What are Marketing Funnels and how do they work?

The Ultimate Marketing Funnel Blueprint

If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner in the only industry, there is no doubt you've come across the word marketing funnel before. Funneling is the act of guiding someone through a series of steps towards a desired outcome. The most common type of funnel is the marketing funnel. It guides prospects through a series of stages before they become paying customers.

The sales funnel is a marketing tool used to describe how customers move through a company’s marketing process. It shows where people start interacting with a brand, how they become aware of it, and how they eventually convert into paying customers.

The most common type of marketing funnel is four steps, also known as the “AIDA” model:

• Attention: A lead sees your blog, ad, social media post, or hears about you from a friend
• Interest: They think you can solve a problem and want to learn more about your product or service
• Desire: The lead has done their research and is ready to sign up with you
• Action: The lead takes action — they buy your product, schedule a sales call, or take whatever other action you want them to take.

A conversion is the action you want your customer to take when they visit one of your pages. Conversions can vary based on customer and industry, but most often it means getting them excited enough about something that will lead them into taking immediate actions.This could be something like purchasing your product, booking a sales call with you or signing up for your value packed free download in exchange for their details (Email address and name).

Let’s look at the purchase funnel a potential customer goes through when placing an order on Amazon: 

1. They go to Amazon.com
2. They search for a product
3. They view a product
4. They decide to add a product to the cart
5. They complete the purchase

So why are the steps from learning about a business to converting into a paying customer called a funnel? Because there are a lot of people who take the first step at the beginning.

As they continue along and take the next steps, some of them drop out, and the size of the crowd starts to narrow down.

Losing customers along the way might sound very scary — but it’s not. The truth is, not everyone in your funnel will convert into a paying customer. The top of the funnel is where everyone goes in (visiting your site or viewing your product). But only the most interested buyers will move further down your funnel and eventually purchase what you have to offer. 

What Different Types of Funnels Are There?

Today we’re focusing on marketing funnels. These are funnels that start with some sort of marketing campaign, like a free download (Freebie), a social media ad or even an ad IRL. The point is that the first step in each funnel is a marketing campaign of some kind.

Other types of funnels include:

• Lead magnet funnels
• Tripwire funnels
• Sales funnels
• Webinar funnels
• Email marketing funnels

Please don’t get confused by the different names, all these funnels track the same exact thing — the steps a prospective customer takes to conversion. (Sometimes they are even called conversion funnels!)

What Are Marketing Funnels Used For?

It can get very overwhelming when you're starting to think about building a funnel for your business. If you are looking to implement a new sales funnel or update an existing one, it’s a good idea to pick one type of funnel that will tackle one single issue you are trying to improve, like increasing conversions by 10%.

In order to know what type of funnel you should use, you first need to look at what issues your business is facing. Issues could be:

1. Increasing Organic Lead Generation - For example through blog post and social media
2. Increasing Paid Lead Generation - For example through Google Ads, Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads
3. Booking more sales calls
4. Hosting webinars and other online events
5. Getting social proof/testimonials
6. Identifying what causes customers to not purchase your product or service

For example, if you want to increase your conversion rates of a specific product,  a sales funnel would be the right one to choose.

What Are The Benefits Of Marketing Funnels?

Marketing funnels provide access to important data, also called a funnel report, which lets you see at what point you are losing customers.

Think about how you might have signed up for Kajabi. Here’s how their funnel may look for them:

• You visited their site
• You then signed up for a free trial (If not, click here to get 30 days for free!)
• You tested everything Kajabi has to offer
• After the trial period ended you upgraded to the paid version

Kajabi can now track how you interacted with them and see how their funnel worked. If you hadn’t upgraded to the paid version and canceled your subscription after the trial period, Kajabi might need to update their onboarding process so people understand how to use the tool and use it for their business.

Conclusion

Today we covered just about everything you need to know about marketing funnels. Here’s a quick recap of everything:

• A conversion is the action you want your customer to take when they visit one of your pages. For example signing up for your newsletter, booking a call with you or purchasing your product
• A funnel tracks all of your prospects' steps, from being interested in your business to becoming a paying customer.
• A funnel report shows you where your prospects are dropping out of your funnel
• There are many different types of funnels

What are your favorite funnels? Comment below and let us know!