If you’re like most marketers, you’re always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to reach your target audience. But what if there was a marketing strategy that could help you achieve better results across all channels and a faster path to marketing success?
Full-funnel marketing is just that – a strategy that can help you achieve better ROI by targeting prospects at every stage of the buying process.
According to a Nielsen analysis, campaigns that use a full-funnel marketing approach garner an ROI that’s 45% higher than campaigns that double down only on bottom-of-the-funnel tactics.
This is why full-funnel marketing campaigns, on average, perform better. But, are you wondering how it works? or what even full-funnel marketing is all about? We’ll go over some tactics that will help your full-funnel strategy succeed.
But first, let’s define what full-funnel marketing means.
What is Full-Funnel Marketing?
This is the question that’ll bug your mind once you run across the term, especially when you’re expanding your subject matter knowledge of how to use a sales funnel. Rest assured, the concept is deconstructable.
It’s simpler than you think, full-funnel marketing is precisely what the term tells. The keyword is ‘full-funnel.’ Which means we’re targeting the entire funnel.
You’re giving focus on marketing to potential customers in all of the stages of the sales funnel—not just one or two stages.
A full-funnel approach is a strategy that encompasses all stages of the customer journey in the sales funnel, from awareness and attraction to conversion and retention.
By honing in on a variety of tactics across different channels, businesses can create a holistic full-funnel approach that touches customers at every stage of the buying process.
Compared to the traditional approach to how sales funnels are used since the beginning of their conception, full-funnel marketing doesn’t isolate any of the stages of the marketing funnel.
In full-funnel marketing, doing so means giving a chance to miss out on a lot of opportunities to capture the potential customer regardless of wherever they are in the marketing stage funnel.
While a full-funnel campaign can be a bit more expensive and time-consuming than other marketing strategies, it’s often worth the investment.
Businesses that take a full-funnel approach are more likely to see better results in terms of customer acquisition and retention.
The Strategies That Work a Full Funnel Strategy
In a full-funnel marketing approach, we want to focus on all of the stages of the funnel—not just one or two. But to achieve marketing success in doing so, you will need to solidify different strategies for different stages of the marketing funnel.
Here, we’ll go over the most common—and effective strategic approach—used to come up with a holistic full-funnel campaign. By dividing the full-funnel approach into three parts: the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel, and the bottom of the funnel, we’ll have a more trackable full-funnel marketing strategy.
- Content Marketing
- SEO
- Paid Advertising
- Product Reviews
- Customer Videos
- Case Studies
- Social Media
- Promo Code or Discounts
- Price/Product Comparisons
- Sales Calls
- Email Marketing
Top of the Funnel – TOFU
When your target audience is at the top of the funnel, your goal is to offer value (for free) to gain their trust, generate awareness for your brand, and get as much website traffic to start their customer journey with your brand as possible.
To begin your full funnel strategy, here are some of the common tactics for you to do:
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing helps you create informative and keyword-optimized blog posts, eBooks, white papers, and other forms of content that can help attract customers in the awareness stage. By providing valuable resources, businesses can build trust and credibility, which can lead to more conversions down the line.
2. SEO
Optimizing website content and structure for search engines can help ensure that your site appears in relevant search results, driving valuable customers to your site and helping to attract prospects.
3. Paid Advertising
Paid ads or paid search can be a great way to reach new audiences and drive traffic to your website. When used in conjunction with other full-funnel tactics, paid ads can help move customers further down the funnel toward conversion.
Middle of the Funnel – MOFU
After advancing from the top of the funnel, your target customer moves to the stage where options are weighed—the middle of the funnel stage.
In the consideration stage of the customer journey, your goal is to turn curious visitors into prospects and help them understand why you’re a solid choice.
For you to do that, here are some of the tactics for you to do:
1. Product Reviews
Product reviews are informative and helpful for potential customers who are considering purchasing a product in the consideration stage. They provide information on what others thought of the product, how it worked for them, and any issues they may have had. This information helps people make more informed decisions about whether or not to purchase.
2. Customer Videos
By providing footage of past customers using your product or service, you can help prospects visualize how they could benefit from what you offer. This type of content can also help build trust and credibility, as it shows that real people have had positive experiences with your company. As a result, customer videos can be a powerful tool for enticing potential customers to learn more about what you offer.
3. Case Studies
Case studies provide in-depth information about how your product or service has helped other customers and can be helpful in demonstrating the benefits of working with you. By showcasing real-world examples of how your product or service has solved a problem or improved a situation, case studies can help potential customers see how you could help them as well.
