What is a Digital Marketing Sales Funnel and Do I Need One for My Small Business?

If you want more customers then you need a marketing funnel.

What is a digital marketing sales funnel?

A digital marketing sales funnel is simply the process that a prospective customer goes through from the time they first become aware of your brand until they make a purchase from you.

What is the big deal about marketing sales funnels anyway?

The big deal about marketing sales funnels is that your strategy needs to change as your prospective customer moves through your funnel.

What are the stages of the marketing sales funnel?

There are 3 basic stages of the marketing sales funnel.

1. Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is targeted to a cold audience. They may not even be aware they need whatever your business offers! Your goals at this stage may include:

increase the awareness of your products or services
grow retargeting lists for advertising (building segments of your audience)
increase engagement (i.e. on social media, blog engagement)
grow website traffic

The types of content that marketers use at the awareness stage might include:

a blog
social media updates
Infographics
photographs
digital ezines
book
audio podcast
videos
video podcast
microsite
print magazines
primary research

In order to know how effective your content is at the awareness stage, you should measure:

visitors

retargeting list growth
site engagement rates
number of inbound links
traffic by channel (where were the visitors right before they came to your site or landing page)

2. Evaluation Stage

The evaluation stage is targeted to a warm audience. Your audience is aware you exist – they may have seen you on social media, visited your website or blog, or perhaps they have visited a landing page. At this stage, your prospective customer wants to learn more about your products or services.

Your goals at this stage may include:

growing your email subscriber list
growing your retargeting lists (bring visitors back to the offer)
increase leads
initial customer acquisition

The types of content marketers use at this stage might include:

educational resources
useful resources (how-to)
software downloads
discounts/coupons
quiz/surveys
webinars/events

The benchmarks that marketers want to track and analyze at this stage would include:

#of leads
growth of your email list
newsletter email open / click-through rates

3. Conversion

The conversion stage is targeted to a hot audience. Your audience knows who you are and, ideally, likes and trusts you. They are almost ready to make a purchase but they want more detailed information that they can use to compare your products or services with your competitors, they want answers to their questions and objections, and they often need an incentive to take the step of making the purchase.

Your goals at this stage are: