From the course: Digital Marketing Foundations

The marketing funnel

From the course: Digital Marketing Foundations

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The marketing funnel

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- You'll hear a lot about funnels the more time you spend in the world of marketing. Purchase funnels, sales funnels, inbound funnels, regardless of the name, they're all ultimately describing the same concept. And I want you to get in the habit of visualizing funnels as you develop your marketing strategies. Here's how to think about a funnel. It's really just a way to represent the customer's journey as they move towards the purchase of your product or surface. At the top or the widest part of the funnel is where a buyer starts their journey. And the bottom, the narrowest part, is where you hope they end up. Your goal as a marketer is to funnel prospects into buyers, moving them from the top to the bottom of the funnel. The shape symbolizes the fact that a large number of people will never complete the journey through the funnel. You'll expose your product or service to a lot of people, but only a small fraction will actually convert. In reality, this funnel is rather leaky, as it has holes in the sides where people will fall out. Now, the marketing funnel is typically segmented into four phases: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. At the very top is Awareness. Someone has to become aware of not only what they want, but who's selling it. This is when a prospect is introduced to your brand. But they might also be introduced to the competition as well. Thus, the first hole or the exit from your funnel. Now, I know that I need a mattress, and I know that you sell one, but my initial exposure to your brand was uninteresting so I wandered off. Now, below Awareness, we have Interest. It's at this stage that a consumer will begin to explore the products or services available to them in more detail. Now, I'm wanting to know what feature that your mattress has compared to your competitor. If I'm not captivated, well, out the funnel I go. Next comes Desire, which we can also call Consideration. It's here that the prospect wants to make a purchase. They're in the final stages of evaluating whether or not to commit. And finally, Action. Your prospect is either going to buy or not. They may select you, someone else, or decide they're not buying at all. This is the foundational funnel. It's called the item model. You may also see it depicted with one last step known as Loyalty, which is the act of retaining your customer. Now, we often reference these different segments as top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. And this is important because how you manage your marketing will depend on where in the funnel your buyer is. Towards the bottom of the funnel, well, you have someone who is really close to making a purchase. Bottom funnel marketing focuses on identifying people who are in a buying decision and then converting them. They're right there. At the top of the funnel, you're focused on making people aware of your solution. You're trying to message to mostly the right people, but you know you can't be everything for everyone. But if there's zero top of the funnel marketing, well, there's nobody coming out the other side. So you have to get them in the door before you can start selling to them. And, as you might expect, middle of the funnel marketing is the nurturing process to keep the lead moving. It's giving them a great experience, and all the information they need at just the right time to make their decision. In many ways, this is the hardest part of marketing, figuring out how to keep that person in the funnel and not spilling out. Marketing works best when you understand which stage your customers in so you can tailor your messaging to move them to that next stage.

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