How To Create Modern Marketing Funnel By Kritika Chaturvedi 

A marketing funnel– is a roadmap laid out by a company to guide potential customers from their first interaction with the brand to becoming a paying customers.Your marketing funnel provides more value to your marketing strategy when you understand your customers—then you can make informed decisions to improve the customer experience as they move through the funnel.
Why are marketing funnels important?You cannot downplay the importance of using a marketing funnel. In the end, it can change the game for your business. Here are several ways a marketing funnel can assist you in:

1. Picking a marketing strategy. The cornerstone of a marketing funnel is your customer journey. Knowing the latter allows you to understand when and why prospects drop off before making a purchase, and what tools and strategies you can use to keep them engaged with your brand.
2. . Staying consistent with your promotion. With a marketing funnel, you don’t have to puzzle over your next step to attract and retain customers. Create a plan of marketing activities for each stage of the funnel and interact with leads to drive them towards making a purchase.
3. Increasing your sales. Without a funnel, you lose money if a potential customer doesn’t buy from you immediately. They just drop off and forget about your offer. If you have a marketing funnel, you can nurture leads until they’re ready to purchase.
4. Making it easier to close the deals. In B2B, closing deals requires the combined efforts of the marketing and sales teams. Marketing funnels provide your salespeople with detailed insights into leads’ behavior, which gives them more hints on how to close the deal.
5. Saving time and effort. Knowing your customer journey and having a plan of activities for each stage allows you to automate your marketing efforts. It saves tons of time and helps you achieve better results.
6. Predicting future sales. Marketing funnels enable you to understand the results of your marketing activities better. Knowing a lead-conversion for each stage, you can predict how many of your leads will eventually turn into paying customers.
7. Retaining customers. A plan of post-purchase marketing activities helps you keep customers engaged and make them return now and then. Retaining customers is five times cheaper than acquiring new ones.

What is the difference between B2B and B2C marketing funnels?

B2B and B2C customers go through more or less the same stages of a marketing funnel. However, there are some differences in this process.In B2C, customers make purchasing decisions alone. Thus, the business-to-consumer model entails a short buying cycle, limited to hours or days. On average, individuals do less product research than businesses; they often buy impulsively. Typically, no salespeople are needed because marketing teams drive the whole process.B2B implies a lot of decision-makers – departments or whole companies, so making a purchase in B2B often takes weeks or months. The decision-making process is based on rational thinking; thus, you have to use tactics different from B2C.Operating in niche markets, B2B businesses have to focus on identifying their buyer persona and building stronger relationships with them. To close deals, marketing and sales teams often join their efforts in the funnel’s lower stages.Now you know the differences between B2B and B2C marketing funnels. Eager to build your own? Let’s dive into creating a marketing funnel.

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a series of stages to guide prospects through the customer journey. The funnel helps marketing teams plan and measure efforts to attract, engage, and convert prospects through content and other marketing materials, like landing pages and ads.

Marketing funnels are commonly based on the ‘AIDA’ model:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action
• But you can simplify the funnel into a three-stage model:
• Top of the funnel (TOFU): awareness
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU): consideration
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): conversion

3 stages of the marketing funnel

The traditional funnel model is linear, beginning at the top of the funnel and ending at the bottom, where your prospects convert.The challenge is that marketing funnels don’t always work like this in the real world. People don’t always jump into a funnel right at the top and progress step-by-step through each stage until they come out the bottom, a new customer.

Many people bounce in, out of, and around the funnel before they convert. Or, they may make it to the bottom of the funnel and then (gasp!) drop out, never to be seen or heard from again.The marketing funnel—like people’s real-life buying behavior—is nonlinear, which is why it’s important to understand the customer journey from the moment of awareness to the moment of conversion. And part of that is understanding how each stage works in the traditional marketing funnel model.

1. Top of the funnel: awarenessThe top of the funnel (TOFU) is where prospects become aware of your brand and engage with it for the first time. They might not know a lot about your product or service yet, so this stage focuses on content and marketing material that promotes brand awareness.Use this stage to attract prospects, and show them what you have to offer:

• Create a landing page or infographic that introduces your brand, service, or product to new visitors.
• Share a post on social media that highlights your unique selling proposition (USP).
• Use paid ads on social media and in podcasts that are relevant to your target audience.

2. Middle of the funnel: considerationPotential customers enter the middle of the funnel (MOFU) once they’ve engaged with your brand in a meaningful way: maybe they’ve subscribed to an email list, are following you on social media, or have signed up for a webinar.Use this stage to engage with prospects—to earn their trust and set your brand apart:

• Write an article or white paper that provides value, answers a question, and solves a problem for your potential customers.
• Invite visitors to participate in a survey to learn more about the drivers, hooks, and barriers they encounter with your brand.
• Share case studies and product comparisons.
• Create landing pages specific to individual customer segments.

3. Bottom of the funnel: conversionThe bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is the last place prospective customers go before they convert. You’ve gotten their attention, built trust, and fostered a relationship with them.Use this stage to convert prospects—give them specific reasons to choose your brand over your competitors:

• Offer a trial or demo so visitors can experience your product or service first-hand.
• Write a how-to guide or article that answers questions and eliminates any doubt or blockers potential customers may experience.
• Share social proof, like customer reviews and testimonies, to build even more trust.
• Make feature and price comparison charts easy to access and understand.
• Send segmented email marketing campaigns and use on-site surveys—for example, send an email to users that have abandoned their shopping cart, or put an exit survey on the checkout page.

Measuring the success of your marketing funnelUnderstanding your customers requires observing and communicating with them—not just looking at numbers on a chart and making assumptions. To measure your marketing funnel’s success, you need both quantitative and qualitative data (more on this later).That said, there are still some key quantitative metrics to keep in mind when you measure your marketing funnel’s success and effectiveness.4 marketing funnel metrics you should measure

1. Cost per acquisition (CPA)CPA measures how much you’re spending on marketing to acquire each new customer. Teams usually look at this number to analyze their paid advertising, email marketing, social media, and other paid marketing efforts.To get this number, divide the entire cost of your marketing campaign by the number of conversions. From there, the idea is pretty simple: if the cost outweighs the gain, you might want to consider ending the campaign or testing alternatives.
   
2. Customer lifetime value (LTV)LTV measures the continuous value a customer brings to your company. This metric is all about retention, which carries particular weight for SaaS (software as a service) companies because subscribers pay regularly. However, LTV also gives insight into industries like e-commerce and traditional sales—if you can predict the likelihood of a customer making another purchase.
   
3. Conversion ratesConversion rate measures the frequency of conversions. Some marketers only focus on the final conversion: sales—but you can measure each stage’s success through micro-conversions or goal conversions. For example:
   1. TOFU conversion: how many visitors convert to marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
   2. MOFU conversion: how many MQLs convert to sign-ups or subscribers
   3. BOFU conversion: how many sign-ups or subscribers convert to customers
      
4. Conversion rate per channelEach marketing channel has different goals, so it’s important to analyze the success of each one. These channels might include
   • Organic search
   • Paid ads (Display, SEM, Social, Podcasts)
   • Referrals and influencers
   • Email

Kritika Chaturvedi Head of Marketing Unicorn infosolutions private limited. 10+ years experience in industries. Specialization in Marketing, Branding, Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation, Performance Marketing & Marketing Funnel.