A seasoned online businessman and entrepreneur Gilad Krein believes that effective marketing begins with a great marketing strategy. An effective marketing strategy does both; it identifies what your company is doing right and where it can improve.
Business plans typically include marketing strategies. Even if not every online business starts with a business plan, you should have one. That is because a business plan is like a road map, ensuring that you never get lost.
Your business plan should be well-constructed and consistent as it will help you make critical decisions both now and in the future. It also proves to you and potential investors that your business is viable.
Krein says that marketing funnels are essential ingredients in creating a marketing strategy. He offers a step-by-step guide on building a marketing funnel as a part of your online business marketing strategy.
Gilad Krein – An Overview of the Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is a roadmap that shows a customer’s journey with a brand. It involves different stages, from the point of awareness to purchasing, to when an individual becomes a returning customer.
The traditional marketing funnel has six stages. They are:
Identification
Identification is the first stage of the funnel. It is the point where the individual hears about your business through ads, social media, webinars, etc. Lead generation occurs, and the individual moves on to the second stage.
Interest
Here, the individual visits your website or social media page to learn more about your company and its offerings. In addition to email campaigns and newsletters, you can offer educational resources to help educate them further.
Consideration
Prospects are at this stage of the funnel. Your marketing team can send them more information about your company through brochures, e-books, or whitepapers.
Intent
Prospects who get to this stage are interested in buying your product or service. They demonstrate this after a demo or survey. However, you can use testimonials of previous customers to make them move to the next stage.
Purchase
Purchase is where the actual sale happens, and the prospect now becomes a customer.
Re-marketing
After-sales, you need to find ways to maintain your relationship with customers so they can come back. At this stage, you can offer discounts, create a referral program, and use email campaigns and other marketing strategies.
Gilad Krein Shows the Steps to Building a Marketing Funnel
There are various ways to support your business growth by building a marketing funnel. This might overwhelm you, but Gilad Krein simplifies the process.
Step 1: Know Your Audience
Before starting a business, you must research the market to understand your target audience better, where audience segmentation comes in.
Audience segmentation refers to existing customer data to create content that appeals to them. If you’ve already gained traction in business, you can use the data of your existing customers to categorize them according to their similarities or preferences.
Additionally, you can identify your audience’s interests and pain points by using data from your competitors.
Step 2: Decide the Right Platforms for Your Business
After identifying your audience, you also need to find out where they are. Statistics show that there are about 4.65 billion social media users.
Does this ring a bell?
It means your potential customers are on several social media platforms. To find them, look at the demographics of popular social media platforms.
Facebook has about 2.93 million users. However, since most people use the platform to connect with friends, it would be better to use it to build a relationship with your customers.
You can find how-to videos on YouTube, which are helpful for businesses in the education and service industries.
Many young people use Instagram, and the platform is driven by tons of photos, videos, and little text. A visual-based business will thrive better here.
Tiktok is another platform with a high number of young people. You can use it to make short videos to create awareness about a brand.
Consider what your competitors are doing, their platforms, and how they are doing. These insights can help you figure out what works and what does not.
Step 3: Consider the Thoughts and Needs of the Client on Each Stage of the Funnel
Although the marketing funnel is a journey, treat each stage differently. People’s needs and thoughts differ from one step to the next.
If you want to grow an existing business, do not assume that everyone is starting at the top of the funnel. Some people already know about your company but aren’t interested yet.
Others are deciding whether to buy from you or your competitors. Therefore, you need to focus more on nurturing your leads at each stage, leading them on to purchase.
You will ensure that they do not fall out of the funnel and become your competitors’ customers. Even after the first purchase, your customers should make more purchases and recommend your company to their friends.
Step 4: Map Out a Visual Plan
Gilad Krein says that a marketing funnel is a journey, you must have a focus. The top of the funnel is where you must drive traffic to attract leads.
In the middle, you capture the leads and turn them into prospects. And at the bottom, you nurture prospects until they become loyal customers.
Sketching a visual plan is quite helpful when strategizing. Ensure to break down the plan into tiny, doable bits, so you don’t get overwhelmed and lose focus.
You can create a to-do list or a Ghant chart to track your performance.
Step 5: Invest in Marketing Funnel Software
Marketing funnel software refers to tools that help businesses automate the activities involved in each stage of the funnel. These tools include the following:
- Landing page builder
- A customer relationship management (CRM) system for organizing, tracking, and nurturing new leads and existing customers
- Email campaign tool
- Scheduling tool
- Payment gateways
- Analytics tool for monitoring and evaluating the performance of your funnel
Step 6: Track and Refine Your Performances and Results
The last step in building a marketing funnel is to keep track of your performance and revisit your strategies periodically. What works today may not work tomorrow. So, you don’t have to relax like you’ve won the trophy.
Go back to your landing page and see if there’s something that needs improvement. Be active on your social media pages because most of your customers might be coming from there. Also, include a link to your website on your profile.
Finally, if you want to stand out from the competition, collect reviews and testimonials from your customers. Put them up on your site and advertise, so people see what they’ll get when they buy from you.
Building a marketing funnel is an ongoing effort
Gilad Krein discussed the steps involved in building a marketing funnel. Although the process seems simple, it’s not a once-and-forget activity. It would be best to create and continuously optimize your funnel as long as you’re still in business.
