When a customer sees a specific product online, they go through several different, gradual stages that end with either purchasing the product or ignoring it and continuing to browse.
These stages are called the marketing funnel, because they are a funnel or inverted pyramid that represents the stages a customer goes through from product awareness to completing the purchase.
Studying the marketing funnel enables you to better understand your customers, thus using more effective strategies and making better decisions to encourage them to buy.
In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about the marketing funnel in all its stages, and the methods and techniques you should follow at each stage to attract customers in the best way and achieve the highest possible sales.
What is the marketing funnel?
The marketing funnel is simply a simplified visualization of a potential customer's journey, from complete ignorance of the product to its purchase.
Marketers use this funnel to further target a specific segment of consumers and create relevant advertising content to increase sales.
Marketers differ slightly in naming the stages of this funnel, but they agree on a few specific stages that may differ slightly in name, but they all represent the same concept.
Some also add additional points, such as advocacy or marketing for the product. We'll discuss each of these points in detail later.
Marketers agree that the further a customer moves from one stage to another in this funnel, the greater the chance they'll purchase the product.
Marketers divide the customer journey in this funnel as follows:
1. Top of the Funnel (TOFU): This is the part where the largest number of potential customers fall. At this stage, your role is to introduce your product or brand, whether through paid ads, social media pages, or other means.
2. Middle of the Funnel (TOFU): This stage reduces your customer base to a smaller group with a greater interest in learning about what you offer, or even existing customers who have previously purchased from you and you want to encourage them to purchase again.
There is no specific method for marketing at this stage, but it can be done through newsletters, for example.
3. Bottom of the Funnel (TOFU): This is the final stage of the marketing funnel, where the purchase process takes place. It is the easiest of all the above, as all it does is provide pricing information or sometimes offer offers and discounts to encourage customers to purchase.
Importance of the Marketing Funnel
1. Increasing sales: This is the primary factor behind all marketing efforts. The marketing funnel helps increase sales by increasing the conversion rate of browsers into potential customers, thus increasing sales.
2. Accurately defining the target audience: The marketing funnel allows companies to identify the groups most interested and willing to purchase their products by filtering customers at each stage, leading up to the purchase.
3. Effective use of marketing resources: Businesses and companies often allocate a budget for marketing, and the marketing funnel makes the most of that budget without wasting it by focusing on the groups most likely to purchase.
4. Build a Good Customer Relationship: When you understand the stages a customer goes through during the buying process, you can easily improve that experience and ensure they are satisfied and ready to buy from you again without any additional effort.
5. Collect More Effective Data: Understanding the marketing funnel helps you focus on a specific consumer segment. This greatly assists you in collecting data and conducting more accurate analyses, enabling you to target marketing intelligently using the best possible methods and strategies.
6. Develop Marketing Strategies: Over time, you'll find that you're putting a lot of effort into strategies that yield little results. However, knowing where your customers' awareness lies will enable your marketing funnel to choose the right strategy for targeting customers.
Stages of the Marketing Funnel
1. Awareness
Product awareness is the first stage of the marketing funnel and is the pivotal point in making the user aware that they have a problem that can only be solved by purchasing your product.
The awareness stage can also represent a user who already knows the problem, is searching for solutions, and discovered you through any of the platforms you advertise on.
Like any first-time visitor to your website or product sales pages, you need to take some steps to convince them that your product is sufficient to fully solve their problem.
There are countless ways to do this step in the best possible way, including:
a) Product Focus: One of the fundamentals of e-commerce in general is making the product itself good and competitive before even starting the marketing process. This is what will add value to the rest of the marketing funnel and what will ultimately motivate the buyer to follow through.
b) Technical Aspect: Your page also needs to be of a high standard when it comes to technical aspects. Things like website design, good writing, SEO, and even image quality are all factors that influence the user's initial decision and give them a positive impression of your product.
c) Advertising: As we mentioned before, the more we move from one stage of the marketing funnel to another, the fewer people will be interested in the product.
Therefore, we must first work to attract as many people as possible to view the product, and the best way to do this is certainly through advertising, whether it is sponsored ads on social media, through influencers, or any other form.
2. Interest
After successfully completing the first step of the marketing funnel, you're now in the Interest stage, where the customer's likelihood of purchasing is significantly higher than in the previous stage. This is due to the smaller segment that successfully transitioned from the previous step, which is necessarily more interested in your product.
In this stage, the potential customer's goal will be to research all the information about the product and increase their knowledge about it to determine whether they actually want it or not.
In the Interest stage, you'll need to begin building a relationship with the customer through practices such as:
a) Alerting the customer to the problem and its solution: To convince anyone to buy anything, you must first make them aware that they have a problem that your product solves. This will begin to interest them and inquire about your product. This is where your writing and explanation will demonstrate their effectiveness in winning them over or losing them.
b) Clarifying the product description: You will certainly need to provide the customer with detailed information about the product, how it works, and exactly how it solves the problem using any creative, non-boring method, such as explainer videos in your marketing campaign, for example.
c) Better product visibility: The question that will pop up in the customer's mind now is what other options might be better than yours, and which could solve their problem.
