You know you need marketing to sell your offer. You know you need a strategy. But where do you start?

Coming up with an entire marketing strategy from scratch is overwhelming.

Starting with your marketing funnel helps streamline your process and gives you a clear roadmap for where to focus your energy.

In this article, you’ll explore:

What is a marketing funnel?
Marketing funnel stages
Does your business need a marketing funnel?

Understanding the basic funnel makes it easier to know what marketing material you’ll need for your business.

What Is a Marketing Funnel?

Your marketing funnel is your buyer’s journey. It’s how your customers go from a cold lead to actually making a purchase.

Where someone is in your marketing funnel tells you what kind of lead they are and how to interact with them.

Marketing Funnel Stages

You can think of a marketing funnel as an upside-down pyramid. You start with a wide net. As people move through the funnel, you’ll naturally end up with fewer who convert.

And guess what? That’s OK.

Your funnel qualifies your leads as they move along. This means you end up with the best leads that will benefit the most from your business’s products and services.

Here are the four main stages of a marketing funnel:

Awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Loyalty

Let’s dive a little deeper so you can craft your own marketing funnel.

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is the first time a lead comes across your business. Leads enter this initial stage by engaging with your top-of-funnel marketing.

The whole goal of this stage is to get your business in front of as many people as possible. You want to attract more leads to your brand.

And remember: you catch more flies with honey. 🍯 That’s why you want your top-of-funnel marketing strategy to focus on giving your audience VALUE without asking for a purchase yet.

Providing value without risk begins to build a relationship with your leads. You start to earn their trust.

Top-of-funnel marketing strategies:

Content marketing. You create free content to give your target audience value. Blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, free online tools and resources.
Social media marketing. You post on social media platforms to engage with your audience and reach new leads.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO brings leads to your website as organic traffic. When you boost your SEO, you get more inbound leads.
Paid ads. You pay for ads on various platforms to get your brand in front of new people.

Once someone comes across your brand and becomes a lead, they move down your marketing funnel to the consideration stage.

Consideration Stage

Think about how many times you came into contact with a brand before you decided to give them your hard-earned money…

Maybe you saw an Instagram ad for a rock climbing gym in your area.

Days later, when you were searching for “workouts for rock climbers” a blog post from that rock climbing gym’s website popped up in your search results.

You click on the blog, read it, and then opt in for the free workout plan they offer at the end of the blog post.

A couple of weeks later, when you consider getting a membership to a rock climbing gym — you think of that brand.

My point?

Most people need more than one touch point before making a purchase.

Especially for things with a higher price tag.

That whole imaginary process we just went through is middle-of-funnel marketing.

When your leads enter the consideration state, you want to:

Align your products and services with the needs and wants of your ideal customers
Show them how your products and services solve a problem they struggle with

During this stage, your leads are considering something similar to what your brand offers. They’re researching and looking for their best options.

You want to position your business as their best option. This is when you focus on nurturing the leads you have.

Middle-of-funnel marketing strategies:

Introduce social proof. Introduce social proof wherever you can. Show your leads the rave reviews. Paint a picture of the results they’ll get by showing them the results you’ve already gotten for previous customers.
Retargeting campaigns. Re-engage visitors who have eyed your products, but didn’t buy. For example, you can do this with targeted ads or email segmentation.
Targeted content. Use your segmented email lists to send subscribers content they’re going to love.
Product demonstrations. Show your leads how your product works and how to care for it. This gives them more information and engagement with your brand before they decide to buy.

Ok, you’ve successfully built a trusting relationship with your leads — and now they’re ready to make a purchase.

Conversion Stage

Your leads in the conversion stage are highly qualified. They’ve gone through the consideration stage, and are finally ready to make a buying decision.

At this point, they’re hot leads. Your goal for this stage is to convert them into paying customers.

You get leads to convert by:

Addressing any objections to your product or service head-on.
Showing your leads the value your product or service gives them (again!).
Having a clear call to action (CTA).
Making it ridiculously easy for your leads to buy once they’re ready.

You implement the points above with bottom-of-funnel marketing

Bottom-of-funnel marketing strategies:

Sales pages. You create an ideal buying environment for your leads with sales pages. It shows them the benefits of your product or service, addresses their objections, and connects with them on an emotional level.
Sales email sequences. Use email sales sequences to reinforce the value of what you’re selling, address objections, and show them what their transformation will look like.
Cart abandonment emails. When someone adds products to their cart but doesn’t buy… this is an opportunity for you to reach back out and stay top of mind.
Risk-free offers. You offer something without cost, to reduce the risk for your lead. For example, a free consultation or free trial period.
Guarantees. Offer warranties or guarantees for your products and services to reduce the risk even more, while adding value at the same time.

Congratulations, your lead has turned into a paying customer. 🥳Now it’s time to keep them happy so they keep coming back.

Loyalty Stage

You never want to forget about people who have already made a purchase. A lot of newer business owners make this common mistake.

It’s so much easier (and WAY less expensive) to keep your current customers, rather than spending all your efforts on finding new leads.

Your goal in the loyalty stage is to engage with your leads and keep your brand top of mind with retention marketing.

Retention marketing strategies:

Loyalty programs. You create an awesome incentive for people to keep coming back to your brand when you reward customers for their loyalty.
Email marketing. Send your leads regular email newsletters to continue to provide value and engage with them. You also continue to send them offers when it makes sense.
Feedback surveys. Ask your customers for feedback. This allows them to voice their opinions and gives you hints on how you can improve your business.
Show appreciation. Always send your buyers a quick thank-you after they make a purchase. A little gratitude goes a long way.
Content marketing. Yep, this is down here too! It’s another way to continue to bring fresh value to your customers, even after they’ve purchased your product or service.

Always seek to grow your relationship with your leads. When you continue to nurture that trust, it only strengthens their brand loyalty.

It’s great for them because they get value out of the relationship. And, of course, it’s great for your business.

Does your business need a marketing funnel?

Hopefully, you know the answer already after reading this. But just in case… YES! Absolutely.

You ultimately get higher quality leads, increased conversion rates, and better data to pull from.

Benefits of having a marketing funnel in place for your business:

Higher-quality leads. You’re qualifying leads as you go. So when they arrive at the bottom of the funnel, they are much more likely to buy.
Increased conversion rates. And hey, because you’ve got higher-quality leads — you have better conversion rates. More sales. Who doesn’t love the sound of that?!
Better data. When you have a clear funnel, you can identify what stages are doing well and what needs work. Adjust your strategy accordingly.

If you want to work with a copywriter and marketing strategist to build a successful funnel for YOUR business — book a free discovery call here.

Demystifying Marketing Funnels: What Is It and Does Your Business Need One?