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Is There Something Wrong With Your Business?

You might think that you have it all figured out. Your vision for your business is set; your suppliers, tight. You have established ties with like-minded small business owners in your area who share the same goals for your industry. You feel elated to be part of that crowd. You feel geared for success. You start every day with a mantra—an affirmation that you won’t just do fine in your self-proclaimed path, you are going to thrive.

But months into your opening, your expected leads have not come through.

You think that maybe your business vision is wrong all along. You think maybe it’s not yet time. The expenses start getting aggressive. You look at your road map and see that you have not advanced from points a and b.

We got news for you. It is because of you, not anyone or anything else. But it’s not for the reasons you might be thinking. While getting your vision all figured out marks the maturity of your business idea, it is not enough to sustain once it gets off the ground.

That said, when you’re planning a business, regardless of the industry it belongs to, we cannot stress enough that your marketing funnel is a pertinent element you must secure.

But if you’re not familiar with a marketing funnel, that’s completely fine. It’s a marketer’s job to conceptualize one. However, if you’re starting with a small team, you have to gear up and educate yourself. Forming your customer base and keeping your business afloat depends on it.

So What Is a Marketing Funnel Anyway?

Marketing funnels are conceptual tools businesses use to keep track of their customer’s journey. The funnel starts from the customers’ discovery of a brand to their activities with the company post purchase.

While it may not seem like a company’s prospective clients have engaged with its brand, seeing the company’s product online means they are already at the mouth of the funnel. When we push further down the funnel, we discover that only a few customers stay.

For instance, if 500 Facebook users have seen a boosted post for a height-increasing supplement, only 10 to 15 would likely be making a purchase. And that is already a good number. If the product proves effective, they will take to their Facebook account to post testimonials and supporting pictures. This will serve as a boost to the product’s awareness campaign and apparent sales. 

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at the four stages of a Marketing Funnel.

The Four Stages of a Marketing Funnel

Collectively called AIDA, a marketing funnel is divided into the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action phases. 

Determining each phase is crucial because this will determine which strategies the marketer should use. Each phase will look at customer behavior and how they will act following the stimuli the company releases on a relevant platform.

1. Awareness

As the name suggests, Awareness is the phase wherein the initial interaction between the business and its prospective clients happens. The client has yet to know what the brand is about. This phase marks their transition from cluelessness about what the brand does to at least a general idea of what it does.

The operating principle to get the attention of the target audience is to follow where the ideal customers go. For this, there are certain avenues in Google that marketers should be savvy in.

Search Engine Optimization

Content is king. The popular internet adage never ceases its relevance even in the face of Web 3. Content serves to influence. Content turns interests into, „Yes, I’d like to order that.” As this is the case, when marketers and copywriters create and curate content for social media, they need to optimize it. This is done by injecting the relevant keywords and phrases that will get the attention of Google’s crawlers.

Marketers should also pay attention to the motif and type of article they would be publishing. They could produce how-to articles, blogs, customer reviews and testimonials, video tutorials, and anything that can grab the attention of their target audience. 

Testimonials are potent and cost-effective. Because they may be produced by the customers, they do not have to pay for them. The content is rendered with authenticity because a customer who has experienced the product or service firsthand is the one who promotes the product.

While SEO is a potent tool, the marketer must not rely on it entirely. Marketers should use Other People’s Audiences or OPAs which includes guest postings, interviews, panel discussions, and speaking at events.

This strategy allows the business to be amongst the other professionals in the field. This allows them to get their content further—be seen by an audience that has not seen them before.

YouTube

In a culture of surfaces and moving images, videos make for good marketing tools, especially for an inbound marketing funnel. Given the traffic that YouTube receives daily, using video ads in relevant content will increase brand awareness.  

2. Interest

As the name suggests, this is the phase wherein the customers are already aware of the brand’s existence and are showing interest in its offers. If this is in a B2B setup, the other business might be examining whether or not the company’s value proposition will fit their business. 

The business can secure leads by releasing more information about its products and services. An article from Oberlo.com entitled ’19 Powerful Ecommerce Statistics That Will Guide Your Strategy in 2023′ says that 81% of consumers research before they buy or put money into a company’s service. That said, if the company can build its content across its social networks and website, it can likely get leads. 

Businesses can also take advantage of the customers’ research phase by having their websites rank high in search engines. Through SEO, brands can inject terms with a high buy intent. Businesses should create content on their products or offerings surrounding solutions consumers might be looking for. The headlines on search results should have phrases like For Sale, Buy Now, Visit, Discount, etc.

Marketers should also utilize the inquiry page of their website to ask for their visitors’ emails. Once the visitor provides their address, the company can send updates and other reading materials that convince them to engage. However, the company must limit its emails because a barrage of emails might only annoy customers. 

3. Desire

While the deal has yet to be closed, the Desire phase is when customers contemplate buying a brand’s product or service. 

Because this is also the stage where the consumer is comparing businesses against each other, they should be doing their best to stand out. The businesses must convince the clients that their service is the best option. 

If the product is highly technical the businesses must provide the customers with more information to uncomplicate the concept of their service. In this regard, testimonials and FAQs will help a great deal. Sending emails is also a good way to educate clients, but, as mentioned earlier, they must be kept at a minimum.

Speaking of emails, marketers can also make use of them to develop a Nurture Sequence. A Nurture Sequence is a series of emails that scaffold clients in a company’s sending list into availing of the product.  

For instance, if a company sells energy-efficient washing machines, they could send a sequence of emails about how households can save on energy costs through eco-friendly appliances. This will lead to featuring the washing machine in an email.

The Nurture Sequence must be linked to the problem the customers are trying to solve.

4. Action

Also called the conversion phase, this stage is where companies will see the actual number of people converted into paying clients. To get them to buy, the company can offer discounts, send emails about an item in a cart of an e-commerce site, offer coupons, etc.

All these measures are targeted to ensure that the customer will buy the product the brand has set out to market.

The New Digital Marketing Funnel

While the marketing funnel discussed above will work on a digital setup, especially with its usage of emails and social media platforms, the new digital marketing funnel was developed to cater to non-linear experiences. 

The new funnel also considers the behaviors that compel a user to buy a certain product or pay for a service. This is different from the traditional marketing funnel that considers only universal behaviors.

Simply put, the new funnel considers the individual user, making the marketing strategy more personal and customized. With the growth of social media content and its accessibility through smartphones, the data that people make public allows marketers to build strategies around them.

For example, if a user browses for an air fryer in, say, 2 separate shops on an e-commerce site, the site will show the user a segment that says „Recommended For You.” This segment will contain other rice cookers or other related cookware or kitchenware.

Consult a Professional Marketer

A good business is not only defined by its vision or relevance. A good business is one able to reach its target audience through a well-thought-out strategy. While people within the company structure can be trained to learn the ropes of developing a marketing funnel, enlisting the help of a professional marketer is recommendable. 

Do you already have a marketing funnel set up for your business? If so, how confident are you that it would work the way you envision it?