Full Funnel Marketing: All you need to know to grow your brand and business

The biggest hurdle for any business is generating quality leads (service based business) or driving sales (products / ecomm business).

It’s challenging and it can feel overwhelming if you don’t know have the knowledge that I'm about to share with you.

I promise you it will become a lot easier when you have this framework.

Behind every successful business there is a variation of this system in place.

There’s no two ways around it...

• Are you confident in your product or service?

• Are you questioning why you don’t have a ton of sales?

• Confused why leads aren't flooding your calendar?

• Feeling stuck and don’t know how to move forward and generate results?

• Seeking clarity and solutions?

I got you…

I’ll answer everything in this article.

The process I go through can be applied to any business.

You can grow your personal brand with this system, you can drive more sales to e commerce, you can generate leads for your service.

You won’t feel confused and questioning how to improve your business and quality of life.

After reading this article you will learn:

• What is the marketing funnel

• Why you need it

• Why it works

• Examples for E - Commerce / Service based businesses

• Best platforms to utilise depending on your business niche

If you implement this it will change your business and make your life a hell of a lot easier (and stres free)

Let’s get stuck in...

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is a way to visualise a multi system process that a person goes through...

Goes through what?

Being a complete stranger / having no awareness of your business to becoming a loyal customer.

Look at the visualiser below...

Reference Image A - I 'll refer to this image throughout the article.

The top is the widest point of the system, as you get lower it narrows down - just like a funnel.

💡 Note

Want to know the fundamentals of digital marketing?

Explore the foundations of how digital marketing works 

A Four Stage System

Awareness | (Top Of Funnel)

The awareness stage is the very start, the top of the funnel.

This stage is focusing on raising awareness of your business and the solutions / problems you’re solving.

This is equivalent to being at a social event and introducing yourself to a stranger and getting to know them.

Why is this the top of the funnel?

Awareness in business, in all things in life has to come first.

Without awareness there is no knowledge of your business, the solutions that you provide and the problems that you solve.

💡 Note

I want to highlight that the awareness section is arguably the most important part of the funnel. Mainly due to the fact that it correlates to the size of the funnel.

If it isn't active the funnel seizes to exist over time.

If you’re a business owner you have had some form of “Top Of Funnel - Awareness” in action.

Usually at the start of the business life cycle.

When you started your business you did some form of organic awareness by:

• Telling your friends and family about your business

• Inviting your friends to like / follow the FB / IG page

• Shared your website through your social media platforms

• Lodged your business details on a directory etc

• Sold some products and received referrals from your customers

• Organic word of mouth / buzz from your initial release

All those actions above are organic TOF (Top Of Funnel). Resulting in eyeballs and attention towards your business.

The problem is that you only have one social network and therefore your organic “awareness” only has one time limited reach.

I’ll cover how to get more awareness shortly..

Let’s move on to the middle of funnel.

The body of the system.

Interest | Middle Of Funnel

Interest is the next stage of the customer journey.

This segment of prospects are aware of your business and the solutions you provide.

Generally this demographic is engaging with you on social media, reading articles on your website, watching youtube videos etc.

How do I nurture this segment?

Engaging prospects in this part of the funnel really depends on your product / service.

Generally providing more detail and information is always going to help interested prospects take consideration and eventually take desired actions.

People that are interested need more info / quality photos.

Think of it this way - these people are interested, meaning they're curious. When someone is curious they want to read more, see more and absorb more information.

Easy way to do this is to paint a picture of the process. Having a process on your website or creating a lead magnet (e-book) is a great way to turn interest into consideration.

I’ve attached an example via Good Luck Tattoo

Remember the key is always to provide clarity and build trust.

This will stimulate the logical part of your prospects brain and provide them with the transparency needed for them to make a discerning decision.

Transparency and information is key.

You want to help your prospects make the best decisions. Sometimes that means your leads won’t be the best fit. That’s ok, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

Once you have the funnel in place you’ve got warm leads on tap.

The problem is businesses stop generating awareness and as a result interest fades.

Thinking back to the organic example I used of a business owner starting a business and getting the word out.

They organically raised awareness once, from that they built a nice audience.

Some of that audience goes from awareness to interest. Issue is that awareness stops after that one time and now the business is constantly showcasing their info to the same audience. No new awareness = no new interest. Warm audience goes mild or worse yet cold.

Yikes…

Consideration | Middle Of Funnel

Things are starting to heat up...

Our prospects have razor sharp awareness. They are problem aware and want it solved. They are looking at their options and getting closer towards decision making.

The consideration part of the funnel isn’t dramatically different to the interest section.

One obvious difference is that these prospects are closer towards purchasing.

Prospects considering are looking at all their options, speaking to family or friends, and are trying to get the highest value possible.

We can entice these prospects by showcasing large amounts of social proof.

Testimonials are an easy way to edge people across the line.

Social proof will showcase that you have a predictable system in place to achieve desired outcome.

This is true across the board regardless of what you’re selling..

We're nearly at the end of the funnel.

Example from our friends at FOM

💡 Note

Your website is your biggest weapon when it comes aiding prospects through decision making and having a high conversion rate. Your website allows you to display information in a way that objection handles and answers all questions regarding your product / service.

Action | Bottom Of Funnel

Bottom of the funnel audiences are hot and ready to purchase.

*In ecomm these prospects have added to cart or even initiated checkout but bailed out at the last minute.

*For services these prospects have made contact and you've given them a quote.

This segment of your audience is the most profitable.

They more or less decided on your offer they just didn’t follow through. These prospects need a little encouragement in the form of a discount or maybe a free shipping if you’re selling a product.

If you’re providing a service it will depend on whether your service is a necessity..

