I recently had fun grabbing margaritas and tacos with friends. Inevitably one of us ordered a platter of chips with guacamole, salsa, and queso. As I dipped my chip into each container, I caught myself liking the taste more and more after each dip. That got me thinking about marketing funnels.
Stay with me here: A tortilla chip dipped in guacamole, salsa, and queso is an excellent example of what a marketing funnel does to audiences. First, you entice them with a little bit of guacamole. Then, you’ve got them interested in trying more. So they return to the chip bowl to try out the salsa. It’s tasty, a little spicy, and overall delicious. But then, because they like your guacamole and salsa, they return to get the whole queso experience of flavors. This sums up marketing funnels. Each stage of the funnel is created to entice your ideal customer to come back again and again until they are ready to make the purchase. So what does this mean for your business? Let’s break it down!
Top of the Funnel - Guacamole
In marketing funnels, we attribute each stage to the top, middle and bottom. Like a little funnel would look like. For example, at the top phase of the marketing funnel, you’ve got your first encounter with a brand. For digital marketing, this is typically a social media post. This phase of the marketing funnel is what we marketers call the Awareness phase. What the awareness phase does to your target audience is place your business on their radar. How can they know you exist if they haven’t encountered your brand?
Building awareness for your brand is typically done through the following methods or tactics:
Social Media Posts
Educational Articles or Blogs
Newsletters
E-books
Videos
Tactics are how you achieve your strategy to reach your goals.
Let’s say your ideal client or customer is in that mix of people. Their interest in your brand is piqued, so they start following you on social media. They like your content and decide to subscribe to your newsletter. Okay, cool! You’ve got another subscriber, but that still isn’t bringing you the sale. But it is bringing you a lot closer to your sales goals. You may be asking how. The reason why it’s bringing you closer to your sales goals is because now, you can directly communicate with that business or person. You have a direct link to show them how they can benefit from your product or service in a more personal way.
Middle of the Funnel - Salsa
Now that you’ve got your ideal customer’s attention, you can start diving into why they should consider purchasing from you. They like your guacamole, and you’re giving them a reason to try salsa. Finally, you’ve piqued their interest enough to want more. This phase is called the Interest phase.
The middle of the funnel addresses some of their pain points and how you can solve them through:
How-To Articles or Videos
Checklists or Infographics
Whitepapers
Webinars
Podcasts
This area of the funnel is what I like to describe as your potential customers are placing items in their carts from your website but haven’t checked out yet. They want to read more reviews and learn how your product or service works to solve their pain point. They essentially want a closer look at how you can help them.
Bottom of the Funnel - Queso
This is the ooey gooey part that wins over your potential customers. You have brought them from Awareness to Interest to the Desire phase of the marketing funnel. They have a desire to purchase from you but are now comparing you to your competitors. This phase allows you to address possible objections and keep your potential customers interested in purchasing from you. Finally, the bottom of the funnel pushes your ideal customer into action.
How you might address objections your ideal customers have is typically through:
User-Generated content (such as content from Influencers and existing customers)
Case Studies
Product Videos
Buyer’s Guides
Getting your ideal customer to the queso is the end goal of this marketing funnel journey. It’s the final hurdle to jump over before they purchase your product or service.
Since you probably have tons of content already created, why not group it by marketing funnel phase? An easy way to do this is to look at how you speak to your audience. Are you talking to them to bring awareness to your brand? Or are you building interest and desire? Or are you inspiring them to take action? Even though I listed examples of the types of content within each marketing funnel phase, it doesn’t mean they can’t be helpful in other areas. Learning to speak to your audience at each stage is the key. Why not start repurposing your content to appeal more to each marketing funnel phase?
For ways to tap into each phase of the marketing funnel through existing content, check out my blog on 5 Ways to Repurpose Content!
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