WHAT IS A MARKETING FUNNEL?
Many marketing funnel terms are being used out there. All this marketing jargon can be confusing for the new entrepreneur or the technically challenged people. The world of business has ever become so complex with software and programs. Business owners are being told that they need new shiny toys in order to succeed. Yes, tools do make it easier for businesses to scale and automate. But unnecessary expenses can be saved if people just understood the basics of how modern website traffic is being persuaded into purchasing products.
Marketing funnels differ from industry to industry, market to market, time to time but there are key elements in every marketing funnel that should be put into place so that businesses can strategically find and convert potential customers that visit their websites.
How does a marketing funnel work?
I am going to show you how a basic marketing funnel works. And how a prospect goes from being:
- cold traffic
- to warm traffic
- to paying customer traffic
You want to have these three category of website traffic separate. Meaning that the messaging must be different to each category. It’s all about the relationships that you build. There are some marketers out there that market and sell solely based on scarcity. I would say this works best if a good chunk of the industry know who you are. And people have heard of you and have used your products. The market is too tapped out for new entrepreneurs to enter the space of these informational products that seem to be the hot ticket item…the rise of the “self-made Entrepreneur”.
How Long Does It Take To Get A Customer?
My typical substantial conversion rates come after 90 days. That’s with a average to moderate ad spend. But it’s all relative. Its all about the sample size. If you spend enough (and smartly) to test and have a big enough sample size to adjust you can optimize the time is takes to convert a sale. Just like in cold calling; it’s all about the numbers game. How many conversations does it take to get a sale? The more you spend on ads, the faster you’ll get a big enough sample size to optimize.
It’s just not that simple anymore to make a sale on the first time someone visits your page. Unless you have a product other than informational like a home personal robot the meal preps your food (that would be awesome). Getting a customer these days is very much like dating. You wouldn’t ask the person you went on a blind date with to marry you, would you? Maybe you would and you’re just (lack of a better term) ballsy (yes that’s for you too ladies). But statistically speaking, you’re not gonna have much luck with that. That’s why you have to speak to the customer depending on what stage they are at.
Structure of a Basic Marketing Funnel
If you are a new business looking to create a marketing funnel website; here are 4 product progressions in a basic marketing funnel(targeted to cold traffic:
- Lead Magnet
- Trip Wire
- Upsell
- Core Product
Lead Magnet
This is typically a free offer that will be given in exchange of the person’s information. ie: name, phone number, email, etc. Depending on your business it could be anything from a e-book, report, template, or membership trial. Be creative. What is something that you could give of value that is worth someone giving you the permission to speak to them?
Trip Wire
This is a product that again hold a lot of potential value at a low cost to the customer. Trip wires basically should (at the least) cover the cost of your ad spend. If you profit from a trip wire…power to you. It used to be a popular strategy to offer a product for free, but the customer just had to pay for shipping. Whatever strategy you come up with; it should be priced in a way that you are breaking even with your ad spend.
Upsell
This could be either a upgraded version of the tripe wire or something just bundled with the trip wire that will make the use of the tripwire much easier if they upgraded to the upsell. If you ever watch infomercials at night; they do a very good job in creating the need for the upsell. An example of an upsell to a book trip wire could be a digital copy (immediate availability) plus notes. Depending on your social proof, someone may be willing to be your notes of a book (if not your own book).
Core Product
This is ultimately where you want you customer to be led to. It may take one day or it may take one year. Either way, you’ll want to make sure you progressively lead them up to this point. It will be very hard for someone to give you their email address if you’re asking for a $500 item up front.
Traffic Flow of a Basic Funnel
You can adapt this to any kind of product your business sells
Above is how a customer is taking through the funnel once they click onto the landing page. The landing page can be your home page of your website. Either way, if you are looking for conversions of people who visit your visit website; you'll want to take them on some kind of funnel. If you are building an audience to help create trust and value within the customer…that is a different story. You may not even need this 4 page process. But you’ll want to provide them value however way you can. You can then create an audience to market to by targeting those who hang out on your website. That is another topic I cover here.
Pixels: The Essential Part That You Cannot Dismiss
The use of Facebook’s Ad Pixel is essential. This is how you are going to track where people are going and where they are stopping during the funnel process. And whatever step they stop on, you retarget those groups of people based on that stopping point.
Again, these pixels will allow you to track the movement of the traffic of your website. You can supplement your analysis of movement with google analytics.
The Message of Retargeting
When you retarget a particular group of people who visited your site but didn’t buy the core product, you lead with whatever step they left in the process and get them to move toward purchasing that core product. Or you want to at least get the customer to upgrade to whatever they opted in for. For example, if someone in the funnel below opted in for the upsell of the book but didn’t opt in for the $497 core product, then an ad would be delivered to those exact people with a message that mentions about what they opted in for (the book), how much value did they get out of it, and what more value can you provide to them (the core product).
No matter what kind of business you're in, there is use of a marketing funnel. Even restaurants can use a marketing funnel. The key ingredient of a funnel is to always provide value first. If there is any golden rule in marketing - it is to give give give. What free value can you provide a customer? Recipe book? Free side order? Free samples? Coupons? Be creative. Be resourceful. In time - it will pay off.