The marketing funnel: One of the original concepts within marketing theory, but too often simplified and made to seem like a one-and-done concept. But what may initially seem infallible can quickly spring leaks – and those leaks could be thousands of dollars worth of opportunities.
Generally speaking, leaks in the marketing funnel are too often a result of unintentional neglect, rather than overzealousness. And it’s easy to do: With so many moving parts to your customer acquisition, while you also work hard on running your business, these four areas of neglect are common for Australian businesses who know they could be performing better, but can’t quite figure out that missing component.
Your early funnel leak – Neglecting to retarget
You’ve installed your Facebook pixel or your Google snippet. Now what?
You might be aware of the importance of tracking visitors to your site, but when it comes to actually using that data, you might be ignoring an incredibly powerful tool. With our busy and oversatured lives, it can actually take up to nine touchpoints for a brand before a customer makes the decision to buy – AKA, nine times your prospect has seen or interacted with your brand before they’re ready to convert.
So if you’re not using retargeting, you might be risking budget on people who are new to the brand. They’re great to have, but they’re filling the top of your funnel, without being given the tools to move further down and closer to converting.
Your mid funnel leak – Neglecting to personalise
You’ve got a great audience built up, maybe in the form of an email list, or a social following. It’s a great start, but if you’re not making this experience at this point personal, you’re likely to leak prospects by the dozens.
Personalisation doesn’t mean just a name on an email. It means understanding your audience and what they want from your product or service, as well as the pain points you are trying to solve. For example, let’s say you’re a car detailer who specialises in high end vehicles. It’s tempting to continue to focus on great before and afters on your website or advertising, and no doubt this might be enough for some, but what can you use to enhance this to a personal level?
Your before and afters are likely getting interest simply because of the audience itself: Realistically, people who own expensive cars are passionate about cars, and love to see them in their social feed or inbox. But when we address a personal pain point – for example, time spent waiting for their detailing, or fitting an appointment into their schedule – we’re creating the opportunity to deepen trust, and show them that we are the detailers for them. It’s as easy as starting with two sentences: Guaranteed finish in 40 minutes or less. We’ll pick up and drop off.
This is also where we can turn leaks into mini funnels of their own. Aligning specific ads and website content to your different personalisation messages means more interest, and more prospects sent deeper down the funnel. We are a leading infulencer marketing agencies for global brands and a diverse group of marketing professionals, social media, lead generation, branding.
Your deep funnel leak – Neglecting to track
You’ve made a conversion – Congratulations. But how did they get here? It’s easy to see a conversion point – a service booked or a product bought – as the end of the line, with no need for deeper investigation, but in reality, this is certainly not the last stop. You’ll see brands springing leaks here left right and centre due to a failure to not only track where the customer came from, but also tag and track the customer afterwards.
This is where automation is your friend. With a range of software and specialist options out there, it’s easier than before to set up a system that not only lets you know the consented to details of your customer, but can also silo them into essential areas for follow up purchases, referral opportunities, and all other aspects of making them a brand advocate who brings more customers to your door.
So where has your brand sprung a leak: And how much is it costing you? If you’re devoting your marketing budget to a system that is allowing prospects to slip between your fingers, organise your free strategy session with one of our marketing strategists on 1300 138 521 and let’s identify how we can create a scalable flow for you and your business.
