What is a funnel? What are the stages of the conversion funnel? In this article, you will see what a conversion funnel is, the types of funnels that exist and how to create a free funnel
A conversion funnel This is a methodology we use to plan and define the steps a potential customer needs to take to achieve a goal on our website.
That’s why it’s important to understand its meaning and know everything you need to create a marketing and sales funnel. First you will see the basics, then the steps to draw a funnel and its phases.
What is a Funnel or Conversion Funnel?
Definition of the conversion funnel: A funnel is a digital marketing strategy that consists of taking an Internet user through a series of phases until they gain their trust and convert them into customers.
In short, a The conversion funnel in digital marketing is used to define the steps a user must take to reach a goal on our website.
What is the marketing funnel used for?
Using a funnel in your digital project allows you to:
1. Convert unknown users into customers
It is rare that a person buys on a site of which he does not know the brand or of which he does not have a reference. On the Internet, this case becomes more frequent, since the relationship is initially colder because you cannot take care of this user personally.
That’s why it’s relevant to show you the right content based on trust stage where it meets your brand.
2. Increase revenue
If you have a blog, social networks… Creating content optimized to increase the confidence of your subscribers in your brand will increase the probability of buying your services or products in the medium or long term.
This is the start of a sales funnel.
3. Save your effort
You stop creating general marketing and focus on an appropriate target audience where you know he has a high probability that he is interested in what you offer. This way you save money and time.
4. Save time
You reduce the number of steps a user has to go through to become a prospect or customer, which means you’ll get results faster.
5. Increase your brand credibility
Through a digital marketing funnel you can show little by little that you are capable of offeringhow are you going to solve the user’s problems, how are you going to offer it…
6. Get to know our potential customer better
A funnel will help you better understand your customers’ needs and create a more human and personalized relationship with them.
How to make a conversion funnel: the keys to being a funnel builder
In order to achieve a marketing, conversion or sales funnel, you must have a series of well-defined elements that I will mention below.
Things to consider when creating a funnel:
a) Define your target audience and buyer
This is essential, you can’t start selling something if you don’t know what type of audience or person you’re going to offer it to.
For this, it is very important to generate a model where define your target audience and buyer. Note that these are different terms.
You don’t have to have just one target audience, you can define several, since what you want to sell can be focused on more than one different profile.
of them) Be clear about your business model
It seems obvious, but it’s not. You must know your main sources of income for your project.
At the same time, you need to know what resources you have and what are your limits to be able to execute a sales funnel according to you.
You must also make a good representation of the different products or services that you have at your disposal, separating them by economic products or, from the start, mid-priced products, high-cost products, complementary services to another that you have already created…
3) Optimized content
The channel through which you offer content to your audience (blog, YouTube, Podcast, social networks, etc.) must be centered on the audience you want to attract so that they will later become your customer.
This is the initial part of any funnel, so if your service is to teach clients how to create a web page, there’s no point in creating content that earns “courses to learn Google advertising”.
If you do this, you will attract low-skilled users.
4) Create an irresistible offer
You have to offer something that people really want. And what is a product or service that really helps?
There is no magic formula, but fulfilling these aspects helps you create an irresistible service or product:
- Fixes a user issue.
- Report more benefits than features.
- Make your promise real and if you can prove it better.
- Generate urgency for them to hire your product and stick to the established time.
- Offer payment facilities to adapt to a greater number of users.
- Offer real success stories if you have any.
5) Create a lead magnet
You need to offer free content or a resource focused on what you want to sell in order to get quality leads, and then be able to work with that database you get.
something good examples of lead magnets It can be: PDFs, templates, guides, webinars, tools, resources, reports, ebooks… like the one you see in the image below.
6) Press the page
If you do the previous step, you will need to create a page where people can download the content you offer from the main magnet.
Here is an example of squeeze the page.
The only mission of this page is to be able to obtain the user’s datait avoids any link or vanishing point other than filling out the content upload form.
7) Trip wire
A good way to get qualified users to be able to increase the database is to offer a product or service at a reduced cost.
The price of it must not exceed 40 € and another major objective of this strategy is to “warm up” the public, since it is not the same to convince a user who has never bought from us than one who has already bought from us once.
Here is an example from Tripwire…
8) facebook-pixel
It is important that you install the Pixel of Facebook or the social network on which you will impact with advertisements in all these pages through which the user will pass.
This way, what you will achieve later is being able to impact them with remarketing ads.
What are the funnel or conversion funnel stages
Throughout the article, I told you that the user will go through different phases in the sales funnel and now I will explain them to you.
(Photo: Marshall Ponzi)
The different phases of a conversion tunnel:
TOFU is the outermost part of the funnel. At this point in the funnel, there are people who don’t know you at all and don’t know who you are.
The main goal of this step is to let people know who you are, what you do, how you can help them, and what you are capable of solving.
In the TOFU or top of the funnel focus on user education, not selling.
Here, the customer already knows you and knows who you are. People who have gone through this part of the funnel are already more willing to buy from you and more importantly they know they have a problem, so it is important here that you generate more interest in what you offer so that ‘they can become potential customers.
MOFU or middle of the funnel this is the middle stage of the funnel.
BOFU Known as Botton of the Funnelthis is the last part of the funnel and where there are fewer users left, but they are of higher quality and more willing to buy from you.
At this stage it is time to offer them your product or service and above all to tell them that you are the best solution and for this you will be able to draw success stories, testimonials, real tests of your product, etc.
Content Types that you can create to attract users at each stage:
👉 TIP: Run social media ad campaigns to get leads independently at each stage of the funnel so that each user receives content tailored to their awareness.
I also recommend that you do remarketing campaigns for those who have not completed the actions you marked at each step of the process, as well as the email marketing funnel.
Types of conversion funnels
And to end the article, I want to tell you that there are different types of funnels that we can implement in our digital project.
The 3 The main types of conversion funnels are:
- Traffic Collection Funnels (It is used to attract visits to our website and convert a user into a prospect or potential customer).
- Lead culture funnels (It serves to gain the trust of the user: to educate, give and add value to our potential customers before selling them something).
- sales funnels (Sales funnels are the ones we use to impact users (worked on lead culture) who are ready to make a purchase).
I’ll leave this point in a nutshell, because later I’ll write a more comprehensive article on funnel types.
Example of a conversion funnel
And as a practical example of a good conversion funnel, I leave you a infographic by Vilma Nuñezfor me one of the best funnel building professionals in digital marketing, with her mega funnel which includes the three types of funnels.
(Infographic: Vilma Nuñez)
I think with this infographic you have a good understanding of the process of each of the funnel types and their value in increasing sales.
OTHER RECOMMENDED ARTICLES ON DIGITAL MARKETING:
👉 How to make a digital marketing plan step by step
👉 SEMrush guide: how to use its tools to improve your sales funnels
👉 How to use SimilarWeb to inspect your competitors and engage the buyer persona
Conclusion on conversion funnels
As you can see, creating a conversion funnel is very useful and in digital marketing I would say it is almost essential if you want to improve your performance and sales.
It’s a strategy that will help you get to know your target audience better and save you time, effort, and money when reaching potential customers that generate purchases.
I hope this article helps you understand this funnel and encourages you to learn more and create your own.
Did you already know the conversion funnel? Do you use a sales funnel in your marketing strategy?
If you like, leave me a comment on the article and if you liked it, I would be happy if you could share it on your social networks to reach more people.
