What is A Marketing Funnel? How To Develop One in 2024

Ammar Mazhar
Ammar Mazhar

Last updated on

April 25, 2024

Just think of a random day of your life. You are driving on one of the city’s busiest roads, and suddenly, you see the billboard displaying a restaurant advert. At that moment, you realize it’s the same restaurant advertisement you’ve seen in one of your favorite TV series.

Now you are curious to know why it’s so famous. How the food tastes, and finally, you’ve decided to try it. The restaurant is on the next corner, and finally, you’ve landed there and ordered the food.

You will be surprised to know that you’ve been in one of the thousands of marketing funnels operating in the digital marketing industry.

A digital marketing funnel is a process through which a client gets to know your brand, experiences it, and then buys from you.

The whole journey is divided into different stages called customer journeys. The marketing funnel can also be termed a customer journey.

Let’s dive into it and explore how it works. What are these stages?

Stages of a marketing funnel

1.   Top of The Funnel (Awareness, Interest)

This is the initial stage. The audience is introduced to the brand or product at this marketing funnel stage. The funnel size (number of people) at this stage is relatively high. Many people see ads on social media, national media, emails, etc.

The awareness stage is critical because it’s based on audience selection. If you’ve made a slight mistake in audience selection, the whole marketing budget will go to waste. So do it nicely and precisely.

A lot of content and marketing material is required at this stage because, initially, people don’t know about your brand, product, or services.

You can get that by creating landing pages and social media advertising through page updates or paid advertisements.

A key point that can get maximum results is to make people aware that their problem can be solved with this product or service. You’ve already won half the war if you successfully convey this message.

The target of this stage is to send the brand message to as many people as possible. Because after this stage, the audience will be reduced at every following stage. It should be big enough to get the desired results.

2.   Middle of the Funnel (Desire)

After you’ve advertised your campaign and got colossal attention, it’s time to get leads. Leads can be email signup or phone calls. At this stage, you’ll notice that the number is already decreased. Only a few people will be interested in trying your product.

At this stage, the audience should be educated about how you’ll solve their specific problem. Why you are the best and what advantages you offer and other companies don’t.

Seminars and free trials can be helpful because people can try your products and see how they solve their problems. Also, they can learn more about your training or courses in the seminars. They can see people leading the project in real life. This helps build trust and brand relationship that is required for customer retention.

This is a decision-making stage for the audience. They may proceed or leave it. If they proceed, you’ll get leads, and you can get yourself prepared for the next stage, which is action/Conversion

3.   Bottom of the Funnel (Action)

Now, this is how everything was created. Action (conversion/sales) is the ultimate goal of the top and middle of the funnel. At this stage, we must be careful and try converting the already filtered audience. 

We remove any obstacle they face and clear any doubts they may have. To do that, a small discount can boost sales. Here’s an example:

Image Source

 Also, you can write how-to guides, make charts that show how valuable the product is, and compare why your products should be their final destination. It’s about creating a solid marketing strategy that ultimately results in insane conversions.

Why are marketing funnels essential?

A marketing funnel is essential; because it will give you relevant information about your audience and their interest in your brand. Whether running a small business or a huge corporation, your brand will always need a marketing funnel. This will help you to understand your target audience.

Infographic: Why are marketing funnels essential?

1.   Helps In Forming Your Marketing Strategy:

It will keep an eye on the stages you have to grab users' attention. However, it will give you an idea about what users think, what their intentions are, and what type of interest they have in your brands. Let us dig into the essentials of marketing funnels without delaying it too much.

2. Consistency

The marketing funnel helps you keep an eye on your users' journey. However, you can easily understand the user behavior at each stage. With the help of a marketing funnel, you can easily organize your strategies for your audience.

Above all, it will provide consistency in your entire journey. However, you can easily understand what things are essential for your next campaign and what you must remove from your sales funnels.

3.  Increases sales

Most often, we have seen some new ads on billboards, on TV, on social media, and on emails. Do you know why this happens? This is because huge brands are used to create awareness among the masses, increasing sales. 

How do marketing funnel increases sales?

Let me explain this a little more. In the beginning, companies focus on marketing strategies, and they often follow marketing funnels. However, they spend a lot of money on marketing campaigns to create brand awareness. When many people have seen their advert, they start landing on their homepage and become their customers.

