It’s a marketing madhouse out there and you’re fighting with some of the best and the brightest for your customer’s attention. With all of the online changes that have come over the past few years, it can feel like you’re in a digital marketing downward spiral and that’s never a good feeling for you… or for your business. 

When you learn how to capitalize on the marketing funnel you give yourself an edge in the fight and you keep your business on an upward climb. Marketing funnels may seem super overwhelming at first — but you’re here and you’re reading this article — so we’re betting on the fact that you have the chops to make this work. Once you understand the basics, it’s pretty easy to make marketing funnels work for your business specifically. No two businesses are the same which means the marketing funnel is going to look different for everybody, but the fundamentals remain the same. 

Now go old school, grab a notepad and pen, and get ready to take notes.

So…What is a Marketing Funnel?

Old school, elitist marketing snots really like to use fancy lingo and terms to describe pretty simple things, which is the case here. And lucky for you, we don’t believe in gatekeeping, so we’re just going to tell you everything. So here it is in the simplest way we can put it. The marketing funnel describes/illustrates your customer’s journey with you as a company. Every moment from a customer’s first interaction with you to the time they purchase is part of the marketing funnel.

We call it a marketing funnel because the shape of a funnel does a pretty good job of illustrating what should be happening as we lure unsuspecting customers into our funnel. Initially, in a marketing funnel the approach is broader, but the further down the funnel you go, the more specific and streamlined it gets to enhance the customer experience and increase chances of customer purchasing. 

And what is pretty easy in explanation can get a little tricky in execution, which is why we’re gonna break it down for you (MC Hammer style).

Top of Funnel

The top of this handy, dandy marketing funnel is sometimes referred to as TOFU, so if you hear some marketing snot throwing that term around, just know that what they are referring to is the first part of the customer journey in the marketing funnel. The big takeaway from TOFU is that you need to be creating awareness and consideration for your company and products and you do that through content. 

Take a moment to commit this to memory. The top of the marketing funnel (TOFU) is for introducing people to your business and getting them excited about your products. If you were two strangers on the street, this is the part where you introduce yourself and give your 30-second elevator pitch. That’s all. 

Content and Channels: 

So what content do you need to create to draw in new customers and start their journey with you? In a balance of quality and quantity that could keep even the force in check, you need to create lots of various content across lots of different platforms. And that content needs to be platform-specific and speak to the audience that lives on the platform. Sound daunting enough? 

You can always start small and scale up, but here are a few types of content we recommend that you start with. Blog posts are a great way to introduce people to your company. Start by doing a little research. What —in your niche—  are people interested in? If you own a salon, consider writing blogs about hair care or rate popular hair products. If you sell shoes for dogs write blogs about pet care or how to groom your dog at home. Blogs give you a great place to capitalize on keywords and SEO to bring in new, potential customers. 

Social media is another critical part of TOFU. Your social media posts have more reach than you realize, even if you’re not using paid ads. Use current best-practice hashtags and posting strategies (those guidelines change a lot) to make sure your posts get maximum exposure. Videos are having a major moment across all social media platforms right now, so if you don’t know where to start, start there. 

Picking which social media platforms you use and if you use paid ads (which we do recommend) is up to you, your business partners, and your overall strategy. While it is important to be on social media, you don’t have to be on every platform — you just have to be where your ideal potential customers are.

Any informational content converts well, as well. People have questions and people have problems. So think about the problem that your product or service solves, and then tell people about the problem and how you solve it. Infuse this information content into basic tools like infographics and into the blogs and social posts you make

Your own website can function as a great point in TOFU. Give new visitors a popup that gives a discount for signing up for an email list and put them into an email welcome series. Ads and SEO can drive people to your site and while they’re there capture their information so you can low-key inundate them with more of your curated content. 

Simple-ish, right? 

Anyway, thanks for reading our blog today and welcome to our marketing funnel!