4. Social Media
Posting engaging content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can help raise awareness of your brand and attract new leads. By building relationships with potential customers on social media, you can create a connection that may lead to conversions down the road.
Bottom of the Funnel – BOFU
This is the stage where traditional marketing funnels focus the most on, and for the right reasons. As the stage where most potential customers make their decisions, BOFU is the part of the marketing funnel where most conversions happen. Here, you want to boost your prospect’s confidence in your product or service.
To help prospects choose you and your product and service, here are some tactics for you to do:
1. Promo Codes or Discounts
Promo codes or discounts are a great way to turn prospects into buying customers. They provide an incentive for people to buy your product or service and can help increase sales. Additionally, promo codes and discounts can help build customer loyalty, which can lead to repeat business.
2. Price/Product Comparisons
By providing clear and concise comparisons between your product and your competitor’s, you can help turn prospects into buying customers. In addition, price comparisons can also help to reinforce customer confidence in their purchase decision. By highlighting the value of your product in comparison to others on the market, you can help reassure buyers that they are getting a good deal.
3. Sales Calls
Sales calls are an essential part of the sales process, and they play a crucial role in turning prospects into buying customers. By making sales calls, you can connect with potential customers and build relationships with them, leading to more sales opportunities. Sales call also give you the chance to learn more about your potential customers and find out what their needs and wants are. Ultimately, sales calls help you close more sales deals and increase your bottom line.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing can be used at every stage, from attracting new leads to converting customers and retaining them as lifelong fans. By sending targeted and relevant email campaigns, businesses can nurture leads and keep customers engaged, resulting in more conversions over time.
- Treat each stage of the marketing funnel as a piece that supports and sets up the next stage—not as a stand-alone phase.
- Create engaging content that attracts attention and inspires action.
- Use dynamic remarketing to target people who have visited your website or clicked on your ads.
- Segment your email list and send tailored messages to different groups of subscribers.
- Target potential customers with social media ads based on their interests and demographics.
- Experiment with new channels and tactics to find what works best for your business.
- Make sure to measure engagement metrics for each stage of the funnel and adjust marketing strategies when necessary.
The Benefits of Full-Funnel Marketing
There are a number of benefits that businesses can experience by using full-funnel marketing strategies. Below are the most common benefits that come with utilizing a full-funnel marketing approach to your marketing campaigns.
1. Improved customer acquisition
By touching customers at every stage of the buying process, businesses can increase the likelihood of acquiring new customers.
2. Increased customer retention
Customers who have a positive experience with your brand are more likely to stick around for the long term. By using this marketing tactic, you can create lasting relationships with your customers, leading to improved retention rates.
3. Greater brand awareness
A well-executed full-funnel marketing campaign can do wonders for your business’s visibility. As more people become aware of your brand, you’ll have a better chance of attracting new leads and customers.
4. Higher conversion rates
By using strategies that are designed to move customers down the funnel, businesses can experience improved conversion rates. This kind of marketing can help you close more deals and boost your bottom line.
5. Improved ROI
Because full-funnel marketing covers all stages of the customer journey, it can be a more efficient and cost-effective way to market your business. When done right, this marketing approach can provide a higher return on investment than other marketing tactics.
FAQs
Have you ever heard of full-funnel marketing? If this is your first time, you probably have a lot of other questions about the subject.
In this section, we’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions about full-funnel marketing.
In Summary
A full-funnel marketing strategy is one that uses a variety of methods to reach potential buyers at all stages of the buying process. These methods include creating quality content, targeting the right audience, using effective advertising methods, and leveraging influential voices.
Measuring the effectiveness of these campaigns is important in order to optimize them for better results. Some common mistakes that businesses make when implementing a full-funnel marketing strategy include focusing too much on one stage of the funnel, not using a variety of marketing methods, and not tracking the results of their campaigns.
Optimizing your full-funnel marketing campaigns can be done by making sure they are properly aligned with your business goals, well-targeted and relevant to your audience, well-designed and engaging, and properly tracked and analyzed for performance improvement opportunities.
Brian Shelton is an entrepreneur, marketer, and life-long learner committed to helping businesses achieve impactful results. He founded Grow Predictably to provide tailored marketing strategies to generate predictable, profitable growth. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Brian has helped businesses, large and small. reach their goals and drive positive change in the world.