In today’s age of information overload, consumers are actively seeking brands with authentic products and services that deliver what they promise. Due to this changing buying behaviour, businesses now need to establish their authority in the market to reach the right consumers at an appropriate time. Inbound marketing makes this possible by helping businesses build a brand image that resonates with consumers.
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What Is an Inbound Marketing Funnel?
Inbound marketing is a strategy where businesses organically capture their target audience’s attention at different stages of their purchase journey. The inbound marketing funnel assigns different titles to clients according to their level of interest in what you have to offer, so you know what kind of material to give them and when.
Simply put, the inbound marketing funnel is a marketing tactic that pulls people towards your brand by providing them with information and expert opinions as solutions to their problems. The process aims to convert strangers into website visitors > leads > customers and finally turn them into promoters for your brand.
The Different Stages of Inbound Marketing Funnel
A classic sales funnel is categorised into three main stages: Top of the Funnel (ToFu), Middle of the Funnel (MoFu) and Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu).
Marketers use different tactics to guide people towards a purchase at each stage:
1. Top Of the Funnel (ToFu)
This is categorised as the awareness stage in a buyer’s journey, where marketers direct their efforts toward attracting website visitors that fit the brand’s ideal buyer persona.
At this stage, people are in their search mode, looking for the best solutions to their problems. They aren’t here to make a purchase but just to explore and evaluate their options.
To convert these people into website visitors, you must create well-optimised content focused on solving familiar pain points, using social media to spread the word, and using SEO tactics to rank for relevant keywords.
2. Middle Of the Funnel (MoFu)
The aim at this stage is to convert visitors into leads by providing them with precisely what they are looking for. Since a visitor to your website may be looking for specific information at this stage, you must not instantly push them to make a purchase.
Instead, give them everything they might need to make an informed decision, and leave the choice of becoming your customers to them. MoFu is also known as the Consideration Stage in a buyer’s journey, where tools like white papers, expert guides, live interactions through webinars and podcasts, or detailed videos are beneficial.
3. Bottom Of The Funnel (BoFu)
This is a decision stage in the buyers’ purchase journey, but it means converting the leads into customers for marketers. Although less than 5% of website visitors arrive at this stage, it doesn’t mean you should focus all your marketing efforts at this stage only.
You can convert leads into customers by offering product demos, free trials, consultations, and powerful call-to-action.
Inbound Marketing Funnel Stages
The Inbound marketing funnel stages are pretty similar; a significant difference is that it includes an additional step. Let’s discuss these in detail:
Attract
The first step is to gain the attention of your prospective customers. Activities like optimising your website for relevant keywords, having active, well-optimised business pages across different social media platforms, and creating content that answers your audience’s questions help attract new website visitors.
Convert
Everyone who visits your website isn’t necessarily there to make a purchase. But you can inspire them to sign up for your email list or newsletters, visit another relevant page, or connect with your team directly to gain more knowledge.
You can also have them fill out basic details forms in exchange for valuable content like e-books, whitepapers, newsletters, etc. To convert visitors into leads, you must have a suitable CTA that prompts the former into taking actionable steps.
Close
At this stage of the inbound marketing sales funnel, you must guide your leads through the sales pipeline toward making their final purchase. The resources you need to spend to convert a lead into a customer vary between individuals, but it is usually a long and tedious process.
You would need to nurture leads by providing the most appropriate content at the right time through emails, social media, or your website. You would also need to use marketing automation software and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to stay organised and better access relevant data.
Delight
“The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.” – Philip Kotler
After completing the sales process, you must continue to foster good relations with your customers so that they can act as promoters for your business. For example, continue interacting with them actively through social media and chatbots, or deploy loyalty programs and time-to-time surveys to support and delight your customers. You can also have a personalised follow-up process and your after-sales services to maintain good customer-company relations.
Where Should You Use an Inbound Marketing Funnel?
Inbound marketing is about pulling people towards your business by building brand awareness and trust among strangers by providing valuable content. The entire process is focused on attracting strangers and turning them into delighted customers, who then act as promoters for your business.
You can use an inbound marketing funnel in the following instances:
1. For a constrictive budget: Inbound marketing campaigns are incredibly cost-efficient and target a large stratum of individuals to convert them into visitors, prospects, and finally, customers. Inbound marketing is a long-term game, but the compounding value of your relationships with customers eventually becomes more profitable than other marketing tactics.
2. For long term benefits: Outbound marketing may yield immediate results, but it doesn’t lead to fostering a relationship between your company and the customer. But, if you want your existing customers to spread the good word about your company, acting as promoters, you must use an inbound marketing strategy. An inbound marketing funnel helps identify and create resources to generate traffic and conversions over a more extended period.
3. For organic leads: You can generate sales only if you get the right website visitors, which is possible when you leverage a well-designed inbound marketing funnel. It helps get leads looking for solutions you are most likely to provide, making them more inclined to complete the purchase.
4. For building brand value: You would need an inbound funnel to build credibility and trust among the target audience. By producing and promoting relevant content, you can create an authoritative image for your brand in the industry. And people prefer buying from businesses that provide value and solutions over those just marketing their products.
Here’s a great Inbound Marketing Funnel Template that you can use for any business.
How to Build an Inbound Marketing Funnel?
Now that you are familiar with what inbound funnels are and where to use them, here’s a step-by-step process of building one for your business:
1. Find a topic of interest: First, you need to determine what information your audience is looking for by tracking down which of your content is getting the highest search volume and engagement. Once you know what topics pique the audience’s interest, you need to ascertain why your customers are looking for them so that you can create more helpful content on those topics. Here, you just need to focus on providing value and building trust.
2. Build a landing page: You now need to direct people consuming your content to a specific page. This landing page must offer more valuable information and an exciting offer, for instance, that excites people to know more or buy from you.
3. Generate more traffic: You need to optimise your content and promote it through different channels to attract more people to your funnel. The more visitors there are on your landing page, the higher your chances of getting them converted into customers. You can offer lead magnets to capture their email addresses to connect on a more personalised level.
4. Start selling: Your landing page must have a chatbot to initiate the first point of contact. Now’s the time to follow up and connect with all your leads. You can create follow-up nurturing sequences or remarketing ads to not miss out on any sales opportunities.
5. Optimise: Like any other marketing strategy, your success with inbound funnels relies on how frequently you measure, analyse and optimise. The performance indicators you must look for include organic clicks, new users, repeat visitors, website sessions, number of qualified leads, total sales, retention rate, and search volume.
The Inbound Marketing Flywheel
The Flywheel model is the upgrade to the traditional inbound marketing funnel, where customers are almost treated as an afterthought. In this model, customers are the focal point of every strategy, leading to a high emphasis on CRM.
The ‘Delight’ stage is no longer limited to customers but is crucial to generating visitors and relevant leads. The model also combines the ‘Convert’ and ‘Close’ stages into the ‘Engage’ stage, focussing on the importance of being in tune with the customer’s needs.
HubSpot first introduced the Flywheel concept to remove friction throughout the inbound marketing funnel stages. When you attain customers by engaging and delighting them from the beginning, they are more likely to become your promoters and bring more customers to you. Over time, you can reduce your efforts on new customer acquisitions.
Summing Up
Inbound marketing is the best strategy to attract, engage and delight your customers by providing valuable content and solutions even before they become promising leads for your business.
The main aim of creating a successful inbound marketing funnel is to hook the customers right from the beginning when they are casually looking up information.
To make your funnels a success, ensure you are working in the right direction by getting feedback, measuring your performance, and regularly optimising for improved results.