How the Marketing Funnel Works successfully From Top to Bottom

How the Marketing Funnel Works successfully From Top to Bottom

There is much debate about the marketing funnel - from who owns it, marketing or sales, to whether it is still relevant to today's consumer buying process.

Here, we go through the essentials of the marketing funnel as well as recent developments and fresh difficulties facing marketers. I contrast how the funnel is used in B2C and B2B, dispel the hype around the marketing vs. sales debate, show how the funnel may be turned around to generate additional leads, and investigate nonlinear funnel strategies.

To further address these difficulties, let's first establish the fundamental structure of the funnel.

What is the marketing funnel?

From a marketing (and sales) viewpoint, the marketing funnel serves as a graphic representation of the process of turning leads into consumers. Marketers are supposed to cast a wide net to gather as many leads as they can, similar to a funnel, and then gently lead prospective buyers through the buying process. At each stage of the funnel, pick one of these candidates to eliminate.

Ideally, this marketing funnel would actually be a marketing cylinder, and all your leads would turn into customers. While this is not a reality for businesses, part of a marketer's job is to convert as many leads as possible into customers, making the funnel more cylindrical.

It is important to note that there is no single agreed-upon version of the funnel; some have many "stages" while others have few, with different names and actions taken by the company and the consumer for each. In order to make the information in the graphic below useful to as many people as possible, we have tried to extract the most popular and pertinent funnel stages, words, and actions. many marketers as possible.

Marketing funnel stages and conversions

I'll walk you through the funnel step-by-step so you can fully comprehend how it operates.

marketing funnel diagram

• Awareness: The first stage of the marketing funnel is awareness. At this point, marketing initiatives, consumer research, and discovery attract potential buyers. Events, advertising, trade exhibitions, content (infographics, blog posts, etc.), webinars, direct mail, viral campaigns, social media, search, media mentions, and more are used to build trust and thought leadership. This is where lead generation takes place, as information is gathered and leads are pulled into a lead management system for nurturing further down the funnel.
• Interest: Once leads are generated, they move into the interest phase, where they learn more about the company, its products, and all the useful information and research the company offers. Here lies an opportunity for brands to build relationships with the people in their lead database and introduce their positioning. Marketers can nurture leads through emails, content more focused on industries and brands, classes, newsletters, and more.
• Consideration: Leads are now marketing-qualified leads and are being taken into account as possible customers during the consideration stage. Through automated email marketing, marketers may provide prospects with more details about their goods and promotions while also nurturing them with relevant content, case studies, free trials, and other things.
• Intent: Prospects must show interest in a brand's products before they can go on to the intent stage. This can happen in a survey, after a product demo, or when a product is placed in the shopping cart on an e-commerce website. This is an opportunity for marketers to make it clear why their product is the best choice for a buyer.
• Evaluation: In the evaluation phase, buyers make a final decision about whether or not to buy a brand's product or services. Marketing and sales typically work closely together to fuel the decision-making process and convince the buyer that their brand's product is the best choice.
• Buying: You're there! This is the final stage in the marketing funnel, where a prospect has made the decision to buy and turns into a customer. Sales now handle the actual purchase process.
• Purchase: A positive experience on the buyer's part can lead to referrals that feed the top of the marketing funnel, and the process begins again.

How does the marketing funnel differ for B2C and B2B brands?

View the modified graphic below, which details B2C and B2B consumer actions and conversions in each level of the funnel, to have a better understanding of how the marketing funnels for B2C and B2B firms differ.

b2b and b2c marketing funnel

The following are some key differences between the B2C and B2B marketing funnels:

1. Most B2C consumers navigate the funnel alone or with a small group of trusted advisors (typically friends and family), while B2B consumers typically have a larger, cross-departmental buying group. The average B2B buying group consists of 5.4 people.
2. B2C consumers may never have direct contact with a company representative, especially on e-commerce sites, while B2B consumers typically have contact with a sales representative at the bottom of the funnel.

Nonlinear funnels

According to some experts, the buying process is no longer linear, hence the marketing funnel is no longer applicable.

Prospects enter the funnel at different stages. Sometimes this happens because they are referenced and already know they want to buy a brand's product, and they jump in at the intent stage. It can also happen because they have done their own training and jump in at the interest or consideration stage.

As the access to information has increased due to technological advances (i.e., the rise of the Internet), customers are increasingly doing their own research and relying on digital content to inform them about products. In fact, the CEB reports that B2B customers go through 57% of the funnel themselves before meeting with a salesperson.

An alternative to the marketing funnel is McKinsey's consumer decision journey, which uses a circular model to show how the buying process feeds into itself and highlights turning points or moments of contact.

consumer journey as a loop

Source:

However, this strategy is also contested by certain specialists. Mark Bonchek and Cara France state in an article published in the Harvard Business Review that "Brands can put the decision at the center of the trip, but not the customers."

The consumer choice path and marketing funnel will continue to be employed by marketers because there is still no perfect model, making them still relevant.

Sales and marketing: Who controls the funnel

There is a lively debate in the marketing and sales world about who exactly owns the funnel.

On the one hand, it is argued that as consumers rely more on digital content to inform their purchasing decisions, marketers gain more responsibility in the funnel as they continue to guide prospects through the buying process. Take a look at the diagram below to see how marketing and sales have changed the funnel.

old and new marketing funnel diagram

Some even imagine the funnel to be vertically separated, with sales and marketing in charge of the entire process. They contend that salespeople are increasingly taking on the role of thought leaders to raise the company's profile through cold-calling. Sales and marketing would work to move potential customers from awareness to purchase in this scenario.

Reversing the funnel: Marketing and the customer experience

An increasingly common practice for marketers, sales, service, and customer experience managers is to "reverse the funnel" into a customer experience funnel. This funnel describes the process of turning customers into advocates, who in turn feed the top of the marketing funnel by generating awareness and leads. A picture of our customer experience funnel is provided below:

customer experience funnel diagram

The customer experience funnel explained

We have distilled the key steps of the customer experience funnel and explained them below.

• Retention: After a customer has made a purchase, the next step is to make them a repeat customer. This means improving retention and encouraging customers to make more and larger purchases. Marketers pursue activities at the bottom of the funnel to encourage repeated actions by consumers.
• Loyalty: In the loyalty phase, customers develop a preference for a brand, begin to identify with it, and personalize products. In this phase, engagement is key, and marketers can help nurture this personal connection to a brand by building community, engagement, and familiarity.
• Recommendation: Once a customer is loyal to a brand, they are more likely to refer business and recommend the brand's products.
• Advocacy: Turning your customers into advocates is the ultimate evolution in retaining existing customers. Evangelism in the form of product reviews, social media posts, etc. can help generate new leads for your marketing funnel. An external, non-branded recommendation can greatly influence prospects. Marketers can work to develop their communities to better support advocates, ask them to participate in case studies, or engage them in consumer-generated content on social media.

The ultimate goals are to increase the number and volume of purchases and increase awareness and referrals to feed the marketing funnel.

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Credit for the featured image goes to YIFEI CHEN on Unsplash.