The Digital Marketing Funnel Demystified

There’s a reason the concept of a marketing funnel (or purchasing funnel, sales funnel, conversion funnel, whatever you want to call it) has been around for over one hundred years… It works.

A digital marketing funnel is a strategic set of steps intended to lead a broad audience through a process towards a goal or conversion.

The original concept of the “purchasing funnel” is attributed to the 1898 model by American advertising advocate, E. St. Elmo Lewis.  His idea is often referred to as the AIDA-model, which stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.

Since then, the model has been adapted to suit our modern communication technologies and applications, including search engines, website personalization, CRMs, marketing automation, and social media.

Within our digital ecosystem, the customer journey is more porous and those “entry and exit” points of the customer journey are more flexible. Users can jump in at any point in the process and ultimately lead to even more awareness. This re-imagination of the process has lead some marketing experts to consider it as more of a flywheel, or cyclical journey.

This article will take you through a high-level approach to planning your digital marketing funnel. Keep in mind that every organization will be different and you may have more or fewer steps depending on the type of conversion you are aiming to achieve. Even if you have already crafted your brand’s digital marketing funnel, it is worthwhile to revisit your plan regularly to ensure your marketing activities are aligned.

Let’s start at the top:

AWARENESS

How do potential donors, customers, or clients find your brand? These are typically the ways people hear about you before they visit your website, meaning you are getting your content and brand in front of a new audience. Some potential opportunities to increase awareness include:

+ Social media (organic and paid), YouTube videos, search engine marketing, content marketing, display advertising, PR, guest blogs, search engine optimization, word of mouth, partnerships and collaborations.

The goal of this stage is to lead them to your website, where they can learn more about your organization.

INTEREST

Ok - so now you’ve piqued someone’s interest and they have clicked through to your site! This stage is key for turning someone from a passive browser to a direct member of your community. You’ll have to keep their attention (most website visitors get an impression of your brand within the first .05 seconds!). How are you educating them about your mission and offerings? How are you providing a solution to their problems? What are you doing to encourage them to stay connected to your brand? Here are a few ideas:

+ email list/newsletter sign-up, digital download (freebie), discount code sign-up, follow your social media accounts, subscribe to your blog. At this stage, you could also activate remarketing pixels to “follow” users around the internet and remind them to visit your site again.

Clearly, the goal here is to get them hooked so you have their email address or another way to connect directly and keep them engaged… Which brings us to our next step.

ENGAGEMENT

Engaging with your community frequently and consistently takes a bit more energy and effort - but this should be targeted towards the segment of users who are in the ‘consideration’ phase of the process. How are you keeping these prospects engaged in your offerings or your work?

+ demo, free trial, webinar, information session, micro-course, anything that gives them a taste of your offering

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the way brands engage with their prospects, but in some ways it’s opened up more opportunities. For organizations that were focused on in-person events, they have been forced to pivot to a digital engagement model. Here, be sure to focus on efforts that nurture leads to the next stage of conversion.

COMMITMENT / CONVERSION

Once the user has made it to the stage of the process in which they are ready to commit or convert, make sure your website has a simple donation or check-out process to streamline the user experience and reduce the risk of loosing them at the last step. Emails to remind users of items in their cart, incomplete purchases, or incomplete applications can nudge users over the edge. Customer support via live chat or AI-powered bots can be especially helpful during this phase to answer any lingering questions.

Be sure to craft a warm thank-you message to let your customers or donors know that they are appreciated! A quick and easy survey may be useful to gather insight into their process and the factors behind their decision.

ADVOCACY

Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of the funnel. At this final stage, you can focus on continuing to nurture these customers so that they become advocate for your brand. Do you have a loyalty program to encourage repeat purchases? Or maybe you could consider a referral program to incentivize word of mouth? Certain lifestyle brands or nonprofit organizations may think of selecting influential users to become a brand ambassadors.

Overall, marketing funnels simplify the user journey and help to keep you focused on continuously nurturing your community members. They are also easily measurable and analyzing them will highlight whether and where you may need to pivot your strategy.