It is not necessary to point out that the new customers captured become benefits for the company. For this reason, a set of well-designed attraction and acquisition strategies can give very good results to improve sales.
Let’s take into account the rapid expansion of social media as a means of advertising and marketing for companies. It is logical to think about using web tools as a focus of attraction for new potential buyers or users. But how do you get Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or https://www.paperhelp.org/ followers to become people willing to buy products or services from your company?
From the image of a funnel, it is easy to understand roughly what funnel marketing is and how it benefits your company. Funnel marketing can be defined as a process that aims to capture and filter the company’s potential customers so that they become real customers.
To capture and filter, a series of means and resources are used to attract the buyer to the product so that he/she considers the possibility of making a purchase.
A Funnel Marketing plan that works is one that achieves a continuous “lead” flow of new customers.
Within Funnel Marketing, several phases can be identified, the classification of which varies slightly depending on how the plan is carried out, but broadly speaking, there are three most important phases.
Table of Contents
Top of the funnel (TOFU)
Seen as a funnel, it is the “widest” part of the plan, where the most important thing is to attract an audience. Traditionally, advertising in the classic media, newspaper publications, and billboard or marquee ads would be the most important resources in this phase.
However, the massification of the Internet allows new advertising strategies, some more evident than others to users, for example, banner ads, which would be part of easily identifiable advertising, and social profiles or the corporate blog which, depending on how it is approached, can be more or less advertising.
At this stage, the important thing is that a large number of people “talk” about the brand, products, or services. For example, using traditional channels, sharing content, or commenting on social networks.
Reaching a large audience is a good first step in funnel marketing, but how to filter the audience to separate potential customers from those who are not?
Middle of the funnel (MOFU)
Your company already has a good number of followers. Let’s say you have achieved the goal set in the marketing plan. But, the bad news: having x followers does not mean having x customers.
There is no need to think about it. There are followers who are not and will not be your customers no matter how hard you try. The reasons? There are all kinds of reasons, from location issues to a different age or gender target than the end consumer.
In this phase, the objective is to get those who could become potential customers to have more direct contact with the products or services, that is to say, to awaken their interest with a small sample of everything they could get from the company as customers.
Free samples, tastings, lectures and talks, events on social networks, and always effective contests and product sweepstakes can be among the strategies to identify and filter. (It is not necessary to indicate that in sweepstakes of our products or services, only those customers with real possibilities of enjoying them would have access, especially if it is clearly indicated in the bases).
Traditional advertising offered the advantage of reaching a large audience, so in the TOFU, it was very effective. However, in the MOFU, the Internet channels have many measurement and analysis tools that facilitate the identification of potential customers.
And what to do with the rest of the followers? The fact that not all followers are customers does not mean that they should be ignored; on the one hand, there will be those who are not customers now but perhaps in the future, and on the other hand, there will be followers who will never be customers. But, in both cases, they can be good collaborators to continue capturing an audience. Therefore, never neglect the TOFU.
Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)
You have achieved a good audience, and the flow of followers is constant. Besides, you already know who are the potential customers, so it is time to convert them into customers of your company.
In this case, the goal is to detect which of the potential customers are ready to make a purchase, they have enough information about the brand and the products, so it is time to direct them to the sales department, that is, to get them to formalize a purchase and become customers.
A simple and straightforward plan
The correct funnel marketing plan will be the one that achieves a continuous flow of customers; in the event that followers get “stuck” in some process, the causes should be analyzed in order to modify where the failure is.
Followers-potential customers should see as “natural” and direct the step from the moment they get to know the brand to the moment they make a purchase. Therefore, time analysis and measurement will be important throughout the process.
Read also: Top 5 Benefits of Marketing Funnels for Small Businesses