Now everyone (or almost everyone) knows Nike. When Nike goes on a marketing spree, it increases sales. Do you know why? Because it is an established brand with many existing customers in its marketing funnel. Here’s an example from Nike:

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4. Helps in developing better customer relationships

The marketing funnel focuses on establishing a relationship between the customer and the brand. However, the marketing funnel will help in establishing a relationship with new customers and maintain the previous one.

To maintain a long-term relationship, companies use various techniques such as 50% off sales on their product, and people will blindly purchase such products. Above all, it is obvious that if a brand provides poor customer service, customers will avoid purchasing from it. So, brands will prefer to offer better customer service to the clients.

5.   Master your purchase cycle

A marketing funnel will assist you in the purchase cycle. In the purchase cycle, you have to purchase products from the vendor. A marketing funnel will help you understand which products you need and which will sell more.

 Above all, it will also help you to understand which product customers love most and which is least liked. In this way, you can understand the need of customers. Later on, you will purchase the most famous product in bulk. So customers will still come to purchase that product. 

6. Saves time and effort

We often hear that a marketing funnel will save us time and effort. But how?

Using a marketing funnel, you will be able to understand at which stage customers will take certain actions, and then you can automate your marketing strategy. By doing this, you will save time and effort.

However, the marketing funnel will guide marketers in making a complete plan for grabbing the audience's attention. Before launching a product, you should know how to create awareness among people and convert them into permanent customers.

When your time is saved, then you can spend the time making a profit. However, marketing strategies make it beneficial for you. So you can easily understand the customer’s intentions and interests.

7. Customer retention becomes easier:

Do you want to retain your customers? If yes, then how could you do that? A marketing funnel will allow you to retain your customers for a specific period. However, it means whether you are providing quality products to your customer. If you reduce the quality of the product a little bit, you will lose your customers.

Above all, most famous brands focus on quality and provide additional customer benefits to retain them. You can gain the customer’s loyalty by giving them a discount after the first purchase. If you have an existing customer, and they are about to hit a milestone with you, then you can congratulate them and offer them tips and tricks or a discount. Here’s an example from Google

Image Source

Do you know how you can develop an outstanding marketing funnel? If not, then don’t worry. We are going to disclose steps to tell you about marketing funnel steps.

How to develop a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel takes easy and understandable steps for the marketer to get customers. However, a marketing funnel gives you relevant information at the right time. So you can make the right decision.

Above all, you will understand about user’s intention and interest. Below, I will disclose the methods to help you develop a marketing funnel for your business. You don't need any other thing because it is a complete guide.

1.   Know your target audience

Before starting your marketing funnel journey, you must know your target audience. However, your product will only be purchased by some of the community. So, you should know what your audience is and what their age is.

Above all, before starting your journey, you must be aware of the demographic area in which you sell your product. The demographic study provides knowledge about the interest of an audience, the age of the audience, and their liking or disliking. This way, you will understand how to analyze your audience's behavior.

2. Learn your buyer’s journey

Today’s buyers are more intelligent than before; they know their needs and what product is relevant. However, you can quickly point out their need when required. Before selling your product, you must pin point your buyer’s journey.

The first step in the buyer’s journey is to point out their needs or create awareness about their brand. After knowing your brand, you will understand how to grab the attention of buyers about your brand. In the next step, buyers will search for a solution and try to solve it. However, in the third step buyer will find the right business to solve the problem.

3. Determine the number of stages

Determining the number of stages in the marketing funnel is quite a tough job because most people need more at this stage. No one can understand the actual stage in the marketing funnel; however, looking into the number of stages is relatively easy and understandable.

Above all, there are only three stages such as top-level, mid-level, and bottom-level, as three are mentioned in detail.

4. Use the most effective marketing tactics

Knowledge is only enough if you implement that knowledge in practical work. However, there are several methods that a person can use to get more sales in your company. Above all, you can check the below-mentioned steps.

4.1.  Email Marketing & Automation

Email marketing is the step that will help you understand the journey of your customer. When they become aware of your brand, when will they become your perfect customer? However, email marketing will help you automate grabbing your customers' attention.

Above all, in email marketing, you will need to run the campaign, and you have to provide a premade template to the software, which sends emails to your desired list.  With this technique, you can handle the customer list and make them your permanent client.

Mailmunch’s email automation feature can help you automate your marketing funnel. You can intercept your buyers at just the right time in their journey and make them your permanent customers by providing them with the right solutions to their problems.

