What’s a Marketing Funnel, and why is it necessary for your business?

I often look at a marketing funnel as an experiential process created by a business to help its prospects make an informed decision, when the time comes to make a purchase. It starts by getting their attention and then taking them through a journey within your business.

A marketing funnel makes the sales process easy, because it first of all addresses the needs of the target market before making any offer. However, many businesses do not have it; some do, but they don’t know how to make them work.

A typical online marketing funnel consists of a lead magnet, an initial offer, and a series of emails leading back to the offer.

But there’s a problem with this model. It’s overused, and the marketplace is now used to it. Whenever the consumer is used to a particular pattern of marketing, then you better believe that it’ll be a struggle to convince him/her to make any purchase down the line.

That’s where innovation comes in within your marketing funnel. You have to really spend time to look at the dynamics of your niche, and figure out what triggers people to buy.

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It is, in my opinion, however, each business needs to identify what will work for them, and build on that. The first thing you need to do in order to make your marketing funnel work for you is to narrow down your ideal clients/customers.

How do you do that?

You have to first of all understand what your ideal clients/customers need, and see how best to cater to their needs. Business is all about service, and when you know who it is you’re meant to serve, the rest of the process will be easy.

The mistake most people make is start with tactics, such as which platform to advertise on, or software to use, and so on. Those things are necessary, but they should be your secondary approach.

For you to have a high converting funnel, you’ll need to outline the core objective of the funnel. Do you want people to call you, text you, email you, download a file, request a quote, read an article/blog, watch a video, subscribe to a newsletter, register for a webinar, or buy a product? These are things you can use to determine your KPIs (key performance indicators). When you have this dialed down, you will know what to look out for.

How do you set one up or optimise an existing one?

If you do not own any type of funnel system, the best way to set one up is by carrying out a mini survey of your existing clients, in order to find out their experience with your business, and what they are currently struggling with, that you can help them solve.

When you gather this information, you can use it to create a solutions driven content process. There are 3 core types of content to consider:

• Text based content (e.g. blogs, reports, etc)
• Video based content (e.g. webinars, training videos, etc)
• Image based content (e.g. infographics, mindmaps, flowcharts, etc)

Whichever one you feel like using, be sure to make it rich in value, easy to access, and easy to consume (i.e. the ideas you’re sharing can be applied without too much hassle).

If you already own a funnel system, but it’s not really bringing in desired results, you can start by looking at the reasons why there are no consistent conversions. Is it your headline, your offer, your content, the niche you’re going after? Find that out, and start making changes, in order to test the process, and track the results.

Conclusion

As much as marketing funnels are necessary for businesses which are operating online, it’s important to know that they are not created equal. Some markets respond to offers quicker than some, so in such cases, it’ll be a matter of patience and consistent content marketing, in order to build up interest and drive traffic to your marketing funnel(s).

Your turn… do you currently own a marketing funnel system for your business online? If yes, how is it helping your business? If no, what’s stopping you from getting it setup?

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