Marketing Funnels
Market funnels are a game changer in the online marketing scene. They have not only redefined how companies and other online business approach marketing but also the quality of content delivered to consumers. Marketing funnels provide business solutions that are consumer-based thus generating long-term results.
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What are marketing funnels?
Typically, the work of a funnel is to filter out what is needed from what is not. The concept is pretty much similar for marketing funnels. Marketing funnels are essential as they describe the relationship between a business and the user.
When the idea of marketing funnels first came to be, the idea was to capture every stage of a consumer’s interaction with an online business. This was difficult to do under most conventional business models. The focus was to focus on four major factors that goes into converting traffic or leads to purchases. The four factors are combined into a single entity thus the “AIDA” business model. In a nutshell “AIDA” stands for:
- Awareness- potential clients must first know of the existence of a problem before they can explore the solutions offered by a business.
- Interest- The prospects should show interest in the solutions offered
- Desire: They should have the urge to explore the solution being offered by evaluating a brand
- Action: The prospect becomes a consumer by making a purchase.
Today, marketing funnels can be defined by several models, others opting to keep their models simple whereas others believe that the more detailed it is the better the marketing strategy. Regardless of whether it is simple or complex, it is quite safe to say that most businesses agree that ‘loyalty’ and ‘advocacy’ are fundamental additions to the foundational model. Loyalty referring to the ability to keep consumers coming back whereas advocacy refers to using the existing customer base to direct more traffic to your business.
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Stages of a marketing funnel
It is not every time that a prospect views something online and instantly wants to make a purchase. It is a process that entails four phases that majorly deal with understanding the consumer’s psychology to give them what they want. These marketing funnel stages are:
- Awareness
Despite the disparity in business models, awareness is a step that no business can skip. Every business aims to reach more people and promote their visibility often using several other marketing tools and techniques such as search engine optimization, backlinks, affiliate marketing etc. All these tools are aimed at boosting the appearance of the brand and appeal to consumers. This stage includes Top-of-funnel content that focuses on informing the audience through the use of different types of content such as social media posts, videos, podcasts, etc.
- Consideration
Consideration involves the evaluation process by potential customers to determine whether or not your product or services is valuable or useful to them. This stage is all about building trust with your consumers and acquiring leverage over your competitor. This middle-of-funnel stage is essential as it defines how prospects interact with your business moving forward. Businesses get the chance to build a relationship with their potential consumer. In this stage, the quality of content the user gets from the brand is the deal breaker. Useful resources such as webinars or industry-related forums, emails and case studies are a great way to keep the consumer interested.
- Conversion
This stage dictates whether or not the activities implemented in the first two stages are working. It is the final shot at making your efforts worthwhile from convincing the prospects to them making an action. An action in this case can either be a purchase, request for a demotic. This is where promotion campaigns, discounts, free shipping services or any other buying incentive comes in. It is also at this stage that care should be taken to keep the consumer and not drive them away by overdoing It. Sending a customer a thank you email would be great but spamming their inbox every single day, not a very smart idea.
- Loyalty
Any business brand understands that a purchase should not be the end of their interaction with a customer. Keeping the consumer engaged is critical to keep them coming back. It is equally difficult to maintain a customer as it is to acquire a new one thus it would help to consistently keep tabs on your circle of customers.
- Advocacy
This last stage is all about letting making your customers part of your promotions. A happy customer would be glad to advocate for your brand through convincing reviews or recommendations to their friends and family. This helps the brand create a network of advocates that keeps on giving back to the business.
Conclusion
You are probably doing all you can to grow your business, however, Is It paying off as it should? Marketing funnels have helped brands make moves that make an impact based on consumer demands rather than spending a lot of time trying out every possible method under the sun to push their business. It is therefore vital to invest in a marketing funnel that works for you and your brand.
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