Over 4.66 billion active internet users spend at least 6 hours online each day, but the average conversion rate for eCommerce websites in the United States is only 2.63%. Why is that?
Well, most marketers focus on driving traffic but fail to go the distance and convert that traffic into cold, hard cash. So how can your B2B site be one of the few that actually sees significant online sales? You can optimize your digital content for the marketing funnel.
In this guide, we're going to lead you through the marketing funnel and share actionable steps for you to take at each stage.
A marketing funnel is a blueprint for the path you want your customer to take on their journey with your brand. It allows you to map out and understand your customer's journey so you can serve them better with custom content.
A well-crafted marketing funnel for your brand will detail each stage of the funnel as experienced by your customer. It starts with their first contact with your brand and follows them through to final purchase.
If you search “marketing funnel,” you’ll quickly realize that there are several versions out there with varying stages, but they all follow the same basic principles established in the late 20th century. What has changed are the tactics marketers use and the content found at each stage.
The primary purpose of designing a personalized marketing funnel for your brand is to help you create custom content at each stage to generate more leads and increase conversion. Other benefits of a brand marketing funnel include:
Every market funnel has three main stages:
The awareness stage is about connecting your business to the right people within the vast universe of potential customers. You want this audience to know you exist and that you have the best solutions to their unique problems.
To make the most out of your marketing efforts at this stage, it's imperative that you first identify your target audience as well as the criteria your ideal customer must meet. Refer to your customer personas for this step.
Obviously tailoring your awareness stage content to your audience will give you a better chance of getting them to the next stage. You want to capture the most relevant traffic at this stage because they’ll be more likely to convert into customers by the time they reach the end of your funnel.
After identifying your target audience, you will then use your Awareness-specific marketing tactics to capture their attention. This may include:
The goal in the awareness stage is to reach out to as much of your target audience as possible. Success at this stage is measured by specific key performance indicators (KPIs) like
Consumers at this stage are interested in your business and what you have to offer. They are considering whether or not they should buy from you or if there’s a more suitable option out there. Interest is often expressed by signing up for an email list, requesting a white paper, following you on social, etc. At this stage, the consumers are considered leads.
The goal of the consideration stage is to create content that helps potential buyers consider your products or services as a possible solution to their problem. At this stage you're also looking to build trust, so you need to create content that establishes trust to help you convert the leads into customers.
Some effective tactics that you can use at this stage of the marketing funnel to achieve these goals include:
There are several ways to determine if your consideration tactics are working. You can measure how many email sign-ups you have, how much more time consumers are spending on your site, your bounce rate, or pages per duration.
The decision stage is also called the conversion stage. At this part of the journey, the buyer will be making their choice whether to buy from you or not. It’s your job to obviously convince them to take the right action and make them your client. More often than not, the lead has begun to favor you at this point and you should focus less on educating and more on promoting.
Just as in the other stages, you need to employ tactics that will improve the chances of the customer making the intended decision:
During the decision stage, keep in mind that your prospect is comparing available vendors and products that are similar to yours. This is your opportunity to make your products or services stand above the rest.
Conversion rate is a critical metric to track. It measures how many consumers end up making a purchase and is the culmination of how effective your marketing strategy is. You can track the conversion rate back to specific marketing tactics and use the numbers to determine the methods that are most effective and double down on those.
Other important metrics that can indicate effective decision stage content include page conversion percentage, meetings or demos scheduled, proposals sent out, and proposals won.
It's not enough to have your marketing funnel up and running. It has to be effective, and you have to constantly make changes to ensure you see a high ROI. There are a few metrics you can monitor that will help you determine the value of your market funnel strategy:
Impressions are the most basic measure of brand exposure for top-of-funnel marketing. They refer to the total number of times your ad or post is served to users on a screen. The figures from the impressions are the base requirement of building brand awareness. Your target audience has to see your content to be aware of your existence.
This metric refers to the total number of unique people that your ad has been served across different digital platforms.
Reach can be used to determine the performance of your marketing campaign. If the ads reach a broad audience but are not converting into customers, it's a sign that you should consider making changes for better performance, either to the content or the audience.
Website traffic is easily the most important metric you can use to assess the success of your marketing funnel strategy (for both ecommerce and brand sites). Although not all traffic results from your marketing efforts, a significant spike can be a sign that you're doing something right. In website traffic, there are two core categories you will want to keep an eye on:
The average time on page measures how much time visitors are spending on specific pages on your site. Tracking this metric can help you understand the interaction between your visitors and the websites and which pages on the website are receiving the most attention.
This is the percentage of users who have viewed at least one page of your website and then left without performing any other action.
The bounce rate can be a clear indicator of how potential customers are interacting with content like a blog, product description page, or landing page on your site. If the content on the pages is irrelevant or provides a poor user experience, you're likely to experience a high bounce rate. A healthy bounce rate should be somewhere between 30-70%. Of course it can depend on the type of content and your historical metrics.
Statistics show that 79% of marketing leads are never converted into sales, and 68% of marketers feel their top priority should be converting leads into customers. Creating an effective marketing funnel can increase your sales drastically and allow you to venture into new markets.
It's important to note that your marketing funnel shouldn't only rely on one avenue of marketing. You need to cast your net wide and experiment with different tactics at each funnel stage. It can seem like an arduous task as this process takes a lot of time and resources. If you’re not sure whether or not your business is set up to create an effective marketing funnel, that’s what we’re here for!
Steel Croissant is in the business of helping your business. We can work closely with you to design and optimize a marketing funnel your customers are going to want to follow. Want to learn more? Contact us today.
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The Content by Funnel Guide is a comprehensive framework that outlines how to create and distribute content tailored to each stage of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, and decision. It is essential for marketing success because it helps businesses effectively engage with prospects at every stage of their buying journey, from initial awareness to final purchase decision. By aligning content with the needs and interests of prospects at each stage, businesses can nurture leads, build trust, and drive conversions more effectively.
The Content by Funnel Guide helps businesses create more effective content by providing a structured approach to content creation and distribution. By understanding the goals and pain points of their target audience at each stage of the funnel, businesses can tailor their content to address these needs effectively. Whether it's raising awareness with engaging blog posts, providing in-depth product comparisons for consideration, or offering special promotions for decision-making, the guide helps businesses deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time.
The Content by Funnel Guide includes actionable steps for each stage of the marketing funnel, such as conducting audience research, identifying content topics and formats, creating content calendars, and optimizing content for search engines and social media. These steps provide a roadmap for businesses to follow as they plan, create, and distribute content that resonates with their target audience and drives results.
Businesses can implement the Content by Funnel Guide in their marketing strategy by first analyzing their target audience and understanding their needs and preferences at each stage of the funnel. They can then use the guide to develop content that addresses these needs effectively, ensuring that it aligns with the buyer's journey and supports their overall marketing goals. By following the actionable steps outlined in the guide, businesses can create a cohesive and effective content strategy that drives engagement, nurtures leads, and converts prospects into customers.
Businesses can expect several benefits from using the Content by Funnel Guide, including improved engagement with their target audience, increased lead generation and conversion rates, enhanced brand visibility and authority, and better overall marketing ROI. By strategically aligning their content with the buyer's journey and delivering valuable information and resources at each stage, businesses can create more meaningful interactions with their audience and drive tangible results for their business.