Opinions expressed by businessroundups.org contributors are their own.
Your marketing funnel is the process your prospects go through as they move from awareness of your product or service to purchase. The funnel narrows at every stage, from the many people who know about your brand to the few who actually buy from you. Understanding your marketing funnel is essential to improving results and driving conversions.
Suppose you are trying to increase sales. You need to understand how your marketing funnel works so you can make changes that lead to more sales. Here are four steps you can take to analyze your marketing funnel and improve results:
-
Define your marketing funnel stages
-
Set conversion goals for each stage
-
Identify bottlenecks in your funnel
-
Test and experiment to improve results
Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps so you can use them in your own business:
Related: Generating interest at every stage of the marketing funnel
Table of Contents
1. Define your marketing funnel stages
The first step is to define the stages of your marketing funnel. This depends on your business, but most funnels include the following stages:
-
Awareness: Potential customers become aware of your product or service.
-
interest: Potential customers are interested in your product or service and want to know more.
-
Consideration: Potential customers consider your product or service and compare it to other options.
-
Purchase: Potential customers buy your product or service.
-
Loyalty/Advocacy: Customers who buy your product or service become brand advocates and promote your business to others.
There are other variations of this model, but this is a good start. Once you’ve defined the stages of your funnel, you can move on to step two.
2. Set conversion goals for each stage
The second step is to set conversion goals for each stage of the marketing funnel. These goals should be realistic and achievable based on historical data and current circumstances. For example, if you know that 2% of people who know your brand end up buying from you, you could aim to increase that number to 3%. Once you’ve set conversion goals for each stage, you can move on to step three.
3. Identify bottlenecks in your funnel
The third step is to identify any bottlenecks in your marketing funnel that are preventing potential customers from moving on to the next stage of the funnel. Common bottlenecks are:
Lack of attentiveness: Potential customers are unaware of your product or service because they have not been exposed to your marketing messages.
Solution: Increase the number of ads and create more engaging content that directly addresses the needs of your target audience.
Lack of interest: Potential customers are not interested in your product or service because it doesn’t solve their problems or meet their needs.
Solution: Check your messaging and positioning to make sure you’re directly addressing the needs of your target audience.
Lack of attention: Potential customers don’t consider your product or service because they don’t know enough about it.
Solution: Create more content that educates potential customers about the features and benefits of your product or service.
Lack of purchase: Potential customers won’t buy your product or service because they don’t see the value in it.
Solution: review pricing, packaging and positioning; consider offering discounts or other incentives; adjust the reporting accordingly.
4. Test and experiment to improve results
The final step is to test different messages, offers, channels, etc. to see what leads potential customers to a purchase. Try different tactics and track the results so you can keep doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Remember that it is always important to test and experiment so that you can keep improving the results.
Related: How to Create a Marketing Funnel That Will Increase Sales and Profits
Taking these four steps can help you better understand how your marketing funnel works and make changes that lead to more sales. Of course by taking these four steps on a regular basis – maybe quarterly – you can ensure that any changes made during the year actually have an impact on ROI, within budget time.
