Marketing Funnels Explained & Why You Need One

Marketing Funnels Explained & Why You Need One

I was in a Facebook community group we belong to and this lady askeda question about her funnel she had created using a software we also use.

This is what she said “I need help to understand this before I throw up my hands and give up.  I don’t understand what I do next to get people to even see it…”

So I was able to ask her some question about her funnel in order put into perspective her question.   Things like what was she promoting and what was the desired result from creating this funnel and more importantly who was she wanting to attract.

These are all important considerations because at the end of the day a marketing funnel has a specific purpose.

Since this will be useful to anyone wanting to attract prospects and makes sales and needing to know how this all comes together I’m going to try and simplify this for you in the article.

Today thanks to the internet and social media, prospective customers encounter your business through diverse channels — word of mouth, ads, digital marketing, content creation etc. What you need to know is how do you nurture a prospect from their first awareness of your brand to the point of making a purchase and ultimately becoming a steadfast advocate?

You start by charting a customer’s journey through your business thus creating a marketing funnel strategy.

Within this article we’ll demystify the distinct phases of the marketing funnel and share the different strategies needed at each stage.

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a model representing the customer journey from a prospect discovering your business, brand, product, or service to the moment they take a specific action or purchase from you. We call it The Customer Journey and we see this in four distinct phases

1. Top of Funnel (Problem Aware) – At this stage of the funnel, you market to a wide audience to capture as many leads as possible. Your prospect knows they have a problem and that there is a solution but they don’t know you, your product, your company or the difference between your solution or anyone else’s.  It’s your job to convey to them that you understand their problem, their pains and that there is a solution and that your solution, tht you have it.  Typical top of funnel activities include publishing blogs and how-to articles and posting on social media platforms.
2. Middle of the funnel part 1 (Solution Aware) – At this stage of the funnel you will be marketing to an engaged audience who knows your brand. They are aware of their problem and know there are different solutions but not sure which is the right one. Typical middle of the funnel activities might be promoting and encouraging prospects to attend a webinar and to review and download case studies, ebooks etc.
3. Middle of the funnel part 2 (Product Aware) – At this stage of the funnel your prospect is aware of various solutions available but still not 100% decided if your product is the right one for them.
4. Bottom of the funnel (Most Aware) – At the bottom of the marketing funnel, your leads become fewer but more likely to convert. They are ready to buy and you are the person they want to buy from.  This is where it is essential through your marketing and communication your prospect is absolutly clear about your offer and you knowing your product intimately enough to explain it.  At this stage it really is about the relationship you have built and being there when they make that decision to buy. Typical bottom of the funnel activities might include live demos, product trials and customer references/testimonials – even a zoom call to talk with them.

As you can see in summary, the widest part of the funnel captures the biggest group of people who might be interested in what you sell, while the smallest part of the funnel includes the smaller group who are most likely to convert.

The only trouble is you don’t necessarily know where someone is in your funnel!

So you need to create content that appeals to all different levels.

How to develop a marketing funnel

Before you can create your marketing funnel strategy, you’ll need to first create a buyer persona or customer avatar and then develop content specific to them at each stage of the funnel.  Knowing this information is absolutely critical because you cannot market to everyone – everyone is not your perfect client for your product or service!  Sadly in our experience talking to newbie entrepreneurs they think that everyone does and we get it because we did too when we first started out.

Now we really focus on this and have a training specifically on how to define your perfect customer so that everything you do will not be wasted but designed for that specific person who is actually a fictional character you develop to describe in great detail your ideal customer.  Ours are called Patricia and Peter.

Now you have a bit more knowledge about having and using a funnel I hope it makes a lot more sense what I said to the lady talking about her funnel and what she should do with it.

Just to give you an example, Chris and I have a funnel we’ve created for our target audience, our ideal customer

Someone 50 plus in or approaching retirement who is looking to start their first online business and more than likely does not yet have digital marketing skills or even started an online business yet

Go through it and see how it works

There’s a squeeze page, a sales or information page, an order page and a thank you page

These are all steps in a branded funnel, one that has been created specifically for that peron we’ve described above

We just also created a brand new one and exactly the same process – OnlineSuccessSkills.com/PLR

And best of all the program we are promoting here will actually take you step by step through creating a funnel using a FREE software!

An investment in tools and resources that help you automate your business really are one of the best investments you can make 😆

Thanks for reading today’s blog Marketing Funnels Explained & Why You Need One and would love you to share your thoughts and feedback.

If you are wanting to create your own funnel and want to ask us for some advice just contact us 

And if you want to talk to us you can book a free call here

Marketing Funnels Explained & Why You Need One