Warm Up Your Customers With Marketing Funnels

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Do you, in all honesty, expect visitors to convert the first time they see your brand or visit your landing page? That’s perfectly possible -- in a perfect world. But since we’re not in Utopia, it’s safe to say that if it does happen, you were just lucky.

But you can’t very well place your marketing strategies in the hands of Lady Luck. And as marketers, you should know that the best way to convert audiences is to warm them up. How to do that? You warm them up through marketing funnels.

Table of Contents

What is a Marketing Funnel?

How Does a Marketing Funnel Work?

Non-linear Funnels

Difference Between B2B and B2C Funnels

Benefits of Marketing Funnels

Examples of Marketing Funnels

Tools for Creating Marketing Funnels

What Happens After the Marketing Funnel

The steps in generating revenue are a multi-part process during which you have to groom people step-by-step before making them commit to making a  purchase. 

The sales representative of a shoe store is grooming you when they inquire about your size when they show you a number of shoes for you to choose from, assist you in trying on a few pairs, and inform you about the available deals. 

The very act of giving you the information and support needed to influence your decision about buying is what marketing funnels are for. 

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is an easy-to-understand guide of a customer's journey from finding out about a company to either purchasing their product or utilizing their service. Marketers utilize marketing funnels, which are alternatively called sales funnels, to help them determine what stage customers are in the process of buying goods/services. 

The funnel helps marketers identify when to approach customers with relevant content that matches their current decision-making state. 

It is described as a funnel because the amount of customers moving from discovery to the decision to purchase reduces as they filter down each step of the funnel. Think about how wide the mouth of a funnel is and how small the bottom is.

The funnel is categorized into three sections by marketers:

• Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

This is the biggest section of the funnel; it is where you will have to push for the most traffic. In this section, consumers become aware of your product. Online advertisements, social media, and content marking are vital in drawing people into this funnel section. 

• Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

It gets thinner in this part of the funnel. At this point, you have to start the lead nurturing process. The aim is to increase the interest of those who are curious about your product. Newsletters and ebooks are contents that can be utilized in this section.

• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) 

This is the final stage of the funnel. Consumers should be presented with demonstrations and pricing of the products to prod them towards conversion and taking action. 

These are the sections of the funnel that show the stages a user undergoes to move from being aware of a product to making a purchase.

How Does A Marketing Funnel Work?

Marketing funnels work by highlighting the stages of the journey of a buyer from discovery to purchase. These steps help figure out what content you need to provide to incite people to move even further down the funnel. 

The number of stages in the marketing funnels vary, but it usually follows the AIDA model. Sometimes, this model is adjusted to include an additional step (Decision Stage), but it works depending on your marketing tactics.

Here are the stages:

• Awareness

This is the first stage of the funnel. At this stage, consumers recognize that there are possible solutions to resolve a challenge they are faced with. It is during this search that the consumer discovers your product either through campaigns or in the course of their research. They become aware of your product for the first time. 

There are generally two possibilities that can arise from this stage. The first is if the products and services you offer are not enough in resolving the challenge they are faced with, they are forced to leave and continue their search elsewhere. 

The other is that your products and services have enough relevance and possibility in solving whatever challenge they have. This would cause them to hang back to find out more about your brand. 

Once they have selected your brand, further research would be undertaken to learn about your products and service and raise their interest in what you offer. 

Below are some of the best strategies for interacting with people at the awareness stage:

• Short videos

A short video highlighting the unique value of your company to your viewers is important. It can also include how the company came to be and the vision of the company. By utilizing short videos, you can also introduce your services and highlight their relevance to attract new customers.

• Infographics

Infographics are used to highlight relevant facts and stats to captivate the attention of your viewers. Infographics also assist your visitors in understanding your company and its products and services easily.  

• Social media updates

Ensure to update your social media frequently. This helps in building both your brand identity and interacting with your consumers. You can also use social media to reach out to a new audience by posting your short videos and infographics. Infographics and short videos have proven to be the best way to gain awareness via Social media. 

There are a few other means that can be utilized when building or creating awareness, which includes podcasts, referrals, SEO search, online advertising, and email marketing. 

• Interest

When potential customers have discovered your product, they will go further down the funnel into the interest stage. At this stage, the customers become curious about your company and the product and services it renders. 

You are to build a relationship with your consumers at the interest stage. It is helpful to generate more targeted information and content that will guide the customer further down the funnel. The purpose of the targeted information and content is to raise awareness and interest in your brand. 

Below are some of the best strategies for interacting with people at the interest stage:

• How-to guides

How-to guides provide useful content and information to your viewers. More helpful guides can increase the frequency of your viewers’ interaction with your brand. 

• Video tutorials

Similar to how-to guides, video tutorials provide a face for your company and are essential in furthering the relationship with your viewers. Videos involve your viewers, and the beneficial aspects also help your viewers classify your brand as a knowledgeable one. 

• Email newsletters

Frequent email newsletters ensure that your product remains at the forefront of your viewer's mind. Some tools allow you to automate the sending of your emails. This will enable you to regularly send email content such as blog posts and relevant videos to your viewers that keep their interest in your brand.

There are a few other tactics that you can employ to raise the interest in your product or brand such as targeted advertisements, blog post guides, competitions, promo giveaways, social media promotions, and webinars. 

• Desire/Consideration

The consideration stage is where potential customers appraise your products and services, to determine if your business is a viable option for resolving the challenges they are facing. 

