What is the funnel in marketing?
The funnel (or “fannel” for musicians), also known as the conversion funnel, is an Inbound Marketing strategy that consists of tracking and guiding a web user (commercial target) through our website, social networks, and email campaigns, so they ultimately fulfill a specific goal—whether it be a subscription, a registration, or a direct purchase.
The conversion funnel allows us to observe the steps users take through our links until they fulfill our final goal (product purchase), helping us improve our processes and increase the conversion rate that transforms a genuinely interested visitor into a paying customer.
With the funnel method, we move from having a showcase website to turning it (and its related social networks) into a conversion machine for lead generation and direct sales. We can also filter and communicate only with interested (qualified) users, leaving mass marketing behind. A funnel also helps us understand our clients’ needs and interact with them in a more personalized way.
How does the funnel work?
Basically, creating a funnel means shifting from direct selling of our products or services to indirect, highly targeted selling aimed at our ideal audience. This type of funnel sale is more aggressive and direct in marketing terms but feels more natural and logical to the user (potential client). The idea is to offer our client exactly what they need—but to do that, we first need to segment our audience and guide each target group along their specific path of interest.
The easiest and most effective method for generating these paths is through the collection of differentiated leads or registrations in various databases. Segment.
Getting a user to provide personal data (name, email, phone, age…) and agree—under GDPR—to receive commercial information is not easy. We’ll need to create something of value to offer in exchange for their data. This valuable item might be a big discount or a free service, but most marketing leads are obtained by offering downloadable content such as guides, ebooks, tutorials, etc.
How do I start creating my funnel?
There are many tools for email marketing automation, and some are funnel-specific like ClickFunnels, Benchmark Email, GetResponse, InfusionSoft, but we’ll focus on the most popular one: Mailchimp.
Mailchimp allows us to segment, automate, and personalize—three essential functions for the funnel
With Mailchimp, we can create Evergreen funnels—those without an expiration date, which once implemented run on autopilot. This is one of the most attractive applications of funnel marketing.
Define your campaign goals
Before starting, we must be very clear about what our campaign goal is and what we want to sell. Ideally, the final sale should be something that brings in significant income—for example, an online digital marketing course worth €500 or a full slimming treatment valued at €600. We should set large-scale goals that justify the time and effort investment required for implementing the funnel. If we sell low-cost products, we’ll need massive engagement from the target, and the implementation and result evaluation will be more complex.
To go a step further, we can establish multiple goals. For example, we could offer the public an online marketing course and a full-service marketing package for their business. This way, we can generate two distinct paths: one for the target audience wanting to learn marketing and another for the target wanting to outsource marketing to an agency.
Generate the lead and valuable hook product
To implement the funnel, we begin by offering a valuable product to users in exchange for their data. Let’s create two irresistible ebooks: “20 Tricks to Multiply Your Sales in Just 10 Days” and “Sales Are Down!: What Your Marketing Agency Is Really Doing Wrong“
This step already requires significant time and effort. The final ebook—perhaps a simple PDF—should be well-designed and offer truly valuable, high-quality content. Ideally, it should include calls to action within the content encouraging readers to hire our services. That alone gets half the job done.
Once the valuable item is ready, we’ll offer it in exchange for personal data, which will automatically register the user in our Mailchimp database.
To offer this free product, we can create a lead capture landing page or make some changes to our website to convert it into a funnel homepage. The idea is that when users leave their data, they’re redirected to a page where they can download the content or receive a thank-you email with the promised download.
Having created all this, it may go without saying—but we must share it relentlessly across all our networks. And if we’ve ever considered investing in Facebook or Instagram Ads, now is the perfect time. Our free ebooks must reach the right target by land, sea, and air!
Automate the process
At this point, we should have a sequence of automated emails (autopilot mode) being sent periodically to our users.
The first email might be sent a week after the user’s download and could be titled: Have you read our ebook? What did you think? Direct engagement and making users feel part of the experience works very well.
In that email, we can include a short survey (linked to another landing page), the results of which help us segment our audience more precisely and offer the most suitable product—or we can give them a big discount on our flagship product, or redirect them to a landing page for direct purchase. The possibilities are endless.
Guide the target and convert to sale
This is where automation becomes more complex. We’ll track how many people opened the email and how many clicked the link. This data gives us an idea of how well we’re doing. Click-throughs can be measured as conversion rate and actual interest. If successful, we use this insight to push for a more aggressive, targeted sale.
From Mailchimp, we can identify emails that clicked the link and, if they didn’t complete the conversion (purchase, new lead, or hook product acquisition), we can follow up with another email a few days later, subtly asking why not and reminding them of our benefits. We might offer a similar product or invite them to generate a new lead—and so on.
What to do, say, and offer is not an exact formula. Each company, service, audience, and commercial target has its own character—and often, intuition and psychology play just as big a role as generalized inbound marketing strategies.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to write to us or leave a comment.
Thanks for reading!
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