4.2. PPC Ads

PPC ads are pay-per-click ads that most companies use to get more clicks or create awareness about their brands. It can be used in all three stages of the marketing funnel. However, you can make people aware of your brand, and they will become aware of it. Furthermore, you can also spend on consideration. So, customers can buy products from you.

4.3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Millions of social media users consume tons of content there. However, you can also use social media marketing strategies to increase sales. You can use multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.

However, you can quickly grab the audience's attention by running or boosting your post on social media platforms.

It will also help in your brand’s conversion. However, you can easily understand the audience’s needs and help you to know your brand. Furthermore, you can quickly get conversions because social media is available at the fingertips of the audience.

4.4. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is social media marketing in which you take help from influencers to shout about your brand.

 Above all, you can get help from social media influencers or Instagram influencers. This will help you to stand out in the market.

4.5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing in the marketing funnel is defined as the strategy marketers follow to inform users about relevant products. However, it is quite a difficult task, but it will generate a lot of sales for your brand.

Affiliate marketing will help you to make the right decision at the right time. You can easily make your customer a potential client.

4.7. Webinars

In this era of technology, almost every person has a smartphone or smart gadget. So, what’s wrong with it? Nothing but you can take advantage of this thing. But how?

Make a webinar so people can join your online conversation about the product and understand its usefulness.

Above all, the webinar is the perfect method for creating brand awareness among people, and you can quickly grab your customers' attention. Also, you can address many pain points and suggest fixes to resolve customer issues.

5. Analyze your Results

Analyzing your results is the last stage of the marketing funnel, and you will get a chance to understand your customer’s behavior. However, you can better understand where and why you are losing your customers. Moreover, when you know the reasons, you can quickly solve that issue without any doubt.

 So, do some preparation or find a reliable solution for it. That’s the crucial part and important part of your marketing funnel. So, be careful in analyzing your results.

How to plug the leaks in your marketing funnel?

Have you ever seen a bucket leakage? If so, what will happen? You will lose water. The same thing happens when you have leakage in your marketing funnel, you will lose your customers, and gaining potential customers is quite a difficult and time-consuming task.

But the question arises? How can you plug leaks into your marketing funnel?  Let us explore this together.

Infographic: How to plug the leaks in your marketing funnel?

1. Pin point the issue

First, you should know where the problem is and how you can find this issue. However, you can quickly pinpoint your data by observing user activity, and you can quickly solve that issue.

But the question arises, how can you pin out your issue?

Pointing out issues takes work, and you have to research and know your audience's path, how they are taking an interest, and at what level they left your brand. This will help you to understand the leakage and leak in your funnel.

You can track the user’s activity by using CRM software. Now, many software is quite famous for monitoring users’ activities.

2. Understand the reason

Only tracking the journey of customers isn’t enough. But you have to understand the reason behind the downfall of your leads. This way, you can understand where you are lacking and what you can do to handle this problem. There may have the following reasons, which are given below.

● Your UX may lack in the designing phase, or you may have used a very disturbing or scattered UX design, due to which customers didn’t stay on your website and left within a second.

●  Secondly, this may occur if you are not sending emails or promotional content to your customers, due to which they lose interest in your brand.

●   However, your job isn’t done after converting your customers into leads. You have to retain them after every interval of time. This way, you show interest in your customers, and they will return to your brand.

3. Solve the issue

After knowing the problem, you can easily find the solution to the problem. However, you can easily understand where you could improve and what mistakes you are making.

Finding the right solution for the problem will help you to get more sales and retain your customers.

4. Improve strategy

When you are getting sales, you should pay attention to the conversion of customers. However, you must convert those customers who buy a lot from you. So you can get more conversions and referrals as well.

5. Convert your customer

Converting customers into regular or permanent buyers will be great for you. However, you don’t need to make the ridiculous mistake that other brands do. Brands usually stop advertising when they get sales, which is not a good practice and will lead to a loss in customers. Or you can say this will cause a leakage in your marketing funnel. You can retain your customers by providing regular updates or coupon codes.

 How can an inverted funnel help you increase your average order value?

Have you ever heard about the inverted funnel concept? If not, then you don't have to worry about it. We will explain this thing to you as the name describes that the inverted funnel is upside-down, and it can allow you to focus on existing customers instead of new one.

Although this technique takes more time and produces effective results, it flips the traditional marketing funnel method.

But how can an inverted funnel help you to increase your order value? Before starting this, you should know what the average order value is.

