Digital marketing funnels are a set of steps that you want your target audience to take to achieve sales.

You may have been to some websites that have asked you to fill out a form or download a PDF guide. These are usually parts of a funnel, which I will talk about further down the line.

Imagine a marketing funnel as a journey, where a buyer start from looking for more information on a product, learn more about it, become more interested, consider buying, and finally purchase it.

It’s called “funnel” because it’s a framework showing the number of people taking the first step, all the way through the last, which is usually conversion. Majority of the people go through the first touchpoint, but as they need to take more steps, there will be dropouts and fewer people get on the next ones.

ELEMENTS OF THE FUNNEL

Awareness

As the first touchpoint, the Awareness stage introduces the product to the customer.

The first-level of building awareness with potential customers involves interest-based targeting and keyword searches, whenever applicable.

Strong messaging and systematic targeting, which are critical at this stage, are usually delivered in the form of:

• Content marketing
• Inbound marketing
• Referrals
• Word-of-mouth (WOM)
• Trade shows
• Events and activations
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• E-books
• Whitepapers
• Online ads
• Videos
• Direct emails
• Social media
• Webinars

Engagement

Engagement is a way to continuously build a solid relationship with your customers. This stage also allows you and your brand to become top-of-mind among your target audiences.

Engagement is identified by the digital platforms through web site traffic, social media interaction or newsletter signups. The potential customer travels lower into the funnel where more targeted messaging can be deployed.

This stage may be in the form of:

• Case studies
• Drip email campaigns
• Nurturing webinars
• Social media
• Content marketing
• Videos
• Newsletters
• Classes

 Conversion

When your customer finally decides to purchase your products or services, then you have reached the Conversion stage.

At this point, it is critical to measure conversion in an analytical way in order to optimize investment and fine tune messaging, targeting and content strategy.

This stage may be in the form of:

• Trials
• Demonstrations
• Customer onboarding

Loyalty

The story does not end with purchase. Essential to building your business is keeping a band of loyal customers who will become your brand evangelists.

It is important to build Loyalty as repeat customers are 9x or more likely to convert than first time shoppers.

This stage may be in the form of:

• User onboarding
• Accessible customer service and support
• Testimonials
• Data sheets
• Case studies

TYPES OF FUNNELS

While there are many examples of funnels, here are some of the common ones that address varying objectives and desired outcomes:

Lead generation funnel

As the name implies, this type of funnel aims to generate leads – be it in the form of more email subscriptions, growing your followers and audience, or acquiring more users/clients.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Social media ad rolled out
• Audience goes to your landing page
• Audience gets lead to your thank you page
• Lead magnet provided to the audience.

e-Commerce purchase funnel

This funnel aims to drive more customers to your website and increase your product sales.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Audience visits the e-Commerce website.
• Visitor views the product and its descriptions.
• Visitor checks out and adds the product to cart.
• Visitor leaves the payment details and makes a purchase.

Free sample funnel

As the name suggests, this funnel is apt for businesses who are in the freemium model or those that provide free samples/trials to get more leads. It starts with the free material/service and narrows down through to consideration phase, which usually includes customer onboarding or a walkthrough of the offering.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Visitor lands on the lead magnet landing page.
• Visitor gets to the “thank you” page and gets included in the email list.
• Lead magnet/free product gets delivered to visitor.
• Nurturing emails are sent every after few days/weeks.

Product launch / webinar funnel

This is one of the more common ones I’ve seen among various businesses. A product launch or webinar funnel takes place when a business wants to launch a product. It usually starts with a link to a free webinar that offers a value-adding presentation on a product or service. Signing up for this webinar adds the person into the email list, which is used to promote the new product/service during its pre-launch and launch phase.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Visitor lands on the lead magnet landing page.
• Visitor gets to the “thank you” page and gets included in the email list.
• Visitor receives the link to the webinar.
• Webinar takes place and the product/service to be launched is promoted in the presentation.
• Nurturing emails are sent a few days after, encouraging the visitor to purchase.

Organic content marketing funnel

If you prefer to build your list or increase your traffic but not spend for ads, then this funnel’s for you. It relies heavily on developing and managing content across various platforms, tapping into the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media reach.

At the top of the funnel, you’ll normally see blogs, Pinterest, YouTube and other social media.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Visitor finds the blog article, Pinterest post, YouTube video, social media post.
• Visitor reaches the landing page.
• Lead magnet is provided.
• Visitor enters the drip/email marketing campaign.

Nurturing sales funnel

Part of building an email list is keeping your subscribers engaged. This funnel is for building and nurturing your relationship with your email list by sending them regular value-adding emails. I’d like to give strong emphasis on the “value-adding” part for without it, you might run the risk of “flooding” their inbox.

This funnel usually looks like:

• Visitor lands on the lead magnet landing page.
• Visitor gets to the “thank you” page and gets included in the email list.
• Lead magnet gets delivered to visitor.
• Nurturing emails are sent every after few days/weeks.

SO DO YOU NEED A FUNNEL?

The current sales and marketing landscape has transformed from a purely transactional into a more relational one. Building your business not only requires a great product or valuable set of services, it only needs a strong relationship with its customers and users.

In this sense, yes you definitely need a funnel, regardless of your business’ objectives.

If you’d like to know more about digital funnels, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.