience to take the desired action. So we need to check which of our CTA had higher convergence rate to use it again.
Success rate: Every lead that enters your marketing funnel will be treated as an opportunity; Because there is a possibility that he is your real buyer. The success rate or close rate shows how successful you have been in converting a lead to a final customer.
Conclusion
Marketing funnel and customer journey are one of the most important digital marketing concepts that tell us exactly what path an audience takes from the moment they enter the funnel to the purchase stage. Based on this, we can find out which stage has a problem or what problems caused the target audience not to become a customer.
The stages of the marketing funnel include awareness and branding, expression of interest, attention and purchase. Of course, in these stages, such as expressing interest in buying, there are also before the purchase stage, which some do not consider.
