Generate Your Best Sales Ever This Year — Stages of a Marketing Funnel
By Hailey Nantais
I’m sure you’re already asking… Why are the stages of a marketing funnel important?
And how’s it going to help me generate the best sales I’ve ever had?
Well, marketing funnels are important because they’re what bring your product or service to the awareness of qualified leads.
Throughout all the stages of the marketing funnel, your potential clients will go through the process of decision-making. If the marketing funnel is done well, they’ll be returning all the time.
When leads are added to the top of your funnel, the goal is for them to trickle down and eventually end up purchasing from you, and after, hopefully, they become a loyal and returning customer.
A loyal customer who boasts about your product, spreading awareness by word of mouth, and referrals.
Now, that client that you once added to the top of your funnel, is adding new qualified leads to the top of your marketing funnel for you!
Pretty cool, right?
Dissecting the stages of a marketing funnel also helps you determine which of the marketing efforts you’re making are effective.
When you pay attention to each stage of your funnel, it’s easy to tell if leads are engaged up until a certain point in the funnel before losing interest.
If you notice you have so many leads who seem interested but are not reflected in your sales, you can take a closer look at the stages of your marketing funnel.
Once you determine where they’re falling off, you can make some adjustments to better the areas where you’re losing people.
So, what do the stages of a marketing funnel look like?
If you’re like me and need fun acronyms to remember things. I got you! I made up this kind of silly one which totally works.
The Stages of an Excellent Marketing Funnel
AIDARR (Anytime I Daydream, Another Rabbit Relaxes)
(1) Awareness (Anytime)
Adding leads to the top of your funnel starts by making them aware of your business and what you have to offer. You can do this through blogs, word of mouth, ads, social media content, or great SEO on your website. (1)
(2) Interest (I)
The second stage of the marketing funnel is to get your leads interested in what you have to offer. You can do this by offering samples, trial periods, freebies, case studies, email collection, reviews, or by publishing content they’ll find interesting and helpful.
Once you peak their interest, they’ll likely move down the funnel onto the next stage.
(3) Desire (Daydream)
This is where the lead who’s been sliding down the funnel decides that they really like your product or service and actually want it.
This is a great stage of the funnel to offer them a promotion, discount, limited-time offer, showcase benefits, and social proof, send email sequences their way and try to tip their decision to buy.
If these techniques are effective they’ll continue to flow down to the next stage of your marketing funnel.
(4) Action (Another)
The action stage of the marketing funnel is where you hit them with a super effective landing page, killer product descriptions, easy checkout, and a hard-to-resist offer.
If your lead abandons their cart in this stage, be sure to follow up with an abandoned cart sequence. (2) You’ll be surprised to find out later in this article, how many sales are recovered just from sending out abandoned cart emails!
The action stage of your marketing funnel is the most critical to keeping your lead on track to making a purchase.
(5) Repeats (Rabbit)
After a customer purchases from you once, you’ll want to make sure you continue building the relationship and delivering value, so you can acquire repeat sales.
Repeat sales are wonderful because they don’t require adding new qualified leads to the top of the marketing funnel again.
These customers already know they like your product since they’ve bought it before, and they take less convincing since they don’t need to be guided through the funnel.
(6) Referrals (Relaxes)
Offering incentives to customers who refer their friends and family is a blissfully effortless technique to generate new leads. You can sleep in on Monday morning since your customers are adding new leads to the top of your funnel for you!
Special offers specifically for repeat customers will continue to build the relationship and inspire more sales from them in the future.
How Do You Get Each Stage of Your Marketing Funnel to Work Efficiently?
Well, here are some tips. Let’s start off with awareness. Your potential clients first need to become aware of your product or service.
Incorporating spectacular SEO into your website copy and blogs is an amazing way to get new leads to discover you, and jump into the top of your funnel.
You can also add leads to the top of your funnel by producing engaging social media content. (Like Tiktoks, which are HUGE right now in marketing).
Once you have them in the awareness phase of the funnel, you can then pique their interest by offering things like webinars. People love to learn, so offer them some knowledge in the form of a webinar. If it applies, in this webinar you can explain the value of what it is that you do.
You can also move them along the funnel by providing case studies. Consumers love to see proof of how your product or service has helped others. This makes the benefits of what they’re considering buying from you measurable.
Offering proof speaks to their rational mind, which will keep them interested, and also quickly move them along to the next stage of the marketing funnel — desire.
Opt-ins are a valuable tool at your disposal to move your leads from awareness to interest.
