The marketing funnel, a product of an analog era, still holds a place for digital marketers today. It’s a way to operationalize the process of attracting prospects and turning them into paying customers, and it’s applicable across different types of businesses and industries.
What Is a Marketing Funnel?
The stages of successful marketing, from making someone aware of a company’s products or services to them making a purchase, are traditionally represented in a funnel shape. At the top, a company is bringing in as many prospective customers as possible. Then, through the middle and to the narrower bottom of the funnel, the business is moving those prospects through interest, consideration, evaluation, and purchase. The group naturally gets smaller through the stages, hence the funnel shape.
Why Are Marketing Funnels Important?
The marketing funnel has been around for over a century, and while a lot has changed, the overall concept remains important to marketers today. It’s a straightforward way to think about a customer’s journey, especially if a company is new, not well-known, or is expanding into new markets and growing new customer audiences. A funnel-driven marketing strategy ensures that there’s messaging and content available for a range of prospects. Marketers can use the funnel model to develop leads, contact them at the right times, and encourage them to purchase. A marketing strategy without a funnel behind it can easily lead to missed opportunities: One group of customers may hear from you too often, and another not at all.
The Benefits of Marketing Funnels
When you use a marketing funnel approach, you can build a repeatable set of messaging, tactics, and metrics for each stage of the journey. Funnel-aligned metrics show what’s working and what isn’t, so you can refine your tactics to reach prospects, leads, and existing customers in appropriate, engaging ways.
The primary benefit of a marketing funnel is that it simplifies the overall customer journey. It brings visibility and measurability to any customer interaction points. That’s a bonus for customers and the entire marketing and sales team at a business.
Types of Marketing Funnels (and Their Stages)
Marketing funnels broadly look the same, but a few different funnel types have evolved over time.
Basic Marketing Funnel
This funnel is simple and straightforward, with three stages:
- Top of the funnel (TOFU): Prospects become aware of what you offer.
- Middle of the funnel (MOFU): Prospects are learning more about your offerings and considering a purchase.
- Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): Prospects choose your solution and become customers.
AIDA Marketing Funnel
This type of marketing funnel contains four stages:
- Awareness: Prospects become aware of your brand and what you offer.
- Interest: Prospects start becoming curious about your brand and products.
- Desire: Prospects move into seriously considering your offerings.
- Action: Prospects make a purchase, subscribe, or complete another desired action. This is what performance marketing focuses on.
This adds some nuance to the original marketing funnel and can help guide messaging through the four stages.
Granular Marketing Funnel
Depending on your marketing team, business goals, and maturity, you might segment the funnel even further to tailor your messaging and tactics. The granular funnel continues beyond point of purchase to keep customers coming back, developing long-term relationships and loyalty.
- Awareness: Prospects become aware of your brand.
- Consideration: Prospects start gauging what you offer against other options.
- Conversion: Prospects make a purchase.
- Loyalty: Customers come back to make repeated purchases.
- Advocacy: Customers also recommend you to others, leave reviews, or otherwise endorse your brand.
How to Create a Marketing Funnel
The basic marketing funnel is well known, but every business will have their own version. Here’s what to consider to create the right one for your needs.
Map to Marketing Goals
Most likely, your goals in using a marketing funnel are to generate and nurture leads. But consider any and all nuances, such as whether your brand is well known or not, how much budget you can apply to each stage of the funnel, and what content and channels are already available and activated.
Consider Your Customers’ Needs
Are your customers new to your company or industry? Are they looking for a solution to a problem at work, or are they coming in as a consumer? A business-to-business (B2B) company selling a complex product should include lots of educational material in different formats, while a business-to-consumer (B2C) company might focus much more heavily on brand awareness.
Use All Available Data
You might be starting out with the analytics basics when you’re building a funnel, but use the knowledge you have of your target audience, product, and industry to get started. Then, measure initial results of your funnel strategy to see where users are engaging and what you might be missing. You’ll refine as you go to reach more prospects and make the funnel work for your business. Performance marketing platforms offer first-pary data insights and targeting capabilities to strategically optimize ad placements and budgets.
TOFU Marketing Funnel Best Practices
The top of the funnel is the biggest part, and filling it up will lead to more high-quality leads down the road. Here are a few areas of focus when you’re building out your top-of-funnel practices.
Create Organic Content
A strong web presence is essential for building a brand and establishing its authority. Create relevant, educational, useful content that’s SEO-friendly so your site ranks well in search. Make your site a resource hub to draw in prospects who can then take further action.
Place Ads
Digital marketers have plenty of options of where to place awareness ads, including social media channels and paid search, along with sponsorships in multiple formats.
Be Creative
If you know who your target audience is, start finding where they are online. Consider podcast appearances or sponsorships, contributed articles, or short video series to attract prospects.
MOFU Marketing Funnel Best Practices
Middle-of-the-funnel tactics should be aimed at continued engagement with your prospects and more interaction as you identify and nurture leads. Here’s what to keep in mind.
Act as a Partner
How are you helping solve problems with your products or services? Start with this mindset in creating MOFU content, rather than focusing strictly on getting to a sale quickly. For B2B companies, this is critical. Show users how the product works and what it can do for them, and offer educational content and customer stories to back up your claims and build trust with prospects. If you’re sending emails to prospects, make sure they include concrete, useful information.
