The Art of Crafting Effective Marketing Funnels
- Curtis Sveinsson
- May 16, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: May 21, 2024
A well-designed marketing funnel is critical to the success of any advertising campaign. Even if you have stellar ad creatives targeted at the ideal audience, without a proficient funnel your advertising budget could simply go to waste.
For the high-level executives among our readers, a marketing funnel encapsulates the complete journey a lead, customer, or contact undergoes from the initial click on your digital ad to the ultimate desired action, typically a purchase.
Most everyone has seen the classic marketing funnel.
A successful digital marketing funnel mirrors a strategic framework, where guiding a prospect through each stage demands targeted tactics. In this discussion, I'll share insights on the high performance of funnels I've observed previously and delve into the mechanics of how our funnel operates, providing a peek behind the curtain.
Top of the funnel (Awareness thru Discovery)
A company that's just entering the market, often with little to no brand recognition, will likely kick off with some form of advertising. Digital advertising presents a cost-effective option, except for businesses that face restrictions or regulations against online ads, such as those in the marijuana, adult entertainment, tobacco, or cryptocurrency sectors.
I often get asked about brand awareness campaigns at the very top of the marketing funnel and whether they’re worth the money. The answer really depends on what else you’re already doing for marketing. If your business is strong in areas like SEO, you’re spending on Google ads, and you’re active on social media, then yes, a brand awareness campaign can help boost all of that. It can make everything down funnel more effective.
Bottom of the funnel (Purchase thru Retention)
This part of the funnel is the trickiest to master but the most rewarding when executed well. Salespeople are often leveraged during the Discovery phase to push leads to the Purchase event but marketing and advertising can pull leads to the Purchase just as effectively.
Marketers use ads on Google, social (Facebook, X, LinkedIn, etc) which target people who have opted in to the free offer (lead magnet). These ads take the leads to a new landing page that is strictly pitching the paid product or service.
Same concept applies to email marketing, but it's a bit different. It's not a good experience to receive nothing but sales emails trying to get you to buy something you are still considering. Which is why email marketing will often include content that supports the purchase decision. In our case, people want experts running their digital marketing so our email campaign is primarily content developed for business owners demonstrating our expertise.
Example 1: The Classic Lead Generation Funnel
(*also our funnel)
Even the most basic funnels can have an effective email follow up campaign to nurture leads through the sales process. Below is our current funnel in all its glory. This simple yet effective follow up sequence provides subject matter expertise while educating the reader. It also has sporadic Call To Action emails requesting a discovery call.
The idea behind this upper funnel strategy is to create leads, demonstrate expertise, and pull leads to the next tier of the sales funnel; Purchase. Which in our case is becoming a client.
As for the bottom of the funnel, Retention; that comes down to monthly reports, weekly or biweekly meetings, and regular communication.
There are many ways for any business in any industry to develop and run a successful lead generation sales funnel.
Example 2: An Education Product Sales Funnel
This funnel is an example of how complicated a sales funnel can be. While the actual funnel was pretty simple…
If the customer didn’t complete all steps in one session, a complex and robust retargeting campaign began. It included paid retargeting ads for every step and an over 150 element email retargeting campaign.
This may look complicated and to an extent, it is, the overall gist is that it's checking to see where someone is in the sales process and sending them to the next step in the funnel. It's never a good customer experience to be shown ads (or sent an email) for something you've already purchased so that logic is also included.
This client wanted a pretty aggressive email campaign so we set it up to check if the customer clicked the link in the email within an hour of receiving it. If they did but did not make a purchase, the next email would be sent 30 minutes later. If they did not click within that hour then the next email would be sent 7 hours later.
The paid ads ran a little different as we used custom audiences on Facebook and Google to group people together and show them ads depending on which step they are in the funnel. After a few days, the ads would rotate and become a bit more urgent.
If after all this, the lead or customer didn't take any action except whatever the last one was they did take... we'd show them ads and send a few emails for more free products the client offered.
Having this robust automation setup for a client who was spending thousands of dollars a day helped increase the ROI for every dollar spent.
In Conclusion
At the end of the day, and this is true no matter what industry you may be in; the more high quality free content a lead consumes of yours, the more likely they are to become a paying customer.
Your follow up series doesn't have to be email marketing either. It can be text messaging (if the lead opted in to it), directly reaching out if you have their number, or paid retargeting ads.
It's important to know your audience and what they want to consume for content so you can provide the content. Is this the right content for you, dear reader? I have no idea. Time and data will tell.
How do you think you could leverage a sales funnel in your overall marketing mix? Let me know in the comments below.
Book a free no-obligation discovery call and see how your business can grow with a comprehensive marketing strategy.
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