Marketing has evolved over the years and understanding the customer marketing funnel is crucial for small businesses. By developing a comprehensive customer-centric marketing strategy that takes into account the different stages of the funnel, you can optimize your marketing efforts to achieve better results.
For most businesses, acquiring and retaining customers is essential for success. Therefore, having a well-designed funnel can help you to build relationships with potential customers, nurture them, and ultimately turn them into loyal advocates for your brand.
WHAT IS THE CUSTOMER MARKETING FUNNEL?
The customer marketing funnel is a model that represents the customer journey from being unaware of your business to becoming a loyal advocate. It is shaped like a funnel because the number of people who move through each stage decreases as they get closer to becoming loyal customers.
The main goal of the customer marketing funnel is to help you tailor your messaging and tactics to each stage of the funnel, maximizing your results and making your marketing efforts more efficient.
By following the customer marketing funnel strategy outlined below, you’ll be able to move potential customers from a place of disinterest to a place where they are eager to do business with you.
Whether you’re a startup or an established business, understanding the customer marketing funnel is key to creating a successful marketing strategy. So let’s dive in and explore each stage of the funnel and how to effectively communicate at each stage.
STAGE 1 – ATTRACT INTEREST FROM POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
The first stage of the funnel is all about raising awareness and attracting interest from people who don’t know your business yet. This is where you want to cast your net wide and make sure people know you exist. At this stage, you want to focus on providing value and educational content that demonstrates your expertise and builds trust with potential customers.
HOW TO DO IT:
There are many ways to raise awareness of your business, such as social media posts and paid advertising. Other methods include PR, SEO, podcast features, vlogging, collaborations, influencer marketing, and sponsored social media posts. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on this stage as long as you consistently work on it.
Consistency and messaging are key to delivering a great brand awareness strategy. You don’t want to ask for a sale the moment someone learns about your business. Instead, think of this stage as building a relationship and providing value.
Storytelling is a great tool for leveraging interest at this stage. People remember stories more than data, so think about what stories you can tell about your business. Do you have stories from happy customers? Do you have stories from employees or founders?
Value-led content is another effective tool to drive interest at this stage. This content provides your audience with tips, advice, or resources they can use. For example, if you’re a home cleaning business, you might provide tips on how to clean different types of surfaces. By creating this type of content, you prove yourself valuable to potential customers and demonstrate your expertise, building trust in your business.
Best tools to use: SEO, social media, podcast features
Messaging and content themes: Storytelling & Value-led content.
STAGE 2 – CAPTURE INTEREST FROM WEBSITE VISITORS
The second stage of the marketing funnel takes the initial interest from the audience and captures it, both emotionally and physically. From an emotional perspective, the audience should feel engaged and interested in learning more about the work you do.
From a physical standpoint, now is the time to capture their contact information and transition them from your website into your email marketing list.
Whilst a follow on social media is great, recent stats show that only a small percentage of your social followers actually see your posts in their feed. Collecting an email address gives you a direct way to communicate with the audience and allows you to tailor that messaging to fit the stage of the funnel.
HOW TO DO IT:
The best way to do this is through a lead magnet. A lead magnet is simply something you are giving away, in return for the audience’s contact information.
Creating an ‘irresistible’ lead magnet is crucial in developing an impactful marketing funnel strategy. The content of your lead magnet will depend on your audience and what they want or need.
The key to finding your perfect lead magnets lies in the sweet spot that overlaps these questions:
What does my audience want/need?
What am I best equipped to provide?
What format best suits my audience?
For example, a small business may find their existing customer base is people who identify as parents. They are actively seeking tools and resources to support their parenting but they have little time to digest big pieces of content. A good fit for a lead magnet could be a short video demonstration of a helpful product or a pdf download of an educational game to play with the kids. These are short, informative, and useful resources that will appeal to the audience.
Once you’ve crafted your lead magnet you now need to make sure it’s easy to find! You should include the following placements:
Popup on the website (you may think this is an annoyance… but they work!)
Static positions on the website on both the homepage and about us page
Linked in any relevant blog articles (go back through the archive and see where you can call this out)
Your social media bios
You’ll need to set up the lead magnet so that subscribers feed directly into your email marketing software, and ensure you have a simple automation setup which sends them an email with what they signed up for.
