Marketing Funnel Breakdown

I've touched on the importance of the marketing funnel in past posts; yet, we've never thoroughly broken down each marketing funnel stage. This blog post will serve as an introduction to the marketing funnel, and our complimentary marketing funnel resource guide can be downloaded to help users implement relevant KPI's to monitor your online presence and efforts.

What is a Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel is a list or collection of stages that potential customers step through before making a purchase. The ultimate goal of the marketing funnel is to gain a better understanding of how to reach and engage your potential customer(s). 

Marketing Funnel Levels Explained

The first stage of the funnel is stranger - this potential customer doesn't even know your brand exists; all they know is they have a problem, and they want to find out what and how severe their problem is. Your first job is to identify all the possible ways someone may try to describe their issue that your product addresses. What you're doing here is curating a full circle information hub; you're helping this stranger put a name to the problems they are faced with and moving them into the second stage of the funnel which is a visitor. 

Example of the stranger to visitor conversion:

Stranger search query: Aching neck that hurts when I turn my head

ABC Chiropractor meta description on Neck Adjustments page: Dull, aching pain in the neck region can be caused by a strained muscle or pinched nerve. See if our easy relief at-home remedies can help you.

Now that you've converted the stranger into a visitor the goal is to get their contact information so that you can keep in touch with relevant, useful content. An example of this content based on the example above would be asking for the visitors email information in exchange for daily stretching tips to help avoid muscle strain (the key to getting contact information is knowing your industry and the type of resource a user may find valuable). 

Transitioning us to the next stage of the funnel, which is a lead. Leads are typically nurtured to become customers by using multi-channel inbound marketing techniques such as email and social media. As I stated above the goal is always to provide content that is informative and current; this will keep you at the top of your lead’s mind and ultimately help turn your lead into a customer. 

Last but certainly not least - it is essential that you have a tracking tool implemented (Google Analytics) to assess site performance. It is crucial to understand how users navigate to and on your site, identifying high-value pages, and much more. We will discuss Google Analytics in the next blog post!