Marketing is the Wonder in your Bread Genie in the Bottle Classic in your Cola Devil in the Details Fruit in your Loops Spin in your Dreidel

Marketing is the Wonder in your Bread Genie in the Bottle Classic in your Cola Devil in the Details Fruit in your Loops Spin in your Dreidel

Sales/Marketing Funnel the blueprint for your marketing

The collective set of tactics you employ (ads, web pages, emails, forms, etc.) to introduce people to your brand, get your message across and convert prospective buyers into paying customers is your marketing funnel.
marketing Funnel concept

Position & Temperature

The very first time people interact with your organization, they are, in most cases, a cold audience. They don’t know who you are or what you do but they have taken notice of something you have put out into the world (such as an ad). For most companies, the reality is that there are more people who don’t know who they are than people who do, so the audience size at the top of the funnel is the largest group…but also the most difficult to reach.

The middle of the funnel is for a warm audience of people who have been introduced to your brand and/or are familiar with the products or services you provide. They are actively searching for a solution to some problem and are considering becoming a customer.

At the bottom of the funnel are the hot audiences. These are  the people who have interacted with your organization in some way. They may have filled out a form on your website or even made a purchase in the past. This is the smallest but most valuable audience.

Funnel Architecture

How It All Fits Together

We use funnel-mapping as a planning tool for digital advertising campaigns and website design-builds. This architectural view shows the interconnectivity of traffic sources and other funnel elements, providing you an intuitive visualization of the constituent parts of your marketing strategy.
A basic funnel architecture for an ecommerce platform, with organic, email and ad-driven traffic directed through a simple series of steps, might look like this:
basic funnel
A working funnel, with multiple offerings and a layered strategy targeting audiences by temperature might look a bit more complicated:
example funnel
For our digital ads clients, the working funnel is also an analysis and reporting tool that shows traffic flows, page loads, key performance indicators (KPI), forecast metrics and other analytics data. This is in addition to your Vizibility Board, which is a customized dashboard that pulls in the data from all your individual accounts.
Digital Advertising

Strategy & Tactics

The tactics that will resonate with your avatar (potential customer) will vary, depending on where that avatar is along your customer journey and what their audience temperature is at that point. Email marketing is a fantastic tool for hot leads at the bottom of your marketing funnel while search ads are better for warm, mid-funnel audiences. For cold audiences at the top of the funnel, display advertising will hit them while they’re not looking. Social media ads can be configured to work well at almost any point in the funnel.

top-funnel icon

Top-Funnel Audiences

STRATEGY: BRAND AWARENESS

COLD Audiences

Are unfamiliar with your business and may not recognize a need for your product or service.

TACTICS
mid-funnel icon

Mid-Funnel Audiences

STRATEGY: EDUCATE & INFORM

WARM Audiences

Are actively searching for a solution to a problem.

TACTICS
bottom-funnel icon

Bottom-Funnel Audiences

STRATEGY: INCENTIVIZE

HOT Audiences

Are getting ready to buy.

TACTICS
Media Channels & Key Performance Indicators​

by Funnel Position & Audience Temperature

TOP-Funnel, COLD Audiences

Cold audiences don’t know who you are. They might not even be aware that your product or service exists and, if they are aware, they may have no idea that they either need or want it. These people are the farthest away from you and therefore the hardest (and most expensive) to convert into customers.

Rookie Mistake: trying to close (sell to) this audience. They’re not ready yet! You need to establish trust first.

Tactics: The best way to “warm up” cold traffic is to provide great content! That content might be in the form of podcasts, webinars, blog posts, case studies, reports, tutorials, etc. Advertising messaging should focus on building awareness of your brand and providing people access to that content.

Media Channels: organic (unpaid) social media, Facebook/Instagram ads, Google Display Network (GDN), programmatic display advertising

Important Metrics: impressions, clicks, cost per mille (CPM), display click through rate (CTR)

mid-Funnel, warm Audiences

Your audience here is aware of your brand and in the consideration stage. They’re aware that they have a problem… a something that they’re missing… and are actively looking for a solution to that problem.

Rookie Mistake: don’t confuse BENEFITS with FEATURES! Clients often want to include long lists of features in their ad copy but buyers aren’t interested in features. They’re interested in what benefits those features provide to THEM!

Tactics: At this point, they know the basics. Ad copy should be informative/educational. This where we highlight the benefits that you provide. Website performance is also critical.

Media Channels: search ads (Google, Bing, others), local SEO (Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.), forms (web and social)

Important Metrics: search click through rate (CTR), conversion rate, website bounce rate, page views time on-page & page load time

bottom-Funnel, hot Audiences

Hot traffic has demonstrated “purchase intent” by filling out a form, making a purchase in your value ladder (succession of offerings that increase in value and price) or taken some other action that shows they’re getting ready to buy.

Rookie Mistake: in Hawaii, be careful about getting too aggressive at this stage. Locals don’t like pushy sales tactics!

Tactics: this is where you can deliver that sales pitch.

Media Channels: email marketing, SMS/messenger marketing, retargeting (programmatic display advertising, Google Display Network (GDN), Facebook/Instagram ads)

Important Metrics: email/message open rate, conversion rate

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