Why Every Business Needs a Marketing Funnel
Ever feel like your marketing efforts are all over the place? No clear path from “just browsing” to customers to add to cart? For many small business owners, the challenge isn’t attracting attention. It’s turning that attention into sales. That’s exactly where a marketing funnel comes in.
Your marketing funnel should guide potential customers through every stage of their buying journey. Let's dive into why you need a funnel and how to create one.
Table of Contents:
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Why Every Small Business Needs a Marketing Funnel
Stages of a Marketing Funnel
How to Put The Stages Into Action
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Did you know that well-structured funnels are 133% more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their marketing investments, according to HubSpot?
The marketing funnel is a strategic framework that charts the customer's journey from initial awareness of your business to becoming a loyal advocate. It's often represented by the acronym AIDA + L, which stands for awareness, interest, desire, action, and loyalty.
Why Every Small Business Needs a Marketing Funnel
Direction: The funnel offers a clear roadmap, guiding potential customers through each stage of the buying journey.
Personalized: By segmenting your audience based on funnel stages, you can deliver personalized content and offers.
Insights: A well-constructed funnel generates data that enables you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, identify bottlenecks, and make informed improvements from there.
Competition: Having a well-crafted funnel makes your business stand out from the competition.
Stages of a Marketing Funnel
Awareness: The moment when potential customers first discover your business.
Interest: When they have expressed interest in your offer — visited your website, signed up for your newsletter, or engaged with your content.
Desire: During this phase, potential customers actively consider your offer. They might compare your offerings to competitors and seek more information.
Action: When they convert into a paying customer by making a purchase.
Loyalty: After the purchase, your focus shifts to retaining and nurturing the customer, fostering loyalty, and encouraging them to become brand advocates.
What do the funnels look like?
Let's take a look at each of these stages in action in these examples:
Awareness
A person is scrolling Instagram and sees a sponsored ad; they now know of the brand.
Interest
They click the ad, land on the website, and get a pop-up to join the newsletter; they subscribe.
Desire
The subscriber receives an email highlighting product/service features, customer reviews, and a side-by-side comparison with major competitors.
Action
You send a first-time customer discount code, they use the code to purchase!
Loyalty
They receive an email inviting them to refer a friend for a fun perk.
See how, in each example above, the company leans into the funnel and helps them move to the next stage? Your audience won't just automatically find the direct path, we need to lead them!
