What Is A Marketing Funnel? The Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy
When was the last time you’ve been to a waterpark? You know that huge and awkward funnel-looking water slide? (See pic below.)
After reading this Vavoza Insider article, you won’t help but think about marketing anytime you go down or see the funnel slide!
While a funnel might look awkward as a water slide, it is a practical (and not at all awkward) strategy when you look at it from a marketing perspective.
Think of a typical customer journey – exposure, research, purchase, loyalty, and advocacy.
When strategically executed in the proper order, these stages of the marketing funnel create a consistent and complete experience for your audience, from mere brand exposure to purchase and loyalty.
That is what we call a full-funnel marketing strategy. Implementing this strategy helps increase brand awareness and recognition, generate more leads, and, of course, increase conversions and repeat purchases.
Unlike a common sales funnel (or pipeline), which is all about pushing sales, full-funnel marketing focuses on the customers’ experience and “sending” marketing messages according to the stage of the customer’s journey.
The goal? To build a loyal brand tribe (and something even better that we will share in this article).
The Six Stages of the Marketing Funnel
Before we explore the six stages of the marketing funnel, it’s worth noting that the customer journey is often not nearly as linear as this concept suggests.
In actuality, the customer journey can be quite complex, chaotic, and unpredictable.
Nevertheless, we believe marketers should understand the “sequential version” of the marketing funnel and its six stages.
It allows you to visualize the customer journey and realize the importance of taking a strategic and deliberate full-funnel approach when building a brand.
Let’s dive into (or rather, “slide” down) each funnel stage now!
1) Exposure and Awareness: Top Of The Funnel
The top of the funnel is where you introduce your brand to your target audience. Remember that at this stage, your audience is not yet aware of your brand.
So, to capture their interest, your message should emphasize either their pain points or sell them their dream through educational (or entertaining) and engaging content.
At this stage, ensure that your top-of-the-funnel promotional content is highly engaging and emphasizes your brand name to create brand recall and awareness.
- One of the most effective and efficient ways to increase brand awareness in 2024 is to post educational or entertaining short-form video content at volume.
Consider posting YouTube Shorts, TikToks, and Reels at least once a day.
This is also where you focus on capturing targeted leads in your funnel, so ensure you tell your audience exactly what to do next with a strong call to action.
For example, “Click the link under this video and enter your email to receive our free guide!”
2) Research and Consideration: Middle Of The Funnel
At this stage, you have already captured your audiences’ interest (and hopefully their contact information).
Here, it’s time to start building trust and encouraging engagement with correlating follow-up messages and retargeting ads.
This middle-of-the-funnel stage is for building positive rapport, warming up your cold leads, and influencing their consideration of choosing your brand, whether as a standalone option or a choice between your brand and others.
At this stage, focus on nurturing your audience with valuable content and providing them a pleasant and positive experience with your brand so they feel comfortable and good about interacting with your company.
The experience you create for your audience at this stage largely impacts their subsequent actions as they “slide” further down the marketing funnel.
3) Conversion and Purchase: Bottom Of The Funnel
This is the bottom of the funnel where your audience is already familiar with your brand and hopefully has engaged with your follow-up messages and content.
Your leads are now “hot” and ready to bite and complete a purchase!
At this stage, focus on making it easy for your customers to say “Yes!” with an irresistible offer and a straightforward call-to-action.
Evaluate your offer by showing your leads the bang they will get for their buck, so to speak.
Overcome objections by answering any questions or doubts your leads might have and eliminate any excuses for them to make the purchase.
Create an effortless and streamlined transaction process. Customers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and loops to complete a transaction!
To maximize conversions, we highly recommend value stacking – bundle your offer with complementary bonuses to create an irresistible offer.
4) Loyalty and Retention
This is where the marketing funnel gets very interesting (and advanced).
This stage, deeper than the bottom of the funnel, is for brands aiming to increase customer retention, encourage repeat purchases, and, most importantly, create a loyal brand tribe.
At this stage, focus on maintaining the quality level of your products, content, and all customer interaction points.
Request feedback from your customers and become obsessed with improving your product or service based on their feedback.
Show your customers that you truly care about them and the integrity of your brand.
Find unique ways to engage with your audience:
- Share engaging content, invite customers to participate in special events, give away free prizes, include your customers in some of your business decisions, etc.
Have fun with your community while serving them like nobody else can, and make your community know and feel that they are your brand.
This stage is all about converting customers into fans. Executing it is more difficult than the preceding three stages, but it is also the most rewarding in the long run.
5) Advocacy and Multiplication
Finally, far deeper than the bottom of the traditional marketing funnel comes the stage where your customers love your products and brand so much that they feel compelled to tell everyone about it.
At this stage, continue doing what you did in the fourth stage with one small adjustment: encourage or inspire your community to spread the word about your brand.
You can do this by incentivizing your customers with exclusive deals and discounts or by offering a lucrative referral program.
You can also be so damn good at what you do that your customers don’t need any incentives to promote your brand.
How do you get customers to fall in love with your brand so much that they market it for you?
The best way to achieve advocacy is by helping your customers get exactly what they want, aka results!
Whatever your customers hope to achieve by partnering with your brand, you must focus on helping them achieve it.
Passionate advocacy and customer multiplication will happen naturally as you help your customers get results.
6) Market Dominance and Impact
This ultra-advanced stage of the marketing funnel is for the few brands that successfully execute every preceding stage of the funnel and achieve market dominance.
This stage is so deep in the marketing funnel that, if we are sticking to the water slide analogy, it would be at the bottom of the swimming pool.
At this stage, your brand is at the top of the food chain, so to speak, with a loyal brand tribe that passionately markets your brand on your behalf on a massive scale.
Your focus becomes staying at the top of consumers’ minds by reaching as many people as possible with unique, creative, engaging, and impactful content.
At this level, brands incorporate trending social causes and political agendas into their marketing messages.
Why? Because they have such a large and engaged customer base, they can impact a large population of society and, sometimes, the entire world.
Achieving enough market dominance to impact society is the ultimate goal for an ambitious entrepreneur and brand.
However, it all starts with the first stage of the marketing funnel and taking a strategic and deliberate full-funnel approach!
Closing Remarks
Full-funnel marketing is undeniably one of the most effective ways to build your brand.
That is only when your content and engagement are congruent with your audience and the appropriate stage of the funnel.
Be deliberate and strategic at every stage of the funnel.
Be mindful of your target audience and their experiences with your brand, and your funnel will do wonders for your brand!
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