Welcome to the marketing funnel. Are you familiar with it? It helps companies engage with their customers, mapping out their journey from start to finish.
The marketing funnel is made of layers, like a cake in the shape of a tornado or ice cream cone. It consists of the following stages:
- Awareness (top)
- Consideration (middle)
- Conversion (bottom)
The bottom layer is one of the most difficult to achieve, but it can be done. You’ve already captured your audiences’ attention; now, you just need to make the sale or close the deal.
What is Lower Funnel Marketing?
The bottom of the marketing funnel is called the stage of conversion. This is where the customer turns from just a window shopper to an investor in your company. How? By successfully clearing their shopping cart by completing their purchase.
You may notice when looking at a diagram of the funnel that the bottom-most piece is the smallest. There is a reason for that. Let’s take a glance at the customer’s journey from the top.
Getting Customers To the Lower Funnel
The top of the funnel is drawn as the largest space. Here, marketing is used to initially draw customers to a brand, product, or service. The large space represents the number of potential customers you are communicating with.
This space is identified as your target audience. Search engine optimization (SEO), blog posts, and infographics are used to grab their attention.
The size decreases in the middle of the funnel, but it is still large compared to the bottom. The smaller size indicates the number of customers who are not just aware but are now considering purchasing.
Email marketing efforts are now in motion, communicating with the customers through a personalized experience. Ads are actively shown to customers who have browsed products or services, keeping your company top of mind.
And that is how they land in the lower funnel, representing the number of customers who are on the track of becoming qualified customers.
Examples of What To Include In Lower Funnel Marketing
Each stage of the funnel focuses on a specific type of marketing. In the lower funnel, examples to include are as follows:
- Trial offers or demos to allow customers to get a taste for what you are offerring
- Q & A to be proactive, answering questions before your customer has a chance to contact you
- Sharing reviews, otherwise known as providing social proof
- Include case studies, another form of proof that you aren’t selling a scam
- Providing price comparisons
- Using email marketing campaigns, especially to nudge customers with abandoned carts
- Adding a survey to gain feedback, giving you insight on how to enhance the customer’s experience
- Persuade customers, give them a sense of urgency to respond or react
Using Metrics In the Marketing Funnel
Metrics help you track the customer’s journey, measuring their activity on your website, how many times they have clicked on a link from an email, and more.
There are four key metrics you should measure across the stages of the funnel:
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) - how much does it cost for you to market and acquire new customers?
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) - what customers provide value to your company through continuous sales?
- Conversion Rates
- Top of the funnel: Total number of potential customers that convert to qualified leads
- Middle of the funnel: Total number of qualified leads that sign-up or subscribe
- Bottom of the funnel: Total number of subscribers that convert to paying customers
- Conversion Rate Per Channel - this metric is specific to the marketing channel you want to measure. Paid searches, emails, and referrals are a few examples.
Additional metrics to consider, especially in the lower funnel, include:
- Number of purchases
- Earnings per lead
- Number of sign-ups or subscribers
- Return on investment (ROI)
- Cart abandonment
- Cost per lead
If you find that your conversion rates and revenue are rising, you must be doing something right. But if you discover that you are getting more ghost carts and are spending an excess to retain a lead, you may want to re-evaluate your strategy.
How Can You Successfully Achieve Conversion?
You can incorporate tactics into your marketing strategy to boost your conversion rates. But you’ll need to convince your audience. That shouldn’t be hard as you’ve pulled them into the funnel this far.
Pretend that you are on a game show and prove to your customers that you are worthy of their business. Let’s explore some ways to do so.
Remove Obstacles
What do your metrics tell you about your customer’s behavior? Are you finding that a high percentage are abandoning their carts? What could be resisting them from the sale?
When the majority is at stake, it could mean that something is deterring the customer from sealing the deal. For example, is the cost for shipping too high, or are there too many steps involved in the check-out process?
Engage with your customers that have completed a sale, asking them for feedback on their experience. This can help to reduce friction.
Re-marketing
Ever browsed a website, looking at items of interest to later find them displayed on social media ads, or following you across the internet wherever you go? This is an example of re-marketing or re-targeting.
Websites can place a cookie on a device, such as a PC. That cookie is unique to the customer. It allows companies to continue advertising items of interest even when they are not on their direct platform.
Re-marketing helps drive conversion, personalizing ads to the customer to draw their interest. Introduce this tactic and watch the change in your click-through rates.
Promotions and Upsells
Who doesn’t like an appealing promotional offer or discount? Yes, it could temporarily hurt your bottom line in the short term, but if the customer stays long-term, it will balance the playing field.
You have control over the type of promotion you want to offer, and how long the promotion runs. You could even offer a counter-promotion if the customer doesn’t react in the original amount of time.
A relative to promotions upsells provide customers with an option. The basis of the upsell is their original search.
Offer items that compliment the original item of interest. Or if the customer is using a free version of a product, offer them a trial version allowing them to test the product in more depth.
Email Marketing
Use email marketing to send emails or newsletters to customers, encouraging them to complete the check-out process.
Include clear, concise call-to-actions (CTAs). For example, encourage your customers to “Buy Now.” Stay true to your brand's values and voice.
Remember, you want the customer to release any fear of your product and service, turning it into loyalty and a long-term relationship.
Why is Full Funnel Marketing Important?
Shopping is not what it used to be. Back in the day, brick-and-mortar stores were the go-to when it came to shopping. Fast forward to today, there are a plethora of businesses to choose from, with the majority having an eCommerce business to browse through.
Because of the variety, full-funnel marketing is important to conquer. Customers are no longer looking at billboards or browsing catalogs to shop. Instead, they are viewing multiple online platforms at the click of their mouse.
Each stage of the funnel has its purpose; it’s linear. But the customer’s journey is not. If you have two customers in front of you, their journeys will be completely different.
So why is full-funnel marketing important? Here are three reasons:
- New leads and new customer relations are revolving. It saves you time, too, versus only waiting on word of mouth to spread.
- Cold leads can be turned to warm leads. Just like turning on the hot water, it could take a little time, but customers can warm up to you if you put in the effort to engage with them, to involve them.
- Messages are pre-crafted, allowing for the right message to be sent to the targeted individual at the right time.
The Bottom Line
Congratulations on all of your hard work. Your marketing efforts have paid off, and the customers are attached to the line. Now, you just need to reel them in and out of the water.
Don’t give up when you get to the conversion stage. You are so close! Finding ways to keep your brand on the customers' radar is important, and don’t let your competitors sweep them off their feet.
Continue to engage with your customers during this stage. Reassure them that they won’t regret their decision. Eliminate their fears to build the relationship and bridge the gap between the forgotten shopping cart and the rewarding sale.
Help make conversion appear natural in your business by incorporating the magic of email marketing. QuaGrowth is an email marketing agency on standby, waiting to help you optimize opportunities and resolve pain points.
Visit QuaGrowth to unlock your hidden revenues through email marketing.
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Effective Bottom Funnel Marketing Tactics