Here comes the role of product quality and competitiveness, which we mentioned at the beginning of our discussion about the marketing funnel. By addressing these points, you will be able to successfully win this customer over.
3. Desire
You are now at a somewhat advanced stage in the marketing funnel, and you are usually approached by a group of consumers who have a good understanding of both your product and your brand. Therefore, you should use slightly different approaches to engage with them.
Customers will no longer be interested in learning about the product's uses, features, and other things. Rather, they will be more interested in comparing the available options in the market and comparing them to each other to reach the best choice.
Your role now will be to:
a) Demonstrate a competitive advantage: Your product must have a specific advantage that you use extensively in marketing and rely on to spread your brand, whether that advantage is the design, the marketing method, or the product's association with another culture.
Some offer free shipping, others offer an additional item, and many more. The important thing is to be different in something that attracts customers.
b) Don't play on price: Continuing with the previous point about funnel marketing, you likely won't be able to stand out by playing on price in most markets.
A lower price won't give you the maximum results you imagine; in fact, it can backfire, and customers may lose confidence in the quality of your product, especially when you're just starting out. A lower price can also weaken your overall product offering.
c) Show positive reviews: It's very positive for new customers to see that your products are selling and that those who have already purchased them are satisfied with their purchases.
Even if you can't do this initially, you can pay an influencer to review them for you in front of their audience, which will have a much better impact.
d) Continuously study your segment: Consumer desires are constantly changing, and the market is evolving accordingly. You must monitor this change.
You must monitor the behavior of your target segment to determine what you should sell and what you should highlight in your overall marketing campaign to maximize results from this stage of the marketing funnel.
4. Decision
At this stage, the purchase decision has become a foregone conclusion. The customer has narrowed down their search to a few options they feel most appropriate for them.
This customer will have already gathered a wealth of information about you and your products, and may have even prepared their shopping cart to know the final price and other details.
Your role in this step is to encourage them to make a purchase, leaving them no room to hesitate in choosing you over other competitors in the market.
This can be achieved by:
a) Running ongoing offers: During a critical period like this, you must exploit any element that might motivate the customer to complete the purchase.
One of the best elements of this is offering offers and discounts. Who doesn't want to receive a discount on exactly what they want to buy?
b) Responding to questions: Customers may have specific questions that prevent them from purchasing. These questions may be trivial and have no impact on their final decision, as they may think. Therefore, you must have a way to communicate with them, whether through your website or through your pages, to remove these obstacles.
c) Providing a free trial period: This method is primarily directed at those who provide online services. Your service must either have a free version with limited features, or a trial period of a certain number of days so that the user can verify the quality of what you offer.
d) Providing the possibility of returning the product: To provide the buyer with absolute security, you must guarantee the possibility of returning the product within a certain period of time if it does not meet their expectations.
However, you must, of course, include certain conditions within this policy to protect you from losses, so that you are not exploited.
5. Action
Now that your potential customer has reached the action stage, they'll be turning into a real customer. You don't need to do anything else at this stage except make the buying experience as good as possible.
This is not only to get the best customer ratings or reviews, or even to make them permanent customers, but also to get them to recommend your store and become your free marketers.
The best steps at this stage are:
a) Facilitate the transaction: Throughout all stages of the marketing funnel, the customer will go through many transactions, including browsing products, checking prices, asking for details, shipping the product, and sometimes returning it. All of these processes must be easy and smooth for them to buy from you again.
b) Stay in touch: It's much easier for a previous customer to buy from you again than it is for you to acquire a new customer.
Therefore, try to stay in touch with customers who have already purchased from you with offers, discounts, and everything new about your store to encourage them to buy again.
c) Encouraging Customers to Recommend Your Products: One of the best and most effective marketing methods is what is known as word-of-mouth marketing. This is simply when a customer recommends your product to a friend or relative. We aim to achieve this by treating the customer well in general or by giving them rewards and points for each new customer they refer.
Conclusion
Marketing methods and means are now very diverse and available to everyone. Therefore, competition in all markets has increased dramatically. This requires finding any advantage you can find to win customers' attention.
Therefore, understanding the marketing funnel is a powerful weapon that will give you an edge over most of your competitors, regardless of your field.
By understanding the stages of customer awareness of a product, leading up to the completion of the purchase process, you will be able to target them in the most optimal way, encouraging them to move to the next stage as quickly as possible.
In this article, we have tried to explain all aspects of the marketing funnel and provide examples and applications of how to use it so that you can come away from this article able to apply it effectively.