The customers at this stage are not assured of their decision to choose your business, although they show significant interest in your products and services. They will be weighing out their options, comparing your business and brand to your competition. 

Providing toolkits and demos, answering questions about your products and services, and highlighting the benefits is what you want to do at this stage. 

Below are some of the best strategies for interacting with people at the consideration stage:

• Videos

Videos are a great way of showcasing detailed and in-depth analysis of your brand, as well as assisting your viewers in visualizing your products and services. A thoroughly planned video can easily be a great asset in placing your product well above your competition and giving your viewers the nudge into the next stage in the funnel, which could be the decision or action marketing stage. 

• Online reviews and endorsements

A business or brand prospers when reviews and endorsements acknowledge its products and services. It is essential to build the trustworthiness of your brand by encouraging online reviews and endorsements. Having excellent reviews ensures that your brand is prevalent in your viewers' minds. 

• Email reports and guides

Emails can be used to send guides on how to use your products and services to your potential customers. Videos that highlight the value of your brand also helps in moving your viewer towards selecting your brand. 

Other tactics you can employ to enhance consideration include About Us pages, forums, templates, live chat, targeted blog content, product videos, resources and product lists, demonstrations, and templates and toolkits.

• Decision

The decision stage comes right after the consideration stage in the funnel. Here, potential customers are prospects that have filtered down their available options and only need a little push to enable them to take action. This is sometimes considered as an extension of the Desire Stage.

Usually, the customers give you hints that they are at the decision stage by interacting with the call-to-action found on your website. They do this by filling out contact forms, requests for quotes, moving an item to their shopping carts, or filling out surveys. These calls to action assist you in knowing when to push your brand to the customer. 

At this stage, you really want to highlight exactly what your product offers. You can do this by informing them of how your product can help resolve their challenges and why it can do this better than any other product. To pull this off well, your marketing and sales teams need to present a unified front and work together in nurturing your prospect. 

Below are some of the best strategies for interacting with people at this stage:

• Product and pricing pages

The product and pricing pages give relevant information to your prospects on deciding if their budget fits with what you offer with your products or services.

• Specials and offers

Discounts and special prices can be pivotal for any potential customer who is undecided about selecting your business. Offering a special price may influence your viewers' decisions and get them to pick your brand. 

• Customer testimonials

Testimonials can boost the confidence of leads in trusting your business, showing your viewers testimonials from previous clients that highlight how great your products and services help in boosting their confidence significantly.

There are a few other tactics that you can employ to drive decisions towards your product or brand, such as free trials, detailed product and specifications page, surveys, sign-up forms, and contact us pages.

• Action

This stage of the marketing funnel begins when your prospects arrive at the end decision and are ready to take action with your brand. In other words, this is the stage at which your prospects finally convert to customers. 

Here, your company's sales team can come into play and help the prospects through the payment process. At this point, you should watch these customers closely as there's a good chance of them purchasing from your brand again. 

So, you should send remarketing ads to keep them close to your brand. If you offered exceptional services, your customers could recommend you to other prospects and help you fill your sales funnel from the top. 

For this last stage, the best way to reach people include:

• Remarketing campaigns

The aim of remarketing campaigns to keep up with customers or prospects who have come in contact with your brand and encourage them to come back. Here, you should present them with items they viewed in the past marketing funnel stages. 

These remarketed ads serve as a very effective means to push your customers or prospects into the final action. To do this, you can set up an email campaign and send reminders to customers concerning products they've previously viewed or abandoned in their shopping carts. 

• Forms

This method serves as a major conversion means. Forms could be created for different purposes, such as for newsletter subscriptions, contact, or even credit card info for purchases. 

Concise and neatly designed forms are important in pushing users to take the necessary action. Ideally, the simpler the form, the lesser the odds of your targets tapping out of the whole conversion process. 

• Live demos

Live demos are a great way to demonstrate how your product or service works and convince users that it would be helpful to them. When they can see how it's utilized, then it becomes easier to take action. 

You can employ several other tactics to push prospects to take action, including email onboarding, discounts and tempting offers, comparison to competitors, Contact Us pages, pricing tables, guarantees, and subscriptions. 

Non-linear Funnels

The marketing funnel that was described above is the traditional marketing funnel, but the process of purchasing is non-stop and undergoes continual evolution. 

This is due to either change in consumer behavior or technological advancements, which results in the linear version, often not detailing fully how the marketing funnels work. The marketing funnel evolves into a nonlinear process as more information is collected that the options available to consumers increase. 

The consumers frequently alternate between the consideration stage and the decision stage several times as they acquire more information. This process allows them to broaden their scope of options that were once narrowed, but the consumer still continues to gather information to narrow the scope of the options available to them once more. 

Consumers can also be injected into the marketing funnel at various stages. There will be cases of consumers coming into the funnel at the intent or consideration stage or even consumers moving directly from awareness to action bypassing all other steps. 

The marketing funnel's linear version is still instrumental in providing a simplified view of a customer's journey. It allows marketers to visualize how their customers interact, gather information, and execute purchasing decisions. It is vital to always have in mind that this is the simplified view, and customers can navigate through the marketing funnel in various ways. 

Difference Between B2B And B2C Marketing Funnels

So, what is the difference in the marketing funnel between B2B and B2C marketing? The stages of the funnel are precisely the same. However, the differences lie in how each buyer or company navigates through the funnel. 