On your website, you can request the leads’ email in exchange for an e-book, newsletter, webinar, or some freebie.
Having their email is invaluable to you since you can use it to remind them of your product periodically, send them special offers, and begin building a relationship with them.
Samples and trial periods are another great way to pique customers’ interest and move them down the funnel toward desire.
When leads know they can try your product risk-free, they have more consumer confidence and are more likely to move ahead to desire, and action. (3)
Once your lead is in the action stage of the marketing funnel, you’ll want to have a strong landing page that addresses any possible objections they may have.
What Do Objections Look Like?
- Can I afford the cost of this product?
You can break the price down to things like the price of a coffee per day, or explain how the value the product will add to their life is so much greater than the monetary cost.
- Do I really need it?
Showcase the value of the product, and give social proof when you can.
- Where will I find time to use the product?
Break it down to things like 10 minutes a day… the time they would have spent scrolling through reels on their phone. Now they can instead, spend that 10 minutes adding value to their life.
- Can I return the product?
Consumers want to know that they’re making a good decision when buying. Make sure you include your return policy and state any guarantees that you have. This will help them to feel comfortable and confident in buying with you.
- If it’s a subscription, can I cancel it?
Make sure you mention if they’re able to cancel anytime, otherwise they might be scared away thinking they may get locked into a terrifying lifelong contract.
Use Clear Product Descriptions
This is important — make sure those descriptions focus on the benefits of your product or service, rather than the features.
Highlighting the benefits will allow the consumer to imagine how the product or service will enhance their own life.
The reason anyone buys anything is that they want it to benefit them, and enhance their life in some way.
Not necessarily because of any features the product has… even if they’re super cool.
Make Checkout as Easy as Possible for Them
Having a difficult time at checkout may freak out your lead and cause them to jump ship, right at the last step of the purchasing process.
If your lead does back out of a purchase, be sure to follow up with an abandoned cart email sequence.
According to research, 44.1% of abandoned cart emails are opened, and almost a third (29.9%) are led to a recovered purchase. (4)
That is HUGE.
These stats show that abandoned cart emails are a great opportunity to recover potentially lost sales, and a devastating missed opportunity if left unsent.
At this stage of the marketing funnel, your client has purchased from you. Congratulations!
Now it’s time to turn them into loyal returning customers.
At this point, they’re only moving through one more stage of your marketing funnel. Since they already know they like your product, they are worlds easier to convince.
This last stage of your marketing funnel is an awesome opportunity for you to build a genuine and solid relationship with your customers.
Utilize this opportunity by sending them emails with special offers, thank you gifts & rewards for their loyalty — believe me this goes a long way.
Offering incentives for referrals will also save you a ton of work with new client acquisition. (5)
Because offering incentives for referrals will have your previous customers adding new qualified leads to the top of your funnel — for you! Which is worth giving them a little gift for.
After all, them buying your product is great for you, and if you have an awesome product that you’re passionate to share, it’s great for them too.
I hope you found this article helpful, and are now feeling radiant and ready to fine-tune and freshen your funnel.
Now, go get on your way to making this year the most sales you’ve ever seen!
If you enjoyed this article and are looking for advice on how to fine-tune any of the stages in your marketing funnel, reach out here or sign up for our newsletter and get your free e-book on the 5 best copywriting strategies for your business.
References:
- Brian Keltner, The Anatomy of Perfect Marketing and Sales Funnels, LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/anatomy-perfect-marketing-sales-funnel-brian-keltner-/?trk=public_post, 8/17/22, Accessed 2/8/23
- Yaniv Navot, The art and science of killer abandoned cart emails, Dynamic Yield, https://www.dynamicyield.com/article/abandoned-cart-emails/#:~:text=Abandoned%20cart%20emails%20are%20emails,lead%20to%20a%20recovered%20sale.Accessed 02/08/23
- Amazon Ads, A Complete Guide to the Marketing Funnel, https://advertising.amazon.com/en-ca/library/guides/marketing-funnel#:~:text=Caption%3A%20There%20are%20four%20stages,convert%20and%204, Accessed 02/08/23
- Sam Makad, 7 Pro Tips to Build An Awesome Sales Funnel, Nimble, 08/16/18, https://www.nimble.com/blog/pro-tips-building-sales-funnel/, Accessed 02/08/23
- Brad Ward, [Infographic] The Remarketing Report: Q1 2015, SaleCycle, 08/02/21, https://www.salecycle.com/blog/stats/remarketing-report-q1-2015/, Accessed 02/08/23