For example an electrician is a necessity. There’s only so much you can offer someone at the BOF (Bottom of funnel) looking for an electrical service.

You don’t even need to offer anything because if someone is looking for an electrician they need it done. They’re not going to go without their lights for the evening.

On the other hand let’s use a tattoo parlour as our example.

A tattoo is a luxury and not a necessity. In this case we can show social proof and offer a free design consultation to those people that are BOF.

Social proof + freebie = Action

Why It Works?

So far I’ve been speaking about the organic process of someone going through a customer journey.

Let’s quickly summarise:

• We started the business, created a website, launched socials etc - T.O.F - Awareness

• Invited friends and family to our business pages - T.O.F - Awareness

• Shared via social media our new business venture - T.O.F - Awareness

• Our family and friends engage with us on socials - M.O.F - Interest

• A smaller percentage click through and view our website - M.O.F - Interest

• Out of that smaller percentage some spend more time educating themselves about your business + process - M.O.F - Interest

• A smaller portion of the above start checking other businesses and gauging price - M.O.F - Consideration

• People reach out and ask you questions / book an appointment / add to cart - B.O.F - Action

• They make purchase / book your service etc - B.O.F - Action

Yeewwwww!

Someone has gone through our very basic and organic customer journey and has become a client.

Now imagine this process…

Happening 24 / 7, hyper targeted towards a demographic that is looking for the solution that your business offers.

We can achieve this by setting up paid traffic campaigns through multiple media platforms.

This is called a full funnel approach to marketing. You’re putting your brand in front the right eyeballs and providing solutions to their problems.

Full funnel marketing benefits your business by:

• Allowing you to see what your competitors are doing , to help inform your strategy

• Forces you to create an avatar of our ideal customer

• Informs ad / landing page copy

• Allows you to have multiple touch points at each stage of the customer journey

• Gives you the ability to track valuable metrics from your campaigns that inform decision making eg

  Click Through Rate (CTR), Cost Per 1000 Impression's (CPM), Cost Per Click (CPC), Conversion Rate, Return On Ad Spend

• Gives you the opportunity to split test creative to see what performs best

• Gives you predictability and stability within your business model

Alright, we have gone over what the funnel does and the benefits that it can have on growing your brand and business.

In the next section let’s build a campaign using the funnel system, one for service based business and another for ecommerce.

Funnel | E - Commerce Example

OK.. so you’re looking at a money making machine flow chart.

This is a holistic overview of a prospect going through the customer journey of a ecomm store.

Refer to the original funnel illustration (Reference Image A) if you get lost. This is what’s going on but more in depth and detailed. I’ve colour coded it, to represent image A.

Let’s breakdown everything step by step

Flow Breakdown (E - Commerce)

Fundamental Research Analysis

This allows you to:

• Identify ideal customer personality / traits / desires / fears / wants / needs etc

• Make sure that your product is competitively priced

• Deconstruct competitors creatives / campaigns to see what is working

• Create Ad Campaigns

Insta / FB is a good place to start. If you have video content post on tik tok.

Tik Tok has awesome organic reach, tt's great for paid traffic as well. The foundational research analysis empowers you to write ad copy that will emotionally strike a chord

It will also arm you with the relevant information to position your product in a superior way.

Ad Campaign Structure

• TOF (Awareness) - Traffic / Sales Campaign - Broad Targeting (Interests, Lookalike audiences based on IG followers / Engagers)

• MOF / BOF (Retargeting) - Sales / Conversion campaigns targeting engaged audience that have taken an action on your socials or website (IG / FB Followers / engagers / Website Visitors / Add To Carts / Initiated Checkouts)

That’s the system in a nutshell.

The TOF campaigns generate awareness.

Hook prospects in with an immersive video or some vibrant stills.

They click through to socials / website and learn more about the product and ethos.

A connection is made.

The MOF / BOF campaigns retarget your warm audience. It keeps you top of mind.

These are people that are interested / considering. This audience segment is familiar and wants what you have to offer. They either need more information or need to see the content and become more familiar with your brand till they're confident.

If they’re further down the funnel and they have added to cart, enticing them with a small discount or a buy x get y free works extremely well.

Retargeting your audience is crucial. In the industry they call it the “one two punch”.

💡 Note

Speak to an expert Facebook ads agency in Melbourne to implement these retargeting techniques into your business

Setting up an email chain with touch points after your prospects have added to cart is essential for your business to grow.

The black bookmark in the flowchart is Klaviyo, an email marketing platform. You literally need Klaviyo set up if you’re running an ecomm store - this is a non negotiable

Ok.. so we’ve covered ecommerce.

Lets go over the funnel for a local service business:

Funnel | Local Service Business

Visually the flow chart is much the same but there’s difference in the detail.

Service funnel architecture will depend on:

1. Cost of service

2. Competition in market

3. Business 2 Business (B2B) or Business 2 Consumer (B2C)

4. Necessity / Luxury

If the service is a necessity prospects will convert to customers a lot easier.

For a necessity, the website needs to be on point.

A simple Google ads search campaign will garner desired results, paired up with a display retargeting campaign. Or retargeting through socials depending on the niche.

For a luxury service, let’s use business coaching or life coaching as an example.

The funnel needs to be more in depth.

The higher the price point the more information the prospect will need.

This is where we would utilise:

• Case studies

• Webinars about the process

• Webinars about the problem being solved / solutions provided

• Background on the coach. Their “journey”

• Testimonials (Testimonials need to be used in every funnel. More of an emphasis for a higher ticket item)

• Guides / EBooks

• Discovery calls / strategy sessions

In short, the funnel allows you to reach more strangers and stay top of mind when it comes to decision making time.

I can talk funnels for days but I'll wrap it up here.

Check the FAQ below, I answer some general questions prospects and clients ask me.