A 101 Crash Course to Marketing Funnels
Let’s talk about marketing funnels.
It’s a common term that we all throw around, and for those of us who have been in the marketing industry for a while, we know the importance of creating and utilizing marketing funnels.
But what if some of us haven’t been in the marketing industry for a long time? What if we’ve never heard of a marketing funnel or are still unsure of what it means?
If some of us are new to marketing and don’t understand marketing funnels, this is the article to read because it’s going to provide a digestible crash course.
And how are we going to start today’s lesson? By explaining what a marketing funnel is.
Overall, a marketing funnel is simple. In the most basic sense, a marketing funnel is our target audience’s path to purchase. It’s our buyer personas consumer journey. It’s how our ideal customers get from point A to point B.
Today, it's rare for any of us to purchase a product or service from a brand we learned about five minutes ago. With so many businesses in the world, we have options—and increased options entice us to take our sweet time to choose which brands we want to buy from.
So, to be successful, we must understand our target audience’s path to purchase. We need to know how our target audience goes from hearing about us to actually buying from us. And that knowledge will lead to the creation of a marketing funnel.
Is every marketing funnel the same?
Now, before we analyze our audience’s buying behavior to create a marketing funnel, it’s important to remember one key thing: marketing funnels can differ from industry to industry and brand to brand. For example, a SaaS company might have a completely different marketing funnel than a CBD oil company. Why? The reasons are obvious.
A SaaS company and CBD oil brand are in completely different industries that target different audiences who have different habits, needs, questions, problems, and buying behavior. Because of that wide variety of differences, both companies’ marketing funnels will—and probably should be—different.
However, for the sake of simplicity, there are a few essential elements that every marketing funnel should incorporate.
An awareness stage: This step in the journey is where our target audience first discovers us.
A consideration stage: This step in the journey is where our target audience evaluates whether our product or service is a good fit.
A decision stage: This step in the journey is where our target audience is ready to make a purchasing decision.
Again, marketing funnels will differ and become more complex based on our specific target audience’s needs and behavior. For example, some of us might include a retention, intent, or interest stage. But nonetheless, all of us have to create marketing funnels that account for the steps in which our audience hears about us, considers us, and buys from us.
Where does content fit into a marketing funnel?
When we know our target audience’s path to purchase and have crafted a marketing funnel that aligns with that, what do we do next? We create content that guides our ideal customers further down our marketing funnel.
Content is the most important part of any marketing funnel. Why? Because we can’t guide our target audience to a decision without providing the tools they need to make a decision.
Remember, none of us buy a product or service, especially an expensive one, from a brand we just learned about from a friend, family member, or colleague. We like to do our own research first to make sure we make the right decision. Wasting money is not fun, and we have to keep that in mind for our consumers as well.
Throughout our audience’s consumer journey, they need resources to help them go from the awareness stage to the decision stage. And we must give them those resources if we ever want to have success in increasing our exposure, leads, and sales.
We also need to give our audience resources for every stage of our marketing funnel. If we have five stages in our funnel, we could have a number of potential customers at any one of those stages at any given time. This fact means that we have to make sure we nurture our ideal customers where they are. We have to create and provide resources that meet the specific needs our consumers have in the stages that they’re in.
So, with that said, what kind of content should we create for each stage of the marketing funnel? Let’s go back to our basic marketing funnel that has three simple parts: the awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage. There is a plethora of content that we can provide for each of those stages. Here are a few ideas that we can implement now.
Content for the awareness stage: SEO-optimized blog posts, guest-contributed articles, social media content, guides, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, and videos.
Content for the consideration stage: Free trials, product demos, case studies, and lead magnets.
Content for the decision stage: Testimonials, customer reviews, promotions, deals, and webinars.
Again, there are a number of resources that we can create for each stage of our marketing funnel. And even if we have more complex marketing funnels, we can still brainstorm and test multiple types of content that might work for different stages.
The key takeaway is for us to get started. If we haven’t created a marketing funnel yet, we need to analyze our target audience’s buying behavior to craft a marketing funnel that fits. Then, the rest is easy: focus on creating useful content that helps our ideal customers make a purchasing decision.
If our resources and product or service are good enough, then hopefully, our target audience will choose to buy from us.
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