A marketing funnel is a visual representation of your customer’s journey from the moment they come into contact with your brand till they become a paying customer. Other marketers also refer to marketing funnels as purchase, conversion, and lead funnels, among others.
We’ve already discussed marketing and sales funnels, the differences, and the various marketing funnel types. However, in this article, we’ll take a closer look at marketing funnels so you can better understand how to use them in your marketing and sales strategies.
Why Do You Need A Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is essential for every business, especially now that so much shopping and research happens online. Your marketing funnel is essentially the act of generating leads on your website, identifying the needs of those leads at each stage of their journey, and mapping out the best ways to engage them and encourage them to take action, be it downloading your content or making a purchase.
A marketing funnel helps you optimize your marketing efforts to influence customers and drive actions that benefit your business. However, your marketing funnel is powered by marketing automation software. By using an all-in-one marketing automation tool like BenchmarkONE, you can generate leads and track them in your CRM. You can tag leads based on certain qualifiers, making it easy to determine where they are in the buyer’s journey, and you can set up automatic nurture campaigns based on the actions they take. You can even add a text message API or an SMS platform to include text messages as a part of your funnel – or other supplemental funnel elements. These efforts help you not only engage your leads but push them through the funnel closer to a sale.
6 Types of Marketing Funnels You Need to Know About
Marketing funnels come in different types. The one you choose for your brand will depend on several factors, including your audience, your goal, and your product or service. You’re not limited to one funnel; you can create different funnel types to drive different CTAs and achieve your marketing goals.
Here are some of the most used funnels by marketers:
1. Email Funnel
The email marketing funnel converts a prospect into a paying customer through promotional and educational emails.
Creating an email funnel typically involves:
- Collecting prospects’ contact details, including gathering their email address and name.
- Educating prospects about your brand and product through nurturing email campaigns.
- Including offer-based promotions and conversion-focused CTAs in order to convert prospects into customers.
Examples of email funnels are:
- The free consultation funnel. This email funnel is a series of emails that nudge a prospect towards signing up for a free consultation.
- The cross-sell funnel. This email funnel aims to get a customer to purchase another product or service.
- The upsell funnel. This email funnel leads a customer to select a product or service that has a higher price point than the one they’ve already purchased.
- The product launch funnel. When you launch a new product, you can create an email funnel focused on educating prospects and customers about it.
2. Video Funnel
The video marketing funnel is designed to convert prospects to customers through videos. To do this successfully, create videos that attract, educate, engage, and convert leads at every stage of their journey.
People love video content because it’s entertaining and easy to consume. In fact, Facebook gets about eight billion video views daily. If you want to increase content engagement, consider adding videos to your rotation.
However, for video funnels to be successful, you have to do the following:
- Identify the traffic source for the top-of-the-funnel content. Lots of marketers turn to social media and YouTube.
- Map the buyer’s journey and fill the funnel with video content that’s relevant to each stage.
- Include a strong CTA and links to supporting content, and brand your videos with custom intros and outros.
- Use video in your paid ads, as it will drive more top-of-funnel traction.
3. Webinar Funnel
A webinar funnel attracts visitors through webinar promotion and registration, converts them into leads, and finally turns them into paying customers. A typical webinar funnel starts with generating traffic to your webinar landing page and ends when they purchase your product or service.
With webinar funnels, the registration point is where you collect details of prospects interested in your webinar. You can include email addresses, since you’ll need to send reminders to registered participants before the webinar.
When creating a webinar funnel, make sure to do the following:
- Include a form on your webinar’s landing page that asks for names and email addresses, and include key details about what will be covered to entice more registrants.
- Have your marketing automation tool add a tag to each webinar registrant, identifying them as someone who signed up for your webinar. This will show in your CRM and help you better understand their needs. It will also indicate who is in your webinar funnel.
- Set up a confirmation or thank you page after registration.
- Send an email to each registrant with instructions on how to log in to the webinar on the day of the broadcast.
- Promote your webinar.
- At the end of the webinar, promote a special offer for registrants to redeem.
- Send a follow-up email after the webinar that includes the slides, recording, and special promo to boost conversions.
4. Lead Magnet Funnel
The lead magnet funnel offers website visitors a valuable resource in exchange for their contact information. This resource can be in any format – video, case study, eBook, template, white paper, or product trial.
The beauty of the lead magnet funnel is that it attracts high-quality leads interested in the content you offer. It also helps establish your brand as an authority, keeping you top of mind when prospects need a service or product you offer.
With lead magnets, make sure you
- Begin with an incentive that your potential customers will find valuable.
- Design your landing page and your follow-up email series for lead nurturing.
- Promote your lead magnet and use social media marketing and PPC campaigns to send high-quality traffic to the page.
- Watch your list grow, and analyze your campaign performance.
5. Live Demo Funnel
The live demo funnel is often used in SaaS and product-based businesses. It’s an effective marketing funnel because it involves hosting a live demonstration of your product so leads can see firsthand how it works.
One benefit of the live demo funnel is that it lets your brand answer your audience’s questions directly. As a result, you can remove friction and doubts about your product, convincing them to buy.
Furthermore, a live demo funnel helps you build relationships with customers and start the journey toward lifelong loyalty.
For a live demo funnel, you’ll want to establish the following:
- An on-site CTA for visitors to sign up for a live demo.
- Create an email series to encourage leads to schedule a live demo.
- An email series to deploy after a lead has sat through a live demo. Since demos typically happen when a lead is closer to making a decision, this email series should offer additional bottom-of-funnel resources, such as case studies or testimonials, to help them decide to buy.
6. Home Page/Landing Page Funnel
The landing page is the page on your website where visitors arrive after clicking on an ad. This page aims to persuade visitors to take action. This can be anything from signing up for a webinar or downloading a resource to buying your product or service.
Typically, the landing page funnel works with other funnel types for maximum results. Therefore, it’s recommended that you have a clear CTA on your homepage to serve as a catch-all. Keep in mind, however, that not everyone who enters this funnel is qualified. Therefore, you’ll want to ensure this funnel focuses on education and lets you mark leads as qualified once they take a specific action that moves them further down the funnel.
Marketing funnels are valuable tools that help you build relationships with customers through the buyer’s journey, from awareness to action. They account for different scenarios, allowing you to offer more personalized nurturing to address your leads’ specific needs. Use a combination of the marketing funnels listed above to drive engagement and boost conversions for your business.