Let us compare how B2B buyers travel through the funnel when compared to B2C buyers:

• Targeting

Generally, B2C businesses products are targeted towards individual buyers because their purchases are regarded as personal. This simply means that the consumer does not require additional permission from anyone other than him/herself before making a purchase. 

This is contrary to B2B buyers who typically have many processes to get through before they can finalize a purchase. The average number of people in the B2B buying group ranges from 3-6 people, and this indicates that there are several influencers in the decision-making process. 

In a company, the people involved in the process include the staff who needs the item, the staff who does the research for potential suppliers, the finance department who will release the funds, and the purchasing manager who completes the transaction.

So, consumers navigating the B2B marketing funnel are more likely to take a much longer time than a B2C customer. 

• Motivation

Expectedly, the motivation behind the purchases of a B2C and B2B consumer is vastly different. To put this in perspective, we are comparing a personal purchase to a business purchase decision. 

The purchasing decisions made by B2C consumers are usually emotionally driven and impulsive due to the personal motivation behind them. In short, impulse and urgency marketing techniques can be applied to B2C offers. 

Alternatively, B2B purchasing decisions are logical, rational, and result-driven. It takes time, patience, and is usually information-driven. 

This is influenced by the number of people the purchases have an effect on. Also, B2B purchases cost significantly more; hence these purchases have to be done rationally. 

• Sales Cycle & Decision Time

The sales cycles of a B2B purchaser is noticeably longer than that of a B2C purchaser. This is due to various reasons, a few which have been mentioned above. The purchases involving B2B have a high price point and are intended to have longer life cycles. 

Think about a company in need of paper. Will they purchase a single ream of copy paper, or will they purchase boxes of them? They will opt for the latter because there are more people within their organization that is in need of the paper, and they don’t want to be bothered with going through the entire process of purchasing quite often. Plus, they usually get discounts for bulk orders.

And with the number of people going through the paperwork to reach a decision, you can expect the results of their decision to take a while.

• Customer Relationships

Customer relationships differ quite a bit between B2B and B2C purchasers. An illustration to better understand the difference is when a B2C purchaser makes a purchase online. It is unlikely that the purchaser would speak to anyone from the brand before finalizing the purchase. However, whenever there is a B2B purchase, a sales representative would be assigned to nurture the purchaser through the marketing funnel until the point of finalizing the purchase. The business uses the sales rep to build trust and loyalty to raise the chance of a repeat purchase. 

Benefits Of Marketing Funnels

Prospects are driven away from your product when you try to push a sale aggressively. This is why businesses and brands have moved away from using pamphlets to create engaging, useful, and fun content all intended to attract prospects. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people think this is all digital marketing has to offer. They do not consider that just because a person is going through either their page or post does not necessarily mean they want to become a customer right that very moment. 

This leads to them driving away both viewer and prospect in an attempt to make a sale. People hate being pushed towards making a purchase. 

That's the reason why every business needs to create and follow a marketing funnel. It has a lot of benefits but ultimately leads to an increased profit from investments. 

A marketing funnel follows the stages and steps to influence the decision of the customer. It eliminates the need to force the customer to make a purchase but instead leads them smoothly to the conclusion of a purchase. 

Below are a few points on how a marketing funnel can help in growing your business. 

1. Makes Marketing Easier

A marketing funnel maps out all that you need to do step by step in accordance with the interest of your audience. To maximize this, you have to create a target persona for your audience. Ensure you make it as precise as possible. 

This persona would then work with the funnel to drive sales for your product. This, in turn, makes marketing a breeze. To implement a marketing funnel, all you need is a market funnel tool to create the pages, forms, or webinars you need. This can be done without hiring any programmer or designer to implement or create what you need for your business. 

2. It Helps You Pick A Marketing Strategy

A marketing funnel prevents wasting of investment in marketing strategies that yield little or no results. A sales funnel helps you understand what marketing tool or business model you should employ to succeed. 

Your marketing funnel can assist in choosing where and at what stage to focus on your clients. Some marketers can target clients who have navigated their way to the Decision section already. This narrows the target and makes it easier for the marketers to influence the client towards the funnel's Action stage. 

Whichever stage the customer you are trying to target is in, what’s important is you know how to attract them.

3. Content Becomes More Appropriate

The language used to describe products, publish content, or engage with clients have a profound effect on how they can be moved further down the marketing funnel. Immediately you are able to recognize what stage of the marketing funnel a client is; it becomes easy to adopt a more suitable tone and terms, publish targeted content or offer special discounts that allow you to relate better to their issues and needs. 

Every content must cater to the needs of the reader. You have to learn to address any fear they might have, create content on their interest, and include a lot more things to make the content convincing. By utilizing the marketing funnel, content marketers know what stage the buyer is at and can choose relevant topics and language to connect to the reader. It can also help you determine whether you need to use short-form content or long-form content.

If you are in the content marketing business, it pays to understand what step of the funnel your audience is in to make your content more effective.

4. Lesser Risk and Better Forecast

Leads would be continuously driven to your marketing funnel, but only the clients who make purchases make it out of the funnel. Since time and resources are precious, there isn't any extra to spend on people who are not looking to be prospects. 

By employing one or two experiments within the funnel, you would be able to filter out the percentage of visitors that would make it out of the funnel. This results in better forecasts and risk-reduction in every step. 

