What are marketing funnels and how to use them effectively

Looking for what marketing funnels are? Marketing funnels are a well-known concept of marketing, with their usefulness being enormous for businesses.

Marketing professionals know their value well and take advantage of them to understand the needs of their prospective customers. In this way, they improve promotional actions and lead to increased sales.

But let's see in more detail what exactly marketing funnels are!

What are marketing funnels?

Let's first explain what a marketing funnel is.

Marketing funnels or digital marketing funnels are the terms used for the "journey" that a prospective customer of your business will take until the final conversion. 

The funnel depicts that process in which a person who may not even know your brand or product offering, takes some specific steps until he turns into a customer / consumer.

So imagine a situation where marketers are casting nets in order to attract as many people as possible to learn about the product or service. They then try to keep as many as possible on that journey until they succeed in making them customers.

At each stage of the above process, the prospective buyers are continuously reduced. And this is the reason why this process is depicted as a funnel.

Given the explanation of the marketing funnel, let's see its evolution and stages!

The new marketing funnel

Previously, the stages of the marketing funnel (funnel stages) were 4:

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. This is the famous AIDA model (from the initial stages).

However, with the emergence of new digital marketing tactics (social media marketing, digital campaigns, etc.), the marketing funnel has evolved.

It has become much more customer-centric and complex. Now, it offers a more complete omnichannel experience to prospects, resulting in them jumping from one stage to another. Thus, the linearity of the old funnel is now outdated.

The stages of the new marketing funnel are as below:

1. Awareness: The (potential) consumer learns about your brand, products and services through your marketing actions.
2. Research: He does further research on your products and company.
3. Evaluation: He decides to compare your products with those of your competitors in order to decide which one is better.
4. Purchase: He makes the purchase and from a prospective customer becomes a real customer, whom, in fact, you must facilitate throughout his effort to make the purchase.
5. Retention: The consumer remains your loyal customer after the purchase. That's why you need to keep him happy by providing him with what he needs to continue to value the relationship with your brand.
6. Referral: His satisfaction will make him recommend your company to other people who can become your customers
7. Advocacy:  Finally, your customer will become your advocate, thereby convincing other people about your brand.

Why it's worth using marketing funnels

Now that you know what marketing funnels are, this is the time to learn the benefits you will get from using them.

First of all, marketing funnels offer you the ability to track the movements of potential customers throughout the consumer journey and its stages.

Precisely because the results and actions are measurable, you will always have an image of the points/stages where you are losing customers. That way, you'll know what to fix/optimize.

For example:

If you notice that prospective consumers do not even reach the second stage of the funnel, then you need to revise your strategy for the first stage (better awareness actions).

In addition, funnels help you increase the conversion rate of your website. Although you cannot prevent the loss of customers, with the right actions at each stage of the funnel you will convince more prospective customers to proceed to a conversion. Whether this is a purchase, registration of contact details, membership registration, etc.

Furthermore, the funnel will help you to predict your sales.

Numbers play a huge role in digital marketing, so it's valuable to know roughly what to expect as a result of your actions.

How to boost your business sales with marketing funnels

Now that we've seen what the sales funnel (used interchangeably for the marketing funnel) is, its stages and its importance, now we're going to talk about how it will help you increase your sales!

Optimizing your funnel goes through several tactics that can skyrocket your sales.

First of all, it is essential to know your audience well. The better knowledge you have, the better your targeting will be at each stage of the funnel. This way, you will reduce the chances of trying to convince the wrong people.

Lead generation is also an effective tactic.

This is the process in which potential consumers are converted into your customers by filling in their contact information. This will be a useful tool in your hands as you will be able to get in direct contact with the people who shared their details.

Also, the creation of attractive content (e.g. quality product images, videos, etc.) and the use of strong call-to-actions (prompts for action) with buttons or links will be ways to optimize your marketing funnel. Ultimately resulting in increased sales.

Sales Funnels what they are – In conclusion

In closing, let's briefly say again what the sales funnel is: the process through which you will follow the journey of your consumers and, with the right actions, you will be able to convert them into your customers and increase your sales.

After seeing what marketing funnels are, you definitely understand why it's worth designing funnel marketing strategies that will help your business take off!

If you want to know more about the digital marketing strategies Wizard uses to increase your sales, contact us.