Best tools to use: Email marketing software, opt-in pages, pop-ups, analytics
Messaging and content themes: Don’t miss out, value-driven messaging.
STAGE 3 – NURTURE THE INTEREST OF YOUR CUSTOMERS
Now that you have captured the attention of your audience, you need to begin the work of nurturing that interest with the intention of getting them to become loyal customers.
Your lead magnet has pulled them into your email marketing list which means you now have a direct channel of communication with them.
Utilizing email marketing to nurture these prospects is a simple and time-efficient way of moving people further down your funnel process.
It’s important that you consider the content you are sending, being sure to be intentional with each email and not overloading people with too many emails.
Sending preference options to your list can be a useful way of understanding what your subscribers are interested in hearing about, as well as how often they would like to be contacted.
By setting these preferences early on, you’ll be confident that you’re sending them the right content, at the right time. This can dramatically help to decrease unsubscribes.
HOW TO DO IT:
In the same way that you build your social media content calendar, do the same for your emails. Create pillars for your email content which might include:
company news
customer stories
product updates
special offers
important dates
tips & value
behind the scenes
relevant industry news
Decide on how often you want to communicate with your audience and take into account preferences when doing so.
Your audience is most likely going to be interested in your story-led or value-led content so this should be a regular feature they can expect from you. Again, this also helps to reinforce the know, trust, like factor which will eventually lead them to become loyal customers.
Another great tool for prepping your subscribers for a sale, is to ensure you are sharing your success stories and demonstrating how your products have helped your customers.
You’ll want to send a thank you to customers when they make a purchase but also making a public thank you which all of your subscribers see shows them that you truly value their support.
Create what you can in advance. All email marketing software has the option to schedule the emails you send. Put aside a few hours each month to hash out your content and get it scheduled.
This will save you a huge amount of time throughout the month and give you more flexibility to jump on anything urgent, if it arises.
Follow the same 1:4 rule that you should be using for your social media posts (for every 4 posts/emails only 1 should be a direct sale).
Best tools to use: email marketing software, content planner
Messaging and content themes: Informative, educational, personalized, storytelling
STAGE 4 – CONVERT INTEREST INTO SALES AND CUSTOMERS
By this stage in the funnel, you should have an engaged list of people who are excited to hear from you. To get these people to become customers is now a case of asking nicely, timing your asks and testing the different elements within your email marketing content.
HOW TO DO IT:
First and foremost make it easy for people to make a purchase. To do this, ensure you include a button or clear link in your sales email and take customers through to your sales page so they can buy with just a few clicks.
Secondly, you’ll want to time your sale. We recommend that only 1 in 4 emails should be a direct sale, and you should always lead up to that sale by showcasing your success stories and including specific information about how your products are going to be used.
Data is a crucial part of understanding what is and isn’t working well. Fortunately, all email marketing software providers include data about your open rate (number/% of people who open your emails) and your click rate (number/% of people who click the links in your emails).
Test sending your email on different days and at different times.
STAGE 5 – BUILD ADVOCACY & LOYALTY AMONGST YOUR CUSTOMER BASE
You’ve gained a new customer for your small business, congratulations! But don’t rest on your laurels just yet. It’s important to turn those customers into brand advocates who will help spread the word about your business and attract new customers.
Brand advocates can be a valuable part of your marketing strategy, and nurturing existing customers is key to retaining them as loyal supporters of your business.
HOW TO DO IT:
Make sure to thank your customers for their patronage. Personalize your communication with them using your email marketing software.
Keep your customers updated on your products or services. Providing regular updates on your offerings will keep them engaged and informed. Use your email marketing software to send exclusive updates to your customers.
Ask your customers for their feedback. Hosting a Q&A session or sending a survey can help you better understand their needs and make them feel valued and appreciated.
Best tools to use: email marketing software, survey software
Messaging and content themes: Gratitude, honesty, results-driven data and stories.
SUMMARY
Nurturing your customer base is an ongoing process. As customers become more engaged with your business, they may increase their spending, refer others to your business, or become advocates for your brand.
By focusing on the five levels outlined above, you can tailor your messaging and timing to maximize your chances of conversion and build loyalty and advocacy for your small business.