5. It Advances The Ways You Can Grow Your Business

The perfect business model does not exist. When the marketing funnel is understood, there would be an increasing amount of insight and feedback on what strategies to employ to boost your sales. 

It is vital to take note of potential clients who reached the Decision section but chose another product rather than yours. Once the reason has been identified, the roadblock can be efficiently removed, and customers can arrive at the result you desire. 

6. Improved Conversion Rate

A lot of times, potential customers are driven away when they feel hurried into making a purchase. A marketing funnel is a multi-step process comprising several stages between the time of visit and sale. 

You have first to help your client figure out the problem, identify a solution, and then guide them towards an action. Each stage has a goal that can be achieved via various content marketing tools. Utilizing the right tools at the correct phase would end with you noticing more purchases made by your clients. 

Mastering the marketing funnel ensures that you learn how to relate to your clients better. This means that more clients would be driven to the Action section, resulting in more sales, and better conversion rates in the long run. 

7. Advantage Over Other Entrepreneurs

One major challenge of new entrepreneurs is their general lack of direction on how to execute their ideas. They fail at this because there is no tested and true system to make consistent sales. A proper understanding of how the marketing funnel works helps greatly give you a competitive advantage over other businesses in your niche.

Examples Of Marketing Funnels

The secret sauce to marketing success is the funnel. This helped small businesses grow into really big companies. Here are examples of high-converting sales funnels that can teach you how to turn cold leads into warm ones:

1. Netflix

Netflix is a top-rated and successful company with over $8.3 billion in revenue generated each year from global streaming. Although we can attribute most of this company's success to its brilliant innovation and product that truly eases lives, it would be unreasonable to overlook some of the brilliant marketing tactics they've used, and this includes their marketing funnel. 

Let's have a look at its funnel’s breakdown:

• Top of the Funnel

Netflix generates most, if not all, of their awareness through social media. They use popular platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to let audiences know about new movies and TV shows through captivating clips of climax scenes. 

Many press outlets that function on social media also promote Netflix and its upcoming shows from time to time. This can be attributed to how skilled they are in creating advert clips that draw everyone's attention, beating their competitors in the game. 

With a bulk of Netflix users coming from “techy” generations such as Millenials and Generation Z, this media company also promotes via native advertising, which is very effective for these market segments.

In addition to their effective awareness tactic, they also have fast and humorous customer service on social media. All these help spread the word about the product and drive customers and lead down the marketing funnel.

• Middle of the Funnel

Netflix knows that people are often scared to subscribe to services that operate on recurring charges because no one wants to pay for a service they won't end up getting value for. So, to erase their fears and doubts and encourage them to move further down the marketing funnel, Netflix clearly states on their clean homepage that users will get the chance to cancel anytime. 

To make things even more comfortable, they offer a one-month free trial. This a great strategic move that often works in pushing potential customers down a sales funnel.

Next, Netflix presents them with different pricing plans to choose one they prefer. Once they've chosen one that strikes their fancy, they are directed to the next page to sign up. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

After customers sign up with their name and email address, they are finally directed to the billing page. Their billing page is free of distractions and contains a short word of encouragement to push prospects to input their details. Netflix's billing page contains all the right elements a page of its kind should have. 

2. Crazy Egg

Most online marketers have heard about CrazyEgg at some point in their marketing journey. It offers website optimization services to help marketers and website owners analyze user behavior on their website. 

The success of this company can partly be attributed to its thorough marketing funnel which we're going to examine below.

• Top of the Funnel

When Crazy Egg began, they didn't have much financial support and could not invest bountifully in their marketing. However, they found a way through this by offering their product for free in exchange for good reviews. 

They gave free $99 Crazy Egg accounts to well-known bloggers like Mashable and Techcrunch, while these influencers gave Crazy Egg good reviews and references. In addition to this, they also utilized Facebook ads to drive traffic into their marketing funnel. 

However, the real force behind their awareness was and still is the Crazy Egg blog. Their blog highly caters to a large number of people in the digital marketing industry by providing high-quality content. They made their blog popular by using important keywords, sharing their content through email marketing, social media, influencers, and other effective strategies.

• Middle of the Funnel

When their awareness strategies started attracting loads of potential clients to their website, they had to convert them into paying leads. So to achieve this, they added a pop-up with an interesting offer to the bottom of their blog posts – a 30-day free trial period to use the Crazy Egg tool. 

Visitors are encouraged to enter their email addresses to receive newsletters. This way, Crazy Egg begins the lead nurturing process by keeping their product at the top of the user's mind through emails containing helpful articles, encouraging them to visit their homepage. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

When users land on the homepage, they're asked to provide the URL of their website to view its heatmap. The copy on this page is straightforward and yet compelling and without any visual distractions. A good call to action and copy is known to boost conversion rates significantly. 

Once they input the URL of their website and click on the action button, they are redirected to the pricing page, where they are presented with different pricing options and an option to bounce. If they do bounce, Crazy Egg still continues to send lead nurturing emails with useful content to make the brand seem more credible and give them reasons to come back.

After the user selects a payment plan of their choice, they are redirected to the billing page where they're asked to fill in their payment details. And just like that, they have converted cold leads into customers through a carefully designed marketing funnel. 

3. Annmarie

Annmarie is a skin-care brand that provides its customers with natural and organic skin-care. Although a lot of people are interested in organic skin-care, Annmarie didn't just rely on this but went ahead to build a sales funnel to find those people and turn them into paying customers. 

