Where in the funnel are you?

From the initial creation of brand awareness to that eventual, elusive sale and all the relevant steps in between, if you’re looking for the best way to get a potential customer’s attention and keep it, the first step is to look at creating a workable marketing funnel.

An overview of marketing funnels

What is a marketing funnel?

Put simply, a marketing funnel is a way to look at the journey of one of your potential customers. This means starting from the very beginning, from lead generation and lead nurture to the end goals of sales for your business.

What are the different stages in the funnel?

The different stages of the digital marketing funnel are set out in six steps as below:

• Awareness - this is the point at which you create awareness for your brand, including any products, services and solutions your company has on offer for the consumer
• Interest - here is where you start to build upon the interest in your brand
• Consideration - at this stage, you’ll want to find a way for returning website visitors to find out more about your company and what’s on offer
• Intent - here is where you’ll want your buyer to learn about your products and services
• Evaluation - at this point, you’ll want to prove why your product/service/solution is the best and why your potential customer should continue on to the final stage
• Purchase - this is the final part, where the sales transaction has been completed

Why do you need to pay attention to them?

In order to help you fulfil your digital strategy and ensure you secure a sale, the tried and tested marketing funnel helps to outline each step you need to take. This also helps to ensure optimum brand attraction.

The first three steps of the digital marketing funnel - Awareness, Interest and Consideration - fall into Lead Generation. So, this is where you start the process of visualising your potential customer as an unknown visitor to your site.

This is also where your brand values come into play - here is where you attract visitors and turn them into leads by generating interest about your business and steering them along the way.

The last three steps of the marketing funnel - Intent, Evaluation and Purchase - work as your lead conversion, following your consumer interest to their eventual point of becoming a customer for your business.

How can you apply this to your business?

In order to apply the digital marketing funnel successfully to your own company, you’ll want to ensure you’re following each step according to your digital strategy.

To create awareness, your marketing strategy should include the best ways a potential customer can search for your company.

You can organise for paid social media promotions if you’re trying to gain a fast result or take a more organic approach - whichever way your business is seeking to do so.

To step up the interest levels, you can retarget visitors to your website by providing relevant information they were looking at during previous visits. This is a great way for your company to stay connected and establish more personalised communication. Targeted content is the way to go in the form of emails, newsletters, classes etc.

When it comes to consideration, this is where product information kicks in. You’ll want your customers to read reviews and compare products and services. By offering up options such as case studies, free trials, testimonials, this is the point in the marketing funnel where your potential buyers will share their research with other stakeholders, so make it count.

You’ll also want them to take action on your landing page. Examples of these would be a button on your site with a call to action, such as “Find out How”, Download Here”, or “Get in touch with our team today”.

Then it’s all about intent. This is the stage when your customer will be putting products into their virtual carts, and you’ll be hoping they seal the deal with a sale. Here is where you can offer the customer vital product demos.

Then it’s on to evaluation - you need to find a way to prove to your customer that they should purchase their product or service with you and you only. The final step is the sale, but this should be where all of your previous hard work finally pays off.

How does PPC fit into the marketing funnel?

In order to unlock the full potential of your digital strategy, it’s important to align your PPC campaigns to the right stage and as per the above, adjust the way you approach your potential customer as they journey through the marketing funnel. This ensures a well-managed and considered PPC strategy.

From a PPC perspective, the more your ad message matches up with each of the specific stages and their associated needs? The more effective this will be in ensuring that oh so coveted sales journey is completed.

For example, at the top of the funnel sits awareness. This is where you publish relevant content, from blogs to tailored PPC social media ads and webinars to emails in order to create your brand awareness, brand recognition and establish a form of trust with your potential customer.

As you work your way down the PPC marketing funnel, potential customers of your company may have clicked on one of your PPC ads or checked out one of your webinars, and are now looking to the next stage - both consideration and intent. From here, they could be looking at specific options you’ve got available on your landing page.

This particular stage is critical as it helps to bring together the top and bottom part of the digital marketing funnel. Keeping the user journey a smooth experience is crucial to reach the end point where you make lots of sales.

As you get to the bottom of the funnel, this is the point where your PPC strategy should hopefully be paying off. This is also the part where you want to hone in on your conversions and look to boost that all important revenue for your well-engineered PPC digital marketing efforts. There’s no guarantee that a potential customer will make it all the way down the funnel but if you optimise your PPC strategy, there’s every chance you’ll make a sale.