When it comes to a customer deciding to make a purchase, there’s more than meets the eye. After all, people don’t just wake up one day and randomly decide to spend their hard-earned money on a needless product. Instead, the buying process involves multiple different steps that can be encompassed into a marketing funnel and digital marketing strategy.
Here’s what you need to know about your buyer journey in a world dominated by digital marketing sales funnels:
What Is a Digital Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a concept that lays out the different steps customers take when making a purchase. This well-established concept has been around for over a century but has been adjusted to meet the changes and challenges of our new digital age.
Contrary to popular belief, there’s more to the funnel than actually making a purchase — the journey also involves awareness, consideration, and retention. By understanding these different concepts, businesses can both gain and retain potential customers.
Why Do You Need a Digital Marketing Funnel?
You’re probably wondering why you need a digital marketing funnel. After all, you have tons of other business rules and concepts to worry about — why should you add this one to the list?
- For starters, a digital marketing funnel can help you build brand awareness that drives your target audience to feel comfortable making a purchase since they are familiar with and trust your brand.
- A digital marketing funnel can also help you better understand and cater to your customers now that you’re considering their entire journey from start to finish rather than just the purchasing aspect.
- A digital marketing funnel can help give you a competitive edge by building a wide funnel that’s able to capture more people compared to a narrow funnel that solely focuses on the actual purchase.
- Finally, a digital marketing funnel can help you discover and utilize digital marketing strategies that you otherwise wouldn’t consider — for instance, SEO for the top of the funnel and email marketing for the bottom of the funnel.
What Are the 4 Different Types of Digital Marketing Funnels?
There are four different types of digital marketing funnels you need to know about, including traditional, hourglass, looping, and micro-moments. Here’s what you need to know about each type so that you can create the best digital marketing funnel for your business:
1. Traditional
The traditional marketing funnel is known as “AIDA” which stands for awareness, interest, desire, and action. In the initial “awareness” phase, the consumer identifies the need for a product and learns about different product options through friends, social networks, or online research.
In the “interest” phase, the consumer develops a conscious interest in various products after learning more about them. In the “desire” phase, the consumer begins to desire actually owning the product. Finally, in the “action” phase, the consumer takes action to purchase the product.
However, this traditional marketing funnel dates back to 1898 and might not be 100% relevant in today’s digital world — which is why other funnel types have emerged.
2. Hourglass
The hourglass marketing funnel is similar to the traditional “AIDA” funnel with a few key differences. For starters, the hourglass funnel is divided into two different stages: the pre-purchase stage and the post-purchase stage.
The pre-purchase stages consist of:
- Engagement: Initially hearing about the brand and learning more about it
- Education: Recognizing a problem that can be solved with a specific type of product or service
- Research: Researching potential solutions for the identified problem
- Evaluation: Determining whether or not the product or service in question would actually solve the customer’s problem or meet their needs
- Justification: Deciding whether or not to buy the product or service based on justifications and reasoning
- Purchase: Finally buying the product or service
The post-purchase stages consist of:
- Adoption: Actually using a product or service after purchasing it
- Retention: Retaining the customer through a high level of customer satisfaction
- Expansion: Upselling a user with higher-end products or cross-selling a user with complementary products
- Advocacy: Becoming a loyal brand advocate by leaving reviews, spreading the word with friends and family, and marketing for the brand
3. Looping
The looping marketing funnel consists of six stages and is much more flexible than some of the other models.
These stages include:
- Awareness: Recognizing a problem or a need
- Consideration: Considering solving that problem or need with a specific product or service
- Research and discovery: Looking for potential solutions for that problem or need in terms of products or brands
- Purchase: Purchasing the product or service
- Post-purchase: Improving the customer’s experience through customer service
- Loyalty: Creating customer loyalty and building a relationship
4. Micro-Moments
Finally, the micro-moments marketing funnel consists of four “moments” detailed by Google that describe the motivations that bring customers to the funnel.
The moments include:
- Want-to-know moment: When the customer enters the funnel looking for an answer to a question
- Want-to-do moment: When the customer wants to do something that causes them to enter the funnel
- Want-to-go moment: When the customer wants to go somewhere that causes them to enter the funnel
- Want-to-buy moment: When the customer wants to make a purchase that causes them to enter the funnel
How to Successfully Choose and Use a Digital Marketing Funnel?
Some of these funnels may look the same — others not so much. As a result, you need to choose a funnel that works well for your business. Don’t be afraid to try out different options or make adjustments as you develop your unique digital marketing funnel.
Here are some best practices that work across the board and will help you develop a successful digital marketing funnel:
- Meet customer needs: All of these funnels should be designed around your customers to meet their needs. These days, customers tend to both need and expect assistance at any time — day or night. As a result, you need to offer 24/7 customer assistance to meet their expectations. The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to offer live support at all times. Instead, you can use things like chatbots, guides, and FAQ sections to provide customers with the support they need when they need it.
- Focus on data: Another thing that’s important across the board is your marketing data. You need to be consistently tracking your marketing data to make sure that your funnel is working as intended. Specifically, you need to establish your key performance indicators (KPIs), set goals, and monitor progress. Some marketing KPIs you need to track include things like user interactions, revenue, gross margin, and net profit.
- Use technology to your advantage: It would be difficult to keep up with these KPIs and know what to do with them without technology. Thankfully, there are tons of tools out there to help you manage your digital marketing funnel using artificial intelligence or AI. For instance, AI can be used to help you personalize user experiences, predict user intent, and discover keyword and content opportunities.
Wrap Up on Digital Marketing Funnels
As you can see, you need to establish a digital marketing funnel to both gain and retain more customers. If you need help guiding customers through each stage of the funnel or choosing a funnel that works for your business, feel free to reach out to Greg Gillman.
Greg Gillman specializes in omnichannel growth strategies for D2C and ecommerce brands and can help you build an effective and strategic digital marketing funnel to take your business to the next level.
Sources:
What Is the Digital Marketing Funnel? | Business Journal Daily
The AIDA Process in Advertising | Small Business Chron
How to Implement Effective Digital Marketing Funnels | Forbes