The marketing funnel turned out to be very successful and generated about $200,000 from more than 20 thousand leads in just two months. Here's how they did it:

• Top of the Funnel

They made use of popular social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to create awareness to the public. They also published interesting and useful content about skin-care on their blog and promoted them through social media. This effective tactic drove a lot of people to the Annmarie website. 

• Middle of the Funnel

As a way to convert the generated traffic into subscribers, they tried using their website along with a blog opt-in to give users free helpful tips on how to look and feel amazing. They also had an opt-in for a discount on customers' first purchase and a Savvy Shopper pop-up on their web page. These tactics, however, resulted in low conversion rates. 

So for a change, they employed the use of quizzes as a form of lead magnet to engage people. They changed their opt-in to something that created more curiosity like 'What's Your Skin Score?' and strategically placed this on their webpages that attracted the most traffic, that is, their homepage and their blog pages. They also promoted their quiz through social media, primarily Facebook ads. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

Users who successfully completed the quiz were offered a sample of their skin-care kit product, a free health care e-book, and a coupon towards their next purchase. The gifts awarded encouraged the prospects to visit the product page where they could purchase an item and utilize their free coupon. 

The shop page contains all the elements to make it a high-converting web page such as featured items, reviews, and a product sample to encourage sales. 

After the prospects filled their cart with desired items, they were then redirected to the checkout page to either complete their purchase or continue shopping. When finally checking out, they were redirected to the billing page to fill in their payment details and deliver their package. 

This whole process seems seamless, but it generated so much for them in the past, and still boosts their business presently.

4. CoSchedule

CoSchedule serves as a helpful marketing tool in scheduling, uploading, and organizing your content calendar. 

They've successfully created a marketing funnel to attract cold leads and turn them into paying customers, and below is what they do at each stage of their funnel: 

• Top of the Funnel

CoSchedule makes use of social media to fill their marketing funnel. Their social media pages appeal to the challenges the audience may be facing, which helps to make their audience more aware of the brand. This method has proven effective in attracting traffic to CoSchedule's website.  

• Middle of the Funnel

Anyone who clicks through to CoSchedule's website is obviously interested in learning more about what the company has to offer. The link from their social media ads directs users to the subject line tester tool. 

The page users arrive at usually looks just as shown in the social media ads, and this constant branding often helps in boosting the confidence the users have in the brand. 

The creative call to action button directs users to a page to input their contact information, along with some information about the company where they work and the business's end goals. And then, when they submit, they are given an analysis of their email headline for free. 

The users feel satisfied as they leave the page having a good grasp of how the tool can help them, while CoSchedule keeps the information they provided to send them targeted emails that encourage them to come back and pay to use the service more. 

CoSchedule also offers users a 14-day free trial period right after they get their free analysis result, to encourage them to move on to the next stage of the marketing funnel right away. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

The free analysis score on the email subject line that CoSchedule offers is just a tip of what the tool is capable of. That can, however, ignite the desire of potential clients to try the whole tool out. 

The free trial is an effective way to plant desire within your prospects. The 14-day trial period provides enough time for prospects to have a taste of how CoSchedule can be helpful to them. 

Coupled with a no-credit-card commitment policy, this makes prospects find it easier to give it a shot since they won't have to worry about accidental charges or hidden costs. When they begin the free trial, they are shown a countdown to the end of the trial period, to create urgency to commit to the product finally. 

At the end of the free trial, the prospect would have gotten enough time to decide if the tool is good for them. CoSchedule then directs them to a payment page to enable them to continue to use the service. 

CoSchedule's marketing funnel is a great one because it is mostly centered around creating a great experience for their leads. Judging from their social media ads and posts to their free one-time tool trial, to the 14-day free trial period, they simply show their users what they can expect without having to say much. 

5. Tray.io

Tray.io's marketing funnel is another one you can learn from. Their product serves as an API automation tool that helps users connect their entire tech stack at scale. 

The stages involved in their marketing funnel are described below:

• Top of the Funnel

Tray.io's sales funnel begins with traffic generated from Google searches on the keyword 'automation tool.' Although Google Ads only provides an average click-through rate of only 2%, when Tray.io pops up for searches related to a relevant keyword, it greatly enhances its brand awareness. It creates a sort of relationship between the company and the services they offer. 

And because of this, the kind of traffic generated is a bit different from those acquired through social media as it puts leads further down the marketing funnel for a start. This is due to the fact that the leads are already aware of what solution they are searching for, and Tray.io can easily hit the nail on the head in the content they're offering. 

• Middle of the Funnel

Once users click on the Google Ad, they are directed to a landing page where they are presented with options on how they can learn more about the platform – through a pre-recorded demo, a live group demo, or a personalized demo. The multiple options serve as a way to ensure that Tray caters to the various kinds of leads with different levels of learning comfort. 

After leads make a demo choice, they are asked to share some contact information to enable Tray to keep up with them after they've engaged with the demo. Tray.io then follows up through email to prompt leads to join a live group webinar or schedule a personal demo. 

When users fill out the opt-in form with their contact details, they are then provided with videos on how to utilize Tray in different instances. This informative walkthrough of the platform gives interested users an idea of how the tool could help them. Tray also provides case studies at the bottom of the page to further persuade the leads to move further down the marketing funnel. 

