The funnel only cares about the funnel

The marketing funnel - a thoughtless, lead crunching machine that doesn't care if it was a slow month or if your budget had been decreased, it only cares about one thing and that is what goes in! 

What is this intimidating marketing tool I here you whisper...

Quite simply the marketing funnel is a structure that should be applied to your marketing activities with a focus on pushing leads through your marketing process. 

Time for some visuals:

Now everyone interprets the funnel in a different way, a lot of people incorporate it with their sales process and therefore have a lot more stages but for today and as these are the main stages that I focus on every day I'm going to stick with these three;

1. Awareness - How do you get people to notice you, it's a big bad world out there with a lot of companies vying for attention

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the awareness stage (website views / unique page views etc) 
• What content is going to get you noticed and be the main driver of this stage (tweets, blog posts, LinkedIn updates etc)
• Generally this stage is non-committal you just want to draw them in

2. Engagement - time to get their details but don't be a try hard

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the engagement stage (new contact details submitted, all contact details submitted, number of downloads etc) 
• What content will the lead want to submit their details for  (Whitepapers, How to guides, Webinars etc)
• Generally this stage is all about commitment you want their details but be subtle

3. Evaluation - time to reel them in

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the evaluation stage (free trial, request a quote etc) 
• What content will entice the lead to take a call to action, generally I would suggest feature based content showing how your product/service can help
• Generally this stage is when you pass them over to Sales to work their magic

When you are creating your content and marketing activities be sure to cover each stage of the funnel. If you don't have content see if you can re-purpose or create some new content. 

What I find so handy about the funnel is that it lays out what the metrics are, what you need to be achieving, creating, promoting and aiming for in order to keep the organisation, I mean funnel, well oiled.

I would strongly recommend implementing a marketing funnel if you haven't already done so as it gives the whole team a clear focus on what they have to achieve. 

But remember - those that live by the marketing funnel die by the marketing funnel! ;-) 

Claire