What do you know about a marketing funnel? Maybe unknowingly, you’re in them every day.
In this course, Sobrina Pies, Head of Marketing here at Flodesk and founder of Quiet Like Horses, teaches you about the marketing funnel. By the end of the lesson, you’ll understand what a marketing funnel is, why they matter, and how to use them to best work for your business.
Here’s Sobrina on the marketing funnel:
What if there was a way to attract and convert your ideal customers in a proven and repeatable way? Would you want to learn more about that? That’s what I’m going to teach you about today!
If you're not familiar, marketing funnels can seem like a big, conceptual idea that you might learn about in business school, but the truth is, you already know about marketing funnels.
You're in them every day. By the end of this course, you'll understand what they are and how to use them to make them work for your business. We're going to cover what a marketing funnel is, why they matter, and how they can work for you.
WHAT IS A MARKETING FUNNEL?
Sometimes called a sales funnel, a marketing funnel is how someone finds you, interacts with you, and then becomes a client or a sale. It's basically the customer journey from beginning to end. There are different funnel stages that a person goes through, and at each stage of the funnel, they have different needs and intentions. Because of that, your marketing is going to be different at each stage. At each stage of the funnel, your audience has a different need, and you have a different objective with your marketing to meet that need.
Here are the stages:
Stage 1: AWARENESS – At the top of the funnel, you have the awareness stage. This stage is when someone starts to become aware that they have a problem. Similarly, for you in this stage, you're trying to raise your own awareness. You're trying to do things to get people to hear about you and get your name out there. Just make people aware that you exist and that you can solve this problem that they might have.
Stage 2: INTEREST – When people are getting interested in what you have to do or what your competitors have to do. Your goal is to generate interest for you specifically. You want to be sending them high-value content and educate them to position you as a thought leader.
Stage 3: CONSIDERATION – People want to find a solution to their problem. Your objective here is to position your brand as the solution to that problem.
Stage 4: CONVERSION – What your audience wants is to be sure they're getting the best solution at the best price and the best time to help them get the results they want. Your objective is to get them to buy your product or your service now.
Stage 5: LOYALTY – and advocacy. After someone converts to a sale or client, you want to continue to provide this amazing customer experience and keep building the relationship so they become brand loyal. That you're the preferred service provider or the preferred product for them, then they go out and become advocates spreading the word, recommending you and your products to their friends and family.
WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?
Your marketing funnel helps you understand what your people need to get educated on the topic you’re an expert in, learn about you and convert to a sale. You have the opportunity to give them exactly what they need at each stage of the funnel, and doing that increases your chances of converting them to a sale or a client.
HOW TO MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU
There are two parts to making it work for you.
You have to give your people something in each stage of the funnel to convert them to a sale. That thing you're going to provide them with is content.
How you're going to give them content, so that is your strategy.
Good content is the intersection of what your audience wants to learn more about and what you want to say about your business. The intersection of those two things is your sweet spot. If you say everything you want to say about your business, that is basically an ad, but your audience might not want to be sold to. They want to learn about things, and there are things they want to
learn about related to your brand. That's the intersection.
Make sure your content is educational. That it is providing value to your audience, that it relates to your brand in some way, and that it's consistent in brand voice and tone.
What is your strategy? It should be to write a different piece of content at each funnel stage that meets what each person is looking for in that stage and meets your objectives. At each stage in the funnel, you want to have a different call to action (CTA) for all of your content pieces to pull people further down the funnel because the further they go, the closer they are to converting to a sale or a client.
What are you going to do in your strategy?
At the top of the marketing funnel, you are trying to raise awareness of your brand and who you are. Types of content you might produce are blog posts, Instagram stories with consistent Instagram feed, guest speaking opportunities, or guest blog posts. Anything that is going to help get your name and brand out there. Your CTA here is to download my freebie or join my list. You always want to be offering some content that helps you get an email so that they move further down the funnel. Then they're not just aware of you. When you capture their email, you can start nurturing them further down the funnel.
The next stage of the funnel is the interest funnel. The content you want to provide here is emails with blog post content, video content, or podcast content. Anything that builds your expertise and thought leadership, and it gives value to them, so they get to know who you are.
Your CTA's in the interest phase is open this email or click to read more.
The next stage funnel is consideration. They're becoming closer to making a decision who they want to book – so you begin positioning your brand, your services, or product as the optimal solution to their problem. The content you're going to provide here are emails that include testimonials, success stories, before and afters, start your free trial, or try it now. Your CTA here could be 'book your discovery call' or even 'buy now.'
The next stage of the funnel is conversion. Time to convert to a sale, and they're getting ready to make that purchase. The content you're going to provide here is an email to an offer that they can't resist–whether that's a sale, a limited-time discount, a gift with purchase, something that makes it irresistible. Your CTA here is to buy now. It's a harder sale than the stage before.
Last stage – loyalty and advocacy. Keep them updated on what's happening with your brand. Content here might be newsletters, news about a referral program. Your CTA here is to learn more and refer a friend.
Finally, let's put it all together.
EXAMPLE OF A MARKETING FUNNEL
Using Quiet Like Horses, and my own product, BlogBetter, as an example.
At the top of the funnel is awareness, so I'm trying to raise awareness about Blog Better. I'm going to start posting about it on my Instagram stories and Instagram feed. I'm going to start emailing my newsletter list about this. I've created a freebie for 21 blog post ideas that I'm going to offer and talk about on my Instagram and email list and create a Pinterest pin. I'm going to talk about this and try to get more people to sign up for this freebie so I can start to nurture them to continue to let them know about Blog Better.
In the interest stage, I'm going to keep sending them high-value, educational content. Now that I have their email, I'm going to send them newsletters regularly with tips and resources on writing and content marketing and the marketing funnel to start warming them up and nurturing them.
In the consideration stage, now I'm starting to position myself as the solution to their problem. I'll send emails like, "do you have this problem?" The solution, "BlogBetter" can help you. I'm going to share testimonials and success stories about other people who have used "BlogBetter" and the CTA there is 'Buy Now.'
For the conversion stage, I really want them to buy now, so it's a bit of a harder sale. I'm going to reduce the pricing for a limited time, say two weeks. It's only this much, and now it's $20 off, so make sure you buy now, and if you buy now, I'm going to give you a freebie on top of that as well, so it's only available during this sale time.
During the loyalty and advocacy stage, I'm just going to keep building that relationship. I'm going to make myself available. I'm going to email people who have bought "BlogBetter." I want to see how it went, and if they have any questions at all for future content, let me know. To continue providing value to them, I might showcase their work on my Instagram. My CTA there is to keep in touch, learn more, or refer a friend.
Thanks for reading on the marketing funnel. Let me know if you have any questions. You can find me at @quietlikehorses.
If you want to learn more about creating marketing funnel content for your brand, check out BlogBetter at quietlikehorses.com See ya!
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