This is going to be a multi-post series that dives into what is referred to as the funnel. A (marketing | purchasing) funnel is a consumer-focused marketing model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward the purchase of a good or service.

The Big Picture

A funnel works exactly like you would think – people enter the funnel from the top (wide) and exit through the bottom (narrow) – where they make a purchase, or are otherwise known as a conversion. The whole idea of a funnel is to gather potential customers that would be interested in a certain product, and lead them to make a purchase.

Why is a funnel so effective?

Think about when you try to pour oil into an engine – if you’re like me there’s no way you’re not going to make a mess without a funnel. So you take this large jug of oil and pour it into the wide top of a funnel, which becomes more and more narrow until it travels through the small end into the motor. That is, if you remembered to put the small end into the motor.

No, I definitely haven’t EVER made that mistake.

But really, it is completely possible to…misplace a sales/marketing funnel just like you could (but never would) with an oil funnel.

So how do we get everyone into the funnel?

There’s no doubt that you’ve already harnessed the power of data analytics to develop well planned targeting demographics, right?

So let’s say that we have an excess of car air fresheners that we just really need to sell. Let’s think about who we should target – who would be most likely to make a purchase. We probably aren’t going to want to target people who don’t own cars, right? So let’s created a targeted ad campaign for people between driving ages. That’s still a pretty big net, though. That’s ok! We are simply looking for the POTENTIAL interest in a certain product – air fresheners in this case.

Aside from just running targeted ad campaigns on social media, we don’t want to forget about email marketing – one of our most effective and efficient tools in our marketing toolbox.

Moving towards a conversion

Now that our ad campaigns and email marketing campaigns have been tested, launched, and are pouring people in, what do we do next? Well, sell some air fresheners, of course!

But wait! There is one very important step in the middle.

Now that you have made all these potential customers AWARE of your existence and peaked their INTEREST we need to increase their desire for what you’re selling.

But how do we do that?

Landing pages are the most effective resource to take an interested customer and convert them into a buyer. Think of a landing page as a digital salesman. You walk into a Best Buy interested in buying the latest iPhone, which you just saw an ad for outside the store. That salesman’s job is practically half done already – you’re through the doors (on the website) interested in buying an iPhone – that salesman’s only job is to close the deal by further increasing your desire to have that newest phone.

Your landing page should do the same thing – if you are advertising air fresheners your landing page should ONLY focus on selling air fresheners. After all, that is the reason EVERYONE is there, right?

The Conversion

So you’ve cast this wide-ish net gathering everyone who would be interested in air fresheners, you’ve peaked their interest and nudged their desire to have the best smelling air fresheners around. The last step in the process is the conversion.

The conversion happens when one of the potential customers becomes a customer by making a purchase. This is by far the hardest, and most important step in the whole process.

Once a customer performs an action – whether it is purchasing a product or requesting more information about a service or membership, the ball is in your court the keep them coming back. Communication is key to retaining customers – whether that’s through abandoned cart notices, regular emails, or even picking up a phone and giving them a call.

Contact us to harness the power of your funnel.