Demonstration videos are a great means to show users how the product functions, but it doesn't do enough in showcasing what the users can really expect from it. So, Tray makes use of case studies to describe to users ways the product has actually been used. 

They take utilization instances from the video and demonstrate them with an actual company. For instance, they set up a customer story page for Vox Media, which included the problem, the solution they provided, the clear results that were achieved, and a powerful testimonial from the client. 

A customer story, as such, shows the audience what results they can really achieve from using the product. This fuels their desire and prompts them to move down the marketing funnel to the last stage. At the end of the customer story page, the visitors are once more presented with an option to sign up for a personalized demo, for those who may have passed on it the first few times. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

During the personalized demo with a representative, Tray addresses the lead's unique challenges and offers special tips, deals, or solutions as a way to convince them to take action and buy finally. 

Tray's marketing funnel focuses on meeting their target audience's needs by considering the differences in learning preferences that their leads may have. This way, they can easily offer tailored solutions to suit each person's tastes. 

6. Basecamp

Basecamp provides project management and team communication services to businesses. This company is worth about $100 billion with yearly profits in millions through their effective marketing techniques coupled with the quality of their product. 

Let's take a look at their marketing funnel. 

• Top of the Funnel

Basecamp generates awareness through various means, but mostly organically through their blog. Loyal and satisfied clients also help to spread word-of-mouth about the product without even asking. In addition, they have a podcast called Rework, which complements their blog nicely. 

The business's unique perspective gets featured on the business' blog, podcast, and around the web. New users who may never have come in contact with the brand before are often intrigued by the brand's representatives and founders, which helps to push them to the funnel's consideration stage.

• Middle of the Funnel

Basecamp easily wins the heart of its visitors with its well-designed and relatable website. As soon as visitors land on the Basecamp's homepage, they are immediately hooked by its content once they begin to read. 

On the homepage, Basecamp gives a short illustration of what the product can do using a before and after comparison. This gives visitors an immediate idea of the results they'd get. Coupled with the persuasive and well-positioned call to action, testimonials, and the social proof that a certain number of clients signed up, the users are instantly impressed and encouraged to move down the marketing funnel. 

• Bottom of the Funnel

Once the user has begun to consider Basecamp as their solution, Basecamp makes it very easy for them to convert by providing them with customer care and FAQs at the end of the page. 

When the user decides to sign up, Basecamp directs them to a clean page where they then ask them to provide their name and email address. Afterward, the users are sent a simple automated message from the company that explains all the need to know about the service for a start.

Afterward, Basecamp moves on to foster loyalty and advocacy. Due to how simple and easy to use the product is, the users get hooked and may decide to upgrade or start spreading good words about the product and brand. This is where the advocacy sets in. 

Tools For Creating Marketing Funnels

By now, we’re sure you’re aching to start crafting a marketing funnel for different aspects of your business. However, it’s easier said than done. Even experienced marketers find it hard to start from scratch.

Thank goodness for modern marketing tools which make not only planning out the funnel easy, but also helps in crafting the actual tasks needed for the marketing strategy to work (creating a landing page, tracking audience actions, sending emails, and more). 

Here are among the best options for creating marketing funnels and carrying out the tasks.

1. GetResponse

GetResponse is an all-round marketing tool that does everything a marketer needs.  They introduced the Conversion Funnel feature to their software just this year, which enabled their customers to set up landing pages, automate emails, recover abandoned orders, convert customers, and sell their products. It even allows you to merge your GetResponse account with your existing e-commerce business. 

GetResponse is not so complex to set up. Choose from over 30 conversion-optimized and professionally-designed scenarios that showcase your offers, build contact lists, sell your products, and help you grow. 

It allows you to integrate your Facebook Ads account into the platform, so you can buy targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram. You can also generate some quality traffic with its social ads creator feature with ready-made templates. 

The landing page feature lets you create unique high-converting landing pages to drive your traffic and convert them to leads or subscribers with web-forms and exit-intent pop-ups. From getting traffic to converting customers, GetResponse has it all.   You can also monetize your knowledge through webinars.

Plans and Pricing

• Email Marketing, 
• unlimited landing pages, lead funnels and automation templates, 
• one marketing funnel, 
• Autoresponders,
• Facebook ads integration,
• selling e-products.   

• automation builders (5 workflows), 
• Webinars (max 100 attendees), 
• five additional sales funnels, work together with three users 
• five webinar funnels
• contact storing & tagging.

This plan includes everything in plus and some extra features: Unlimited automation builder, on-demand webinars, work together with five users, unlimited sales funnels, paid webinars, webinars (max 300 attendees), and unlimited webinar funnels.

Pros and Cons 

+ GetResponse offers a complete all-in-one solution. 

+ It shows you the stages of your funnel and how you convert your leads in a visual manner.

– GetResponse can get a bit pricy, depending on the size of your contacts. 

2. Kartra

Kartra is an all-in-one platform that gives your marketing ideas a place to flourish. It has many features in its kit like opt-in forms, ticketing and live chat, lead database (CRM), including a website and landing page builder, email marketing, automation, and many more. 

Making use of Kartra is not complicated because of the provided checklist in your dashboard. It shows you some of Kartra's essential functions and takes you through how to use the other parts of the software. Katra is a literal collection of marketing functions that would save you a lot of money instead of investing in several tools.

