What Is A Funnel?
A funnel, also known as a sales funnel, is a concept belonging to the field of marketing that tries to define the different steps a user has to take to achieve a certain objective. It is mainly applied in online marketing and defines registration, purchase, or lead generation.
This process has different stages: from the moment the user (who will become a potential client) detects a need until it becomes a sale for your company. Each of them proposes its own marketing strategy since the actions are different.
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The Stages Of A Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel is characterized by three stages that are quite different from each other:
- The top of the Funnel (TOFU) is the funnel’s highest part. It refers to the first stage of attracting a potential client when users consider a need they must satisfy. In this period, the user seeks information about his needs but does not know which companies can satisfy his needs.
- The medium of the Funnel (MOFU) is the funnel’s intermediate phase. At this stage, the user has already decided: Buy a certain product or contract a service linked to a complete brand. However, you must still weigh a few options, including your competition, and look at different factors before moving further down the funnel. It can be said that it is the most critical part that will determine if the sale finally takes place or not.
- The bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) is the final stage of the funnel and the narrowest. The users have already passed to qualified leads that are maturing until the final moment of making the purchase arrives. At this point, the sales team’s strategies are put into action.
Advantages Of The Marketing Funnel
The application of the funnel in marketing has a series of advantages for the companies that apply it:
- On the one hand, it helps the work of the commercial team, which receives a highly qualified type of lead, prepared for conversion and with few difficulties in closing the operation.
- Commercial costs are reduced. On the one hand, the work of the commercial team decreases and, consequently, their loads. An additional marketing cost is associated, but the commercial cost is minimized. But it is also that you lower costs at the customer acquisition level.
- Lead qualification is automated, which is possibly the most complicated part.
How To Build A Good Marketing Funnel
The funnel is an increasingly common element within companies, especially those with good online marketing strategies. However, as in other aspects of a company’s day-to-day, the beginnings are not easy.
But nothing to worry about; There are several essential elements to build a good sales funnel.
Correctly Define The Business Model
It is the most basic part of any business and, at the same time, the one where they fail the most. Many companies do not have a well-defined business model, that is, their objectives, strategies, goals, and philosophy through which they want to generate income.
Therefore, before considering making a marketing funnel, you must be clear about what your main sources of income will be, correctly defining the types of products you will sell:
- Input products.
- Higher value products.
- High Ticket Products.
- Complementary and related products.
Who Is Your Buyer Persona?
Another fundamental aspect before making a marketing funnel is to define your target audience correctly, that is, which people or consumers you will address with your message. The same product can have different buyer personas, so you will have to personalize the message you will send to each of them.
For example, the ad for a bank account can be directed at different people:
- Recent graduates are starting their careers.
- People unhappy with their current bank.
- Entrepreneurs seeking to reduce costs in their business.
- Etc.
Your Offer, Your Best Cover Letter
It is useless to have an attractive advertisement if your product does not satisfy the need for which it is designed. Although it seems obvious, it is not always true.
For your product to succeed, you must be clear about what you promise, the benefits obtained by the product, the urgency or scarcity of the product, what payment facilities you offer, and correct after-sales service.
Get Qualified Traffic
It is the first measure that properly belongs to digital marketing. Qualified traffic is the gasoline that the business needs to get going and maintain a constant speed. Without gasoline, the car doesn’t work, and without traffic, neither does the funnel.
There are different types of traffic, depending on the knowledge of the company that the potential customer has:
- Cold traffic: people who do not know the company (neither the brand nor its products).
- Temperate traffic: people who know the company and, to some extent, what they sell.
- Hot traffic: who perfectly knows the company, the brand, and the products they offer.
The type of communication and, therefore, also the marketing strategy and the funnel will depend on the type of traffic. Normally, a large part of the marketing budget.
Content Generation
Content is an essential element in any marketing funnel and, simultaneously, one of the main reasons these types of projects fail.
Depending on the sector and the form of communication, different types of content may be published on different supports and platforms, such as blog articles, copywriting, content in the digital or written press, podcasts, social networks, video publishing, etc.
As with the type of traffic, the type of content will be directed to each stage within the funnel. It is important to identify the content that best fits and works in each phase and monitor it continuously.
