A digital marketing funnel helps warm and prepare leads for sales. It also helps marketers understand the buyers’ journey and behavior.
However, according to a Khris Digital study, 79% of marketing leads are never converted to sales. The study also reveals that only 56% of companies have a system to qualify leads.
On the flipside, industries employing a digital marketing funnel strategy see approximately a 3% increase in conversion rates. But this number can go higher with a solid lead qualifying system. With a killer digital marketing funnel, you’ll be sure to close more leads and sales.
Wondering how?
Let’s take a look:
What is a Digital Marketing Funnel?
First things first!! What’s a digital marketing funnel?
Simply put, this is a marketing tactic that digital marketers use to attract leads, turn them into customers and loyal brand advocates. This framework segments leads according to where they’re in the buyers’ journey, then uses content for nurturing.
Why Your Business Needs a Digital Marketing Funnel
A digital marketing funnel is a crucial marketing strategy in the internet age. Below is an elaborate explanation of why your business success depends on it.
Streamline and Organise Your Digital Marketing Plan
Most businesses don’t have a clear digital marketing plan because of what it takes to create one. According to a Mediavalet study, this number currently stands at 45%. However, digital marketing funnel strategy is straightforward. It’s also what businesses need to streamline and organise their digital marketing plan.
Attract New Leads and Create a Loyal Customer Base
Digital marketing funnels help greatly with lead acquisition and customer retention. This is the way to go if you want to attract new leads, turn them into customers, repeat buyers, and promoters of your business.
Understand Buyer’s Journey and Behavior
Buyers are unique and respond differently to different content types such as videos, blogs, and audio. You can use analytical tools like Google analytics to test what your audience loves throughout a digital marketing funnel.
Warm and Prepare Leads for Sales
New leads need nurturing to warm them up for a purchase, which most marketers don’t do. According to an Invesp study, 80% of new leads never translate into sales. Marketers can turn to digital marketing funnels to help prepare leads for conversion.
What to Consider When Building a Killer Digital Marketing Funnel
Digital marketing funnels are critical in today’s marketing landscape. However, developing one can be a hassle when you don’t know what to consider. Below, we take a dive into the considerations for a killer digital marketing funnel.
- Exposure–This is the inbound phase of a digital marketing funnel. It’s where you focus on attracting leads through channels like search engine optimisation, social media marketing, paid advertising, email marketing, and video marketing.
- Discovery–This is where leads interact with your content and discover the value you have to offer. Your content game should be top-notch and geared towards providing solutions.
- Consideration–Your marketing content should be persuasive to influence quick decision making. Acknowledge your prospects’ pain points, then offer long-lasting solutions.
- Conversion–This is the most crucial phase of a sales funnel because it directly ties to sales and revenue. You want to tee up your marketing copy to increase conversion rates.
- Customer relationship–The last thing you want is to sell to a customer once when you can do it repeatedly. The best way to go about it is to establish a relationship with your customers, then continue providing more value.
- Retention–Lastly, you should aim to lower customer turnover rates because it’s costlier to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones.
How Do Digital Marketing Funnels Work?
Digital marketing funnels work by attracting leads to your marketing platforms, providing solutions to their problems and nurturing them for conversion.
Below is how it works!
1. Awareness
First, you create awareness by putting out relevant content where your target audience can see it. This can be social media, blogs, paid advertising, or emails. The awareness stage has a broad scope because you want to attract as many leads as possible into the funnel.
2. Interest
Second, leads interact with your marketing content and develop an interest. This is often determined by how you handle them in the awareness stage. Also, it’s at this point where leads take you up on lead magnets, and low value offers like paid trials and ebooks.
3. Desire
Third, the desire stage is determined by how your leads find your content, customer service, and low dollar offers. The goal is to provide absolute value that gets them excited to desire your core offers, cross-sells, and upsells. This way, converting them to paying customers becomes a breeze!
4. Action
The last stage is about taking action. If you get the previous steps right, converting leads to paying customers shouldn’t be a problem. More importantly, leads that get this far are often ready to take you up on your core offers, upsells, and cross-sells.
Digital Marketing Funnel Example
- A shopper looking for sunglasses does a Google search for the “best sunglasses for men”. (Awareness)
- Websites related to men’s sunglasses appear on the search result pages. Immediately, the searcher clicks one of them for more information. (Interest)
- The landing page is a buyers’ guide blog, which the searcher reads through and is mesmerised by the content. Before the searcher bounces, a sunglasses ebook guide pops up, and the searcher downloads it. (Desire)
- The ebook is a round-up review of the best sunglasses on the market. The searcher gets excited and is persuaded to buy one of the sunglasses. (Action)
What is the Loyalty Loop?
The loyalty loop is a type of marketing funnel dealing with existing customers. The focus is on customer retention and advocacy, since it’s easier to keep a customer than acquire a new one.
Final thoughts
Driving new users to the top of a marketing funnel is critical as, without this, the bottom of the funnel will dry up. This is where a killer digital marketing funnel comes in handy. Be sure to contact us if you’d like to get started on creating one for your business.