Some of the things you can do with Kartra's features include:

• Set up Email campaigns

Using the email campaign feature, you can create email lists and tags for the people on your list and email campaigns. 

• Lead Integration

The "My Forms" feature allows you to integrate your lead into the list of an existing database.

• Page Creation

With Kartra's My Pages feature, you build a fully working page for your business. You can even make pages the generate leads to help keep your content. 

• Video Creation

If videos are essential in your sales funnel, Kartra's My Video feature allows you to create versatile videos with customized features for your customers.  You can also optimize and host your videos on the Katra platform and add CTA buttons and opt-in forms. This feature also shows you who is watching your videos and at what point they stopped watching.

Plans and Pricing

This plan gives you: 

• 50 GB bandwidth
• Up to 2,500 Leads
• 15,000 emails/month
• Sell 20 products
• One custom domain
• Host 50 videos
• Host 100 pages
• Build two membership sites
• Connect one help desk
• Add one additional team member

Silver plan: $199/ month when billed monthly / $149/month when billed monthly.

This plan offers:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• Up to 12,500 leads
• Unlimited emails, videos, offers/products, and pages
• Unlimited team members
• Three custom domains
• Kartra Agency

• Up to 25,000 leads 
• Five custom domains

• Up to 50,000 leads
• Ten custom domains

Pros and Cons

+ Kartra is easy to set up because of the provided checklist that takes you through the crucial steps like a tutorial. Katra also provided some video tutorials on their training portal. 

– Katra's all in one platform might make it challenging to find a fault, but its limited list of integrations make it feel like a burden. They said they would be adding to their list of integrations soon, but this is something to dislike.

3. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels was created for entrepreneurs who aren't programmers or have little or no knowledge of coding. It allows you to build a sales funnel quickly and grow your company. 

It has a simple drag and drop landing page editor and can quickly create unique pages for your business. ClickFunnels provides all the tools you need for building sales funnels that convert, an organized and straightforward dashboard, email, Facebook, and marketing automation and product sales in one convenient spot.

With ClickFunnels, you can guide your visitors step by step through the entire sales process, direct them towards the product or service they need or are looking for, and follow up with them even if they leave your page.

Their landing page editor's interface is not complicated, and the available examples of their sales funnel are simple enough for beginners. A pop-up editor is also added to the landing page editor to show you how your pop-ups would look and behave. If you encounter problems while using the software, you can use the help button made available that takes you to an agent or a knowledge base to help you out. 

Plans and Pricing

• Starter plan: $97/month

This plan offers:

• Three Domains
• Three payment gateways
• One user
• 100 pages
• 20 click funnels
• Funnels share  

If you want email marketing services, you will have to integrate with your email marketing tool as email marketing is not available in the standard plan.

• Unlimited funnels
• Unlimited pages
• Three users
• Nine payment gateways
• Nine domains
• Unlimited follow-up funnels
• Priority support

• Ten users
• 27 payment gateways
• 27 domains
• Priority support + VIP Phone support

Pros and Cons

+ The funnel builder is relatively easy to set up, and they offer tutorials to help out those who have problems setting up the software or using it.

– Can't use email marketing services without integrating with a marketing service provider. Their landing templates don't look modern. 

4. Keap (formerly InfusionSoft)

This software was formerly known as Infusionsoft, and it offers a pretty excellent service that allows you to follow-up with your leads and clients. It was created with small business owners in mind, and it gives them access to its landing page builder, marketing automation, reports, and CRM features. 

If you encounter difficulties when setting up the software, there is an option to pay a one-time fee to receive coaching sessions on how to set it up. The sessions can cost you up to $999, depending on how much help you need and the plan you choose. 

If you are already using platforms like Shopify, WordPress, and Magento, you would have no problem integrating Keap with them.

Pricing and Plans

All plans have 500 contacts and one user. Each plan comes with a free trial.

• Client management (CRM).
• Appointments.
• Easy automation.
• Quotes, invoices, and payments.
• Email marketing.
• Business phone line and text messaging
• Expert coaching for a one-time payment of $99

• Recurring payments
• Landing page builder
• Advanced sales and marketing automation
• Smart forms and reports
• Marketing and sales automation
• Expert coaching for a one-time payment of $499

• Marketing sales automation
• Client management (CRM)
• Advanced reporting and e-commerce
• Advanced sales and marketing automation
• Lead scoring and company records

Pros and Cons

+ They offer an easy to use visual sales funnel builder with various options available for use.

- Keap is created mainly for small businesses, but its price tag is quite expensive, and 500 contacts are not enough considering the plans' price. The coaching system is also quite pricey.

5. CartFlows

If you’re looking to provide a seamless experience for your customers, CartFlows is the one for you. This tool offers what they call a one-click sales funnel, which allows you to quickly move your users from the top of the funnel right down to the bottom.

Their checkout process has been optimized for the conversion process; hence the user is faced with as little distractions as possible to reduce cart abandonment. It also features One-Click Upsell & Downsell, as well as One-Click Order Bump.

Beginners can create simple funnels in as little as 20-minutes, which is a huge advantage if you’re raring to get your marketing strategy started. It can be integrated with CRM tools, which can be useful for retargeting purposes.

Pricing 

CartFlows only has one pricing plan, and that costs $299 a year. You can create an unlimited number of funnels for this price, as well as the option to use their Premium Templates.

Pros and Cons

+ Really easy and simple to use and can be integrated into most landing page builders.

