When you are in marketing or own a business, chances are, you must have heard about full-funnel marketing. A marketing funnel is something that you establish if you want to successfully turn leads into customers. The idea is to make your marketing strategy work like a funnel.
You cast a broad net to capture as many leads as possible—just like a funnel. Then you will slowly nurture these leads by making them go through the different stages of the funnel, narrowing them down as they go.
When it comes to lead generation, full-funnel marketing is essential. You will want to turn your potential customers into actual sales, and you can only do that if you are doing the full-funnel marketing strategy right.
What Is Full-Funnel Marketing, And Why Do You Need One?
In essence, a marketing funnel will let you visualize the process of turning leads into customers. This understanding will come from both the marketing and sales perspective. Capturing the leads is not all there is to it when you are doing lead generation. The most important step is knowing what to do with the leads you have gathered.
You want to nurture those leads by slowly introducing them to your brand and convincing them to purchase from you. Of course, not all leads will go down the funnel. You will lose some along the way. However, the further your prospects are in the funnel, the better your chances of converting them into paying customers.
There are many benefits to a full marketing funnel strategy, including the following:
- Establishing brand awareness
- Reaching new and relevant audiences
- Boosting engagement
- Nurturing prospects into customers
- Building brand loyalty
To understand how a full marketing funnel works, you must first put in mind that they can vary from business to business. The stages within the funnel are not uniform across all industries. Some brands name the stages in the funnel differently. Others do not include other actions as they may not be necessary. This brings us to the next point: understanding the different stages of the marketing funnel.
What Are The Stages Of A Full Marketing Funnel?
Awareness
This is the first stage in the funnel. Prospects are drawn toward this stage through your marketing campaigns, whether they are Google ads or Facebook ads. A potential customer might have consulted Google to learn more about a product they are interested in.
If you’re running a Google ad, there is a great chance that they will come across your brand and what you have to offer. Other forms of marketing that go in this stage include events, blogs, infographics, webinars, direct mails, and social media content.
In this stage, the prospects are not only made aware of your business. They will also enter the funnel as a lead, meaning this is where the lead generation process takes place. You collect important information and generate leads into your database to nurture them down the funnel.
Interest
The interest phase is the next step in the process. This is where the prospects learn more about your brand and other helpful information. The interest stage is the best opportunity for you to develop a relationship with your potential customers through an email nurture campaign.
You can prepare a series of emails to persuade prospects to like your brand enough to proceed to the next stage. Email campaigns are proven to work across all industries, whether you’re running an Amazon drop shipping store or offering digital marketing services.
Consideration
In the consideration stage, prospects have warmed up to your brand enough to welcome more information about your offers. You want them to consider buying from you, so you give them reasons to get your products. You want to position your product offers as potential solutions to their problems.
This is when you can send them more targeted content tailored to their needs and expectations, such as case studies, free trials, and special offers.
Intent
The intent stage is further down the funnel; thus, the targeting is more narrowed. People who are not interested enough may have left the funnel by unsubscribing from your email list.
However, those who have strong intent to buy will demonstrate their interest by filling out your survey form, watching a product demo, or adding a product to their cart or e-commerce website.
You can reinforce their intention to buy by giving them more reason to choose your products.
Evaluation
This is one of the most important stages in the funnel. Prospects have already demonstrated their intention to purchase. Now, they will make the final decision. Are they buying your product or not?
The decision-making process is a crucial stage for both the sales and marketing teams. This is when they need to work together and convince the buyer to take the final step.
Purchase
This stage is the moment of truth. The prospects have decided to make a purchase decision. This is where they are finally converted into paying customers. In the purchase stage, a transaction takes place. It’s just as important as the preceding stages.
However, your responsibility to nurture the lead doesn’t end with the purchase. This is a good opportunity for you to provide them with a positive customer experience. Doing this right will mean that the customer will refer you to their family or friends or buy from you again. If you succeed, the buying cycle process can begin again.
Tips For Creating A Successful Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy
If your goal is to generate enough leads and increase your chances of conversions, then creating a full-funnel marketing strategy is the best way to go. Here are some tips to help you along the way.
Avoid Putting All Your Eggs In One Basket
It may sound like life advice, but this saying is just as applicable when it comes to sales and marketing. You have worked hard to market your products, but it does not seem to work. This might mean you’re focusing on only one aspect of the marketing funnel and neglecting the other stages. Yes, it’s important to create awareness, but are you doing enough to actually turn your website traffic into leads?
You might be concentrating all your efforts on nurturing your leads and forget that you need to generate them first. The bottom line is that you need to consider every stage of the funnel as a crucial part of the buying cycle. Invest equal time, money, and energy into the different phases of the funnel, from attracting high-quality visitors and turning them into leads to nurturing them throughout the next stages and ultimately converting them into paying customers.
Do Not Neglect Your Existing Customers
They say that it’s more expensive to win new customers than to retain the old ones. Your existing customers already know your brand. If you give them an exceptional customer experience, they will develop trust in you, making it easier to convince them to make a repeat purchase.
Of course, it doesn’t mean you should stop marketing to them. You can still retarget them with ads, and they will be more receptive. You can focus your retention efforts on them and even attempt some upselling. Upselling can offset the cost you spent to acquire them in the first place.
Ensure Alignment Between Marketing And Sales
Marketing and sales may differ in many aspects but they go hand in hand in ensuring a successful buying journey. There needs to be synergy between the two if you want to pull off a successful full-funnel marketing strategy. You might be generating hundreds of leads week in and week out, but if the leads are not nurtured effectively by the sales team, they will be rendered useless.
Marketers need to make sure that the leads they are acquiring are of high quality. The salespeople must ensure that they have a clear understanding of the tactics and messaging used by the marketing team so there will be a seamless process all throughout.
In Conclusion
The buyer journey has become more nuanced with the advent of technology. It’s more important than ever for businesses to understand how full-funnel marketing works in relation to lead generation and how they can nurture leads in every stage of the funnel.
If you want to stand out from the competition and gain an advantage in your industry, perfecting your full-funnel marketing strategy is the best way.