Offer Something of Value
At this stage of the funnel, you want to collect contact information. Knowing your audience will translate into knowing what the best free offer is for them, whether it’s a guide, e-book, webinar, or free trial. These lead magnets require the user to enter their email address, so make sure it’s worth their while.
Be Authentic
Whether you’re writing email copy, an e-book, a social media post, or other mid-funnel activities, keep your user and their challenges front and center. Savvy users can tell when they’re being sold to, and too much jargon or repetitive language is a turnoff. Speak directly and use succinct language to communicate how you can help. Use strong creative to stand out from the crowd.
Use Data Wisely
How can you keep your company and its offerings top of mind for leads? There are various ways to get in front of them after they’ve expressed interest. Implement lead scoring to understand where to prioritize efforts, and retarget website visitors appropriately. You can personalize content to leads based on what you know about them, such as which industry they work in. Use the data you’ve gathered to segment email lists, too.
BOFU Marketing Funnel Best Practices
This funnel stage focuses entirely on closing the deal. Here’s what to keep in mind:
Time It Right
You may have been nurturing a lead or group of leads for some time, but how can you close the deal? Consider ways to add some urgency, such as with a limited-time offer.
Curate BOFU Content
This funnel stage might depend on a great case study, landing page, or comparison page, depending on your audience. Whatever the content, it should continue to be useful and straightforward, answering any and all questions your prospect has.
Use Your Resources
Explore all the available data to see what content a user consumed just before purchase, or whether they had a live conversation. Ask your top sales reps what objections they’re hearing and how they overcome them, then build content to explain and educate in those areas. You can also consult with customer support or account managers — anyone who’s close to customers as they’re at the decision point of purchasing or renewing — to gather insights and tailor your approach accordingly.
Realize's advanced AI capabilities enable precise targeting, engagement optimization, and budget simulation, maximizing advertiser ROI.
How to Measure Your Marketing Funnel Performance
At each funnel stage, there are some common metrics to gauge:
TOFU Metrics
- Page views on your site.
- Unique site visitors.
- Organic traffic to your site.
- Keyword rankings.
- Impressions of social media posts.
- Click-through rate on posts or ads.
MOFU Metrics
- Time on page.
- Scroll depth.
- New leads generated or qualified.
- Bounce rate from your site.
- Subscriber or email list growth.
BOFU Metrics
- Conversion rate.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS).
- Sales closed or new subscriptions.
How to Optimize Your Funnel Strategy
If you’re starting out with a basic marketing funnel strategy, you might make some educated guesses or test hypotheses at the beginning of the journey. As soon as you have some data, though, you can start optimizing the overall marketing funnel strategy.
Optimize your funnel strategy by considering these areas:
- Are users moving easily through the funnel, or are there obvious points of drop off?
- Is the right content getting in front of users at the right time?
- Are there missing content pieces or missing touchpoints during a user’s journey?
- Is your lead scoring accurate, and are your efforts appropriate for high-quality leads?
- Are you capturing the desired audience in your marketing funnel?
Key Takeaways
The marketing funnel has stood the test of time, and it remains a key player for digital marketers today. While there’s still a primary funnel to follow as a way to get started segmenting and targeting prospects, marketers can tailor the funnel for their particular audience and goals.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the evolution of the marketing funnel?
The marketing funnel, first created in the non-digital era, has held up well for many years. What’s changed around it is the digitalization of marketing. With that, consumers don’t follow as much of a linear path, and may hop between funnel stages during their online experiences.
How are B2B versus B2C marketing funnels different?
Most B2B marketing funnels are more complex than B2C funnels, and the B2B sales cycle usually takes longer with the education needed throughout the funnel. In addition, B2B customers interact more with sales reps at the purchase stage, while B2C customers go through the funnel without much business interaction.
What is a marketing funnel versus a sales funnel?
A marketing funnel and a sales funnel are not usually separate strategies. Marketers generally handle the top of the funnel, getting prospects in and then turning them into leads. The sales team gets involved further into the funnel, such as qualifying leads in the middle of the funnel, and the bottom of the funnel is the main area of collaboration between teams, as both teams work to close deals.
Discounts versus case studies at the MOFU stage: Which is better and when?
In the middle of the funnel, prospects are generally looking to learn more about a company’s products and offerings. Case studies are more appropriate here to educate users and help illustrate how your offerings have helped other similar businesses. If a discount is available, consider saving it for the bottom of the funnel, particularly to help push a prospect toward a purchase.
How do I turn blog readers into leads and customers?
Consider the ways you can engage blog readers throughout the post. Start a conversation with them, such as by including a simple, unique call to action (CTA) in the middle and at the bottom of the post. You could point to a discussion group or forum for a technical product, invite them to a relevant webinar, or show them a sample of a free newsletter that offers tips and tricks. Make sure to change CTAs often and choose them carefully for the blog post topic and intended audience. If possible, keep track of time on site, number of pages visited, and multi-touch attribution so you can retain the reader’s attention longer and tailor their journey based on their interests.
