A marketing funnel is a powerful way for businesses to focus and coordinate their marketing efforts. To get the most out of a marketing funnel, businesses must optimize their work at each stage of the funnel to reach desired outcomes.
The marketing funnel video in this course introduced you to a simple and generalized funnel design with four stages:
You also learned that there are multiple versions of marketing funnels. Marketing funnels have been revised over time to reflect changes in business, technology, and even customer behavior. This reading provides a brief history of the funnel’s evolution.
How is tofu related to a marketing funnel? Actually, ToFU (not the bean curd product) is an acronym for Top of Funnel. There are also MoFU and BoFU which stand for Middle of Funnel and Bottom of Funnel, respectively. When using any funnel, the aim is to get the most desirable outcomes for ToFU, MoFU, and BoFU. As you read about different funnel designs, you can also think about how the desired ToFU, MoFU, and BoFU outcomes for each are similar or different.
Traditional sales funnel
Funnels probably took shape first as sales funnels. A simple sales funnel has awareness, interest, decision, and action stages as depicted in the following graphic.
Desirable outcomes for a sales funnel, like the one shown in the graphic, might be:
Combined marketing and sales funnel
Most likely, combined funnels for marketing and sales grew out of sales funnels. One example is shown below.
Desirable outcomes for a combined sales and marketing funnel, like the one shown in the graphic, might be:
Digital marketing funnel
As business and technology evolved, more specialized funnels were then developed, as in the case of a funnel entirely dedicated to digital marketing. An example of a specialized digital marketing funnel is shown below. Note that the Remarketing stage of the funnel is only for customers who engaged with your brand, product, or service at least once before and didn’t previously convert. New customers can proceed directly from the Consideration stage to the Conversion stage.
Desirable outcomes for a digital marketing funnel, like the one shown in the graphic, might be:
Other marketing funnel variations
Today, specific funnels exist for many individual areas of marketing. Examples include an e-commerce marketing funnel, a social media marketing funnel, and even a content marketing funnel.
E-commerce marketing funnel
An e-commerce marketing funnel can include the following stages that focus on attracting and retaining customers:
Social media marketing funnel
A social media marketing funnel can include these stages that turn a customer with brand awareness into a customer who is an advocate:
Content marketing funnel
A content marketing funnel can include these stages to help marketers organize and focus their content:
Key takeaways
The key takeaways for funnels are:
Finally, as a reminder, although this reading introduced a variety of funnels, the marketing funnel that you will refer to often in this program is the one shown below.
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