What is the Average Order Value?

The average order value is the customers' average price on your products at a specific time. However, you need to calculate it occasionally on specific events to assess your next product price, and also, you can quickly get an idea about your sales.

But how does an inverted funnel help you? Let us explore this as well.

An inverted funnel helps you to increase your average order value in the following ways, given below.

  1. Average order value helps you reduce the marketing cost, but it consumes most of its time to get customers' attention. However, it is good practice.
  2. When you understand your average order value, you can give more attention to the existing customers.
  3. The inverted funnel will help you to focus on specific customers and understand their needs and budget.
  4. If your customer is focusing on certain things, you can bring that product in the future to get their order, which will increase their sales, and your business will grow in a better way.
  5. This will improve the customer lifetime value (CLV), which is crucial when determining your business health. It tells the customer who is loyal to you and which is not. So, you have to take care of customer lifetime value, and you can get excellent sales in your business.
  6. It will assist you in reducing the sales cycle when there is a rapid increase in its average order value. However, increasing your revenue will help you spend time on your marketing strategy.
  7. As we know, the inverted funnel will help you to save money. So you can easily spend that money on retaining the existing customers.

Now, moving towards the examples of marketing funnel from our daily life. Let’s have a look at the real-time examples.

3 Marketing Funnel Examples

1. Netflix:

As we have seen, how amazingly, Netflix has become popular in the cinema industry. They beautifully use social media marketing to increase awareness about their brand.

Furthermore, they used short videos and images about upcoming movies and podcasts. So, people are curious about the new film and will purchase a Netflix account.  What helped them grow fast was not showing annoying ads to the viewers. Pay a small amount and enjoy your favorite videos.

But how do they work to grab the customer? Let us see.

● First, they will show users a free of cost 30 days trial.

● When users get it and start using Netflix, they get addicted to their app.

● At the month's end, Netflix starts reminding them about payment details.

● When the company sees customers purchasing the account, they will show a beautiful page. So the user can quickly move to the next step.

● To get the audience's attention, Netflix builds customer trust. So they can easily select any package.

● All the details are crystal clear so that no one can get any ambiguity at the end.

In this way, Netflix has generated 4.9 billion in revenue. Netflix has just promoted social media marketing to get the user's attention.

2. Basecamp:

Basecamp is a project management tool that will assist team members in cooperating. Furthermore, it provides a free trial for the first ever coming customers.

But what strategy do they follow to convert customers?

  1. When you land on their home page, you will get initial knowledge about the company. As moving down, you will get knowledge of how basecamp work.
  2. In the footer section, they give Frequently asked questions to solve users' queries.
  3. They give you a limited edition for new users.
  4. Users will give you a paid version when they use their trial version.
  5. After getting users' trust, they will move toward the conversion stage.

Due to this strategy, almost 5000 companies sign in because of their authenticity and loyalty toward the customer.

3. Crazy Egg:

CrazyEgg is a platform that helps you see the growth of visitors to your website. However, through this tool, you can improve the visitor's behavior and make your website UX feasible.

But what steps do they follow? Let’s explore this.

  1. When you land on their page, you will get an idea about the website's working and how it runs. They ideally use a catchy interface and have an impact on users.
  2. They get an audience from a referral or organic search, but at the bottom of the website, they give you 30 days trial version.
  3. However, you will be redirected to the pricing page if you sign-up for the free version.
  4. Above all, they mainly focus on visuals and not on copywriting for content. However, an image speaks louder than words.
  5. They focus on providing less information to the users instead of writing whole paragraphs.

Develop your marketing funnel with Mailmunch

Setting up a marketing funnel looks complicated. Still, if you know your target audience, it becomes pretty easy to understand what they need and how you can solve their problems through your product or service.

Getting daily leads is a big thing, but your marketing efforts get wasted if you don’t know how to convert them.

Emails have been proven to be the most effective way to get leads and sales. In today’s marketing history, most markers still count email marketing as the most exciting part of any marketing funnel. The tools like Mailmunch offer multiple features that can help send a personalized message with various platform integration options.

If you want your marketing funnel to give the most of it, you need to focus on every stage of your funnel, including awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Author Bio

Ammar Mazhar

A voracious reader and a music lover, Ammar has been writing engaging and informative content for over 3 years for B2B and B2C markets. With a knack for writing SEO-optimized content, Ammar ensures the results speak for themselves.

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