- Works on a single flow with no option for split-testing. Also, it can only be used on WordPress.

6. Funnelytics.io

Funnelytics is described as the ultimate tool for marketers who want to build highly profitable funnels. It maps your funnels, calculates what would make them profitable, and delivers results that are clear and easy to read. 

Funnelytics works in three steps. First, it visualizes your Funnel strategy and helps you build it from scratch with its easy to use drag-and-drop canvas and six funnel templates. You can also personalize it with over 50+ action and traffic icons and export them to wow your clients. 

Second, it allows you to set goals, plan your profit by calculating the crucial metrics like ROI and profit, and estimate the conversion rates, traffic volumes, and expenses. 

Third, it shows you at a glance what's making the profits by delivering results and not spreadsheets. It shows you only the numbers you need in real-time, and you can compare it with your forecast to see where your funnel fails and how to fix it.

Pricing and Plans

• Unlimited canvases
• Six free funnel templates
• Upload custom icons & image
• Share & Export Funnel maps
• 75+ marketing cons
• Create custom templates

• Collaborate with team and clients
• Track the actions of prospective leads or customers
• Visualize the paths of prospective leads or customers
• Collect lead, customer, and revenue data
• Forecast the success of your funnels
• Compare forecasts to real data

Pros and Cons

+ It's simple interface allows you to easily map and visualize your funnels.

- No integrations with other tools like Zapier.

7. Sketchfunnels.io

Sketchfunnels.io is a web-based platform that allows you to map your funnels quickly and efficiently. This is very useful for people who want a visual representation of their marketing funnels.

It has an easy to use drag and drop feature that helps you develop new ideas for your funnels. From landing pages to webinars or product launch pages, Sketchfunnels have provided pieces to help you decide what you want to build. 

Sketchfunnel's 130+ funnel pieces are stylish and aim at getting you more clients. You can also export your funnel sketches and share them with another Sketchfunnels member.

Pricing and Plans

After signing up, there is a 30-day free trial. SketchFunnels cost $9 per month or $79 for a year.

Pros and Cons

+ This is a decent option for small businesses as its plans are cheap and the software itself is easy to use.

- No integrations with other tools.

8. Funnel Flows

Funnel Flows a dedicated sales funnel tool that makes the process of making a sales funnel easy. It creates, manages, and presents funnels easily for the user, and you don't have to be a designer to get things done or hire one. You also don't have to spend hours planning complex funnels or build all the needed elements as Funnel Flows has got you covered. 

This tool allows you to craft your marketing funnel not just with a flow chart about what happens next in the funnel, but also with visual representations of the traffic sources, landing pages, forms, and more.

Pricing and plans

FunnelFlows only has one pricing plan, and it’s only for $19 per month. You can get two months free if you opt to pay annually at $190. They also offer a 14-day free trial.

This plan gives you access to the Funnel Flows editor, their complete element library, done-for-you templates, and more.

Pros and Cons

+ Great for businesses that create more than one sales funnel. It can be used by businesses large and small.

- It does not provide integrations with other marketing tools.

What Happens After the Marketing Funnel

Various interpretations of the marketing funnel account for how customers behave after making a purchase, they describe what happens post-purchase, and these include:

• Repeat

The next step after a customer has purchased your product and service is to ensure they return to repeat a purchase. To achieve this, you should keep a log of the customers. This helps in learning your customers and nurturing them to make more purchases. Marketers continually engage in this bottom of the funnel activities to foster repeat actions.

• Loyalty

In this stage, customers cultivate a preference for your brand and its other products. Engagement is vital here; marketers can assist in nurturing this preference for the brand via outreach and community development. 

• Referral

When a customer's loyalty to the brand is high, there is a possibility of them driving other potential customers to your business via referrals and brand recommendations. 

• Advocacy

Advocacy is the highest possible advancement for customers. For a customer to be an advocate, they have to engage in evangelism, such as writing product reviews and posting on social media about the products. This can help in driving new leads to your brand and funnel. 

External recommendations can influence potential customers strongly. Marketers should build their communities to support their advocates better. They should engage the advocates around consumer content on social media and involve them in case studies. 

The end goal is to raise both the number and size of purchases significantly and build more awareness to increase referrals to fuel the sales funnel. 

Warmed Up Already?

Marketing funnels are an effective way to convert cold leads to paying customers strategically. Every business should have one because it gives you better control over your customers and their buying process. 

A sales funnel could have various stages, and each stage has actions specific to them. These allow you to craft the most suitable kinds of content to encourage leads to move forward. After you've successfully turned leads to customers, you shouldn't just leave it like that. Go further to create stages beyond the marketing funnel! 

While creating a sales funnel for your business comes with many benefits, it's of no use if it is not done right. Make sure you study your target audience thoroughly, along with their buying process. Use the information gathered to outline the perfect sales funnel path and then fill it up with each stage's strategies. 

With a marketing funnel, not only will you get more conversions; you will also deliver the best experience for your customers. This leads to a high level of customer satisfaction, and may even turn to repeat business! And who doesn’t want that? Once you have all the elements of your funnel in place, you're on your way to achieving marketing success. 

If you’re running native ads as part of your marketing funnel, it would be a good idea to try us out. Brax.io’s platform will help you manage and monitor your native ads campaigns efficiently, so you can focus on other aspects of your sales funnel. Sign up for a 15-day free trial today.