BWiki 
Imagine a funnel used for pouring liquids – it has wider openings at the top and narrows toward its base – as a metaphor for marketing funnel: awareness, interest, consideration, purchase.
To attract attention, share original research through blog articles or other onsite content pieces. Or offer gated assets like white papers or reports in exchange for email addresses.
Awareness
At this stage of your funnel, anyone who has heard about your business (whether from marketing efforts by your organization, referral from friends and family, articles in roundup posts on Google, etc.) could become potential leads for conversion.
At this stage, your prospect may be searching for general information on products and services that might help solve their problem or address their need. They are looking for ways to research different options such as pricing, reviews, features and benefits before making their final choice. Utilizing tools like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Keyword Magic to analyze what keywords people are using when in the awareness stage can provide invaluable insights into optimizing marketing activities during this stage of the funnel.
Online shops can leverage this insight to develop content that educates and directs consumers to their site, such as a mattress size comparison guide or FAQ page about sleep apnea. Such resources serve to attract new leads while nurturing them down their sales funnels.
The marketing funnel provides a concise framework for managing your business’s marketing strategies, yet it must take into account that customers often take a convoluted path from awareness to purchase; often taking several attempts and sometimes years. All businesses should be ready for such eventualities in their sales pipelines.
Interest
Once your marketing funnel has begun generating leads, the next step should be transitioning them from awareness into interest. At this stage, nurturing is where nurturing takes place by providing content such as infographics, articles, slideshows or videos which educate them about your products and services – this content could take the form of infographics, articles or even free webinars or classes to build trust in your brand.
Monitoring leads’ activities on your website allows you to monitor their levels of interest; as they spend more time exploring, their levels are likely to rise accordingly. Remarketing allows you to target these leads effectively by assigning them relevant campaigns based on their actions.
Utilizing your website analytics data, you can divide leads into different categories depending on their level of interest. For instance, you could develop separate campaigns targeting scrollers and browsers or those who click but do not convert. By providing relevant and targeted content to these leads, hopefully they’ll convert into conversions and become repeat customers.
Consideration
Once prospects recognize a need for your product or service, they enter the consideration stage – often called the middle of the funnel – which allows them to identify potential solutions to their problem. For instance, customers recognizing they require new mattresses might conduct research online about various mattress types, brands and retailers before visiting showrooms for more information about what products and services they are considering.
At this stage, your marketing content should focus on informing and educating prospects about how your product or service addresses their issue. Now is an ideal opportunity to promote any distinctive features that make them stand out from their competition. According to Amanda, email marketing is best used for conversion at this stage since prospects already know your business and products well enough to understand them better.
At this stage, the number of prospects that become paying customers depends on your marketing efforts and your ability to clearly outline how your product or service can address certain problems for people. For instance, if you’re selling mattresses that help with sleep apnea, make sure your marketing campaign specifically targets people looking for solutions via keyword research tools like Semrush that pinpoint specific search intent.
Intent
The middle stage of a marketing funnel, commonly referred to as MOFU (middle-of-funnel), involves nurturing leads and moving them toward making purchase decisions, while filtering out those who are not suitable as leads. At this stage marketers employ various tactics including content marketing, paid advertising, lead capture and more in order to foster lead engagement and make sure leads get all the way down into conversion stage.
At this stage, potential customers are aware of your business and what products or services it offers. They’re evaluating whether they meet their needs or solve a problem they have; to evaluate this they may do research online, read reviews/testimonials about you company/product/service, visit showrooms or talk with salespeople.
At this stage of your business’s journey, the opportunity lies within telling its tale and showing how other customers have been helped. To do this successfully, make sure they receive all of the information they require – blog posts or landing pages can answer questions; or use tools like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to search keywords with “informational” search intent.
Once they reach this stage, your product or service may already have their interest and they may even be considering purchasing it. To keep them engaged with your offer, use email marketing to entice them to subscribe to your newsletter or download free resources from you. Leveraging third-party intent data alongside CRM data helps marketers better target prospects before nurturing them into customers.
Evaluation
Customers in this stage of the marketing funnel begin to recognize that they have a pain point and begin searching for solutions. They compare options, read reviews and check prices before making their decisions; whether that means purchasing something like mattresses or researching tools/subscription services that will improve their business operations.
At this stage, your content should focus less on informing audiences of their problem and more on demonstrating why your solution is the ideal one to help. This could include blog posts, case studies or success stories as a means to do this. Many individuals also search informational keywords during this phase such as “how to” or “what is.”
At the top of your funnel, keywords with low intent should be prioritized to drive appropriate traffic – those interested but not yet ready to purchase your product or service. A free tool such as Semrush makes this possible, enabling users to search keywords and filter based on informational intent.
At the bottom of your marketing funnel, your goal should be to promote repeat sales and foster customer loyalty. This can be accomplished with email marketing and retargeting campaigns; alternatively, new customers could be attracted through creating great products that stand out from competitors and providing outstanding customer support – remember, new customer acquisition is an expensive endeavor – it pays to invest in creating repeat buyers!
Purchase
Once a consumer is ready to purchase something, they have narrowed their choices and could possibly have been influenced by reviews, testimonials or influencers. At this stage, it is critical that product benefits and business ethos are clearly presented – discounts may help convince customers to make a commitment.
Once customers have made purchases, brands should strive to maintain contact with them to build customer loyalty. Often this involves sharing helpful content – like Casper’s mattress maintenance guide – which assists them in getting the most out of their purchases. It is also crucial that companies track customer feedback so as to determine whether people are satisfied with your services and likely recommend your business to others.
Marketing funnels provide an ideal way of understanding customer journeys and tracking conversions more accurately. By recognizing which campaigns work at each stage, you can optimize your efforts and accelerate strategic growth. For instance, if TikTok videos increase awareness for your company, that knowledge could be leveraged into increasing brand visibility or improving business listings for improved SEO performance. It may also help to use Semrush media monitoring tool to track brand mentions to quickly detect any negative sentiment that needs addressing before potential customers jump ship early in the funnel process.
