Marketing Funnel: Visualizing the Customer Journey

A customer journey, an AIDA model, a sales funnel, or a buy funnel. These conceptual models all seek to depict the cognitive and behavioural steps customers take while looking for a certain good or service to meet their needs. This is what they all have in common. According to the theory underlying it, clients go through a number of stages or phases before deciding whether or not to buy a product from a business. You may examine your business from the perspective of the consumer and make improvements where necessary by outlining these steps and putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. A more generalized form of the marketing funnel will be discussed in this article, along with tips on how to apply it.

Marketing Funnel

The Marketing Funnel comes in a variety of forms. To make this funnel useful for a wide range of sectors and enterprises, I attempted to stick to fairly obvious parts of the client journey without being too precise. The Marketing Funnel is a funnel because the width of the funnel at each step corresponds to the number of individuals that are a part of it. The funnel grows smaller as it goes closer to the bottom since you are likely to lose some potential clients along the route. Finally, it’s vital to note that this marketing funnel’s color scheme was carefully picked. Your initial interactions with potential clients are somewhat “cold,” which is why they are blue. Up until the advocacy stage, you want to “heat” things up a bit after you get to know your clients and strengthen your relationship (orange). Let’s examine each level individually.

Awareness

The Awareness stage opens the Marketing Funnel (sometimes called Attention). This stage’s objective is to establish presence and present your brand to potential clients; they must be aware of your existence. You have two options: actively engage potential clients with marketing activities, or make it simpler for them to find you through their own (online) search. Advertising, trade exhibitions, direct mail, social media campaigns, etc. may all be used to raise awareness. Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA) are suggested to help clients find you online more quickly.

Interest

You aim to arouse interest after you have the customers’ attention. This stage’s objective is to demonstrate who you are and what your brand represents. You’re attempting to establish a rapport with and win the trust of potential clients. Provide useful information, but don’t put too much emphasis on trying to sell them your goods just yet. Potential clients start to form attitudes, views, and ideally interest in your business at this phase. This stage frequently involves the development of content. Consider blogs, webinars, infographics, newsletters, free e-books, etc. Be cautious with the messages you provide to prospective clients since people might potentially have bad thoughts against your company.

Consideration

Customers may be inclined to consider buying your products or services if their interest in your business has risen. You must first assist them in seeing that your product is fulfilling a need or want they may have in order to establish that. You must also describe why YOUR product is the greatest choice for addressing that requirement. Therefore, promoting yourself and showcasing your unique selling propositions (USPs) are the main goals of this stage. What added benefits can you provide clients over rivals? Make sure your brand is one of the top 3-5 brands people typically think about before making a purchase. A strong sales staff and persuasive communication skills may be quite beneficial at this point.

Evaluation

Customers are likely to compare the possibilities now that your brand has reached the Consideration set depending on any personal criteria they may have. Even if the selection criteria may differ from person to person, by examining the most often used criteria, you might be able to spot some broad trends. You may learn what consumers in general value most about a particular product by regularly collecting customer feedback, conducting surveys, and participating in focus groups. Once you are aware of these characteristics, you can use them to direct your marketing efforts so that you emphasize them while showcasing your product. Customers frequently consider pricing, quality, look, durability, and after-sales service while evaluating items.

Decision

The consumer will ultimately decide whether or not to purchase from you. It’s important to keep in mind that the decision-maker doesn’t necessarily have to be the same person who buys or uses the product. Consider a little child who wants to buy a Nintendo console from a toy store. Even if the kid might use it, the father may determine whether he will buy one, and the mother may have to make the trip to the shop and make the purchase. That must be kept in mind while directing your marketing efforts at particular demographics. For instance, the news about the fantastic games you can play on the Nintendo should be directed toward the youngster, while the father should be educated about the console’s affordability and robustness.

Purchase

For two reasons, the decision-making process and the actual buying phase have been kept apart. The first one has to do with how the customer and decision maker differ from one another, as was previously stated. The second reason is that even after potential buyers have made the decision to buy your goods, they could still change their minds. This may occur, for instance, if a consumer is having problems discovering your web store when conducting an internet search for it. Or perhaps they are having trouble using the payment methods on the checkout page of your website. You must make it as simple as possible for your prospects to buy your goods after they have made up their minds about wanting it. Try to remove any extraneous or distracting elements from an online store and simplify the path to the checkout page as much as you can. You may increase the conversion rate by doing this.

Repeat

After the sale, many marketing funnels come to an end. But in today’s highly competitive and changing economy, it is crucial to retain clients for as long as you can. Therefore, client retention and subsequent purchases are equally as crucial as the first transaction. The likelihood that clients will become repeat customers is increased with good after-sales support and customer relationship management (CRM). For instance, you might start by requesting consumer feedback in an email sent out a week following the sale. Most people like sharing their opinions on various topics. You may then get to know the consumer better and determine whether or not they could be interested in making another transaction in the future. Depending on the nature of your business, phoning or even seeing consumers in person is seen to be more productive and personable. The latter is, for instance, more suited if there are larger transactions, such in the consulting or car industries.

Loyalty

Customers start to have preferences for your brand or business throughout the loyalty stage. They no longer buy from you repeatedly because you remind them to, but instead because they actually enjoy your goods. Therefore, customer loyalty is far better than repeat business. Customers that are loyal stick with you despite potential issues or unfavourable rumors about your business. Connecting with your consumers personally is essential since loyalty can only be developed when your customers perceive their connection with you as more than simply a business one. This may be facilitated through high levels of interaction, personalization, loyalty programs, community growth, social identity, and value sharing.

Advocacy

Advocacy is the ideal and last step to achieve with customers. When your clients go beyond being merely clients and turn into fans, you have advocacy. Fans frequently publish good evaluations of a product or service on social media, tell their friends and family about it, and even attempt to persuade others to share their enthusiasm. In other words, much like at the start of this marketing funnel, they are now assisting you in raising awareness. When consumers choose to represent your own brand, you know you are on the right track!

Marketing Funnel in Sum

The marketing funnel is an excellent tool for visualizing the buyer’s journey, or the route that prospects travel as they learn more about your business and products, from awareness through purchase to (ideally) the advocacy stage. It enables marketers to develop a more structured plan for the marketing efforts that need to be taken into account. Remember that this is a generic marketing funnel, so you may need to make some adjustments to make it work for your particular company. It’s time to start promoting!

Also Read: International Business Strategy