You wouldn’t try to catch water with a colander. Just like you wouldn’t use a marketing funnel that leaks, right?
OK, the metaphor isn’t perfect. You will always have more leads coming in than sales coming out, for one. But the measure of a good marketing funnel is one that leaks the least – converting as many prospects as possible.
While there are lots of ways to think about the funnel, it can always be roughly divided into a top, a middle and a bottom. Each stage matters and contributes to overall marketing outcomes.
Issues with parts of your funnel manifest in distinct ways, too:
Awareness – Top of the funnel
Being unable to gather enough leads or reaching very low levels of engagement indicate a problem at the top of your funnel. You may not be hitting the right audience, or not casting your net wide enough to get your message seen.
Consideration – Middle of the funnel
Leads are entering your ecosystem and consuming your content (to an extent) – but then they disappear without engaging with any sales processes. Is the content you’re putting out relevant to their key concerns? Or is it technically correct but unengaging?
Conversion – Bottom of the funnel
You’ve got leads that seem like die-hard fans: they open every email, religiously listen to every podcast, they even bought the t-shirt – but they haven’t actually followed through. Is all the pricing information they need out there? Is it easy for them to open lines of communication?
However, wherever you find leaks or issues, there’s one method should be your first port of call:
Identify your highs and lows
Making sure you’re armed with the best metrics, find out the touchpoints or channels that perform best (most conversions) and the ones where prospects seem to disappear.
Consider key questions:
How do they differ from other touchpoints?
Is any specific information especially effective?
Are there any barriers or points of friction?
How many steps do people have to go through before converting?
Then choose the goal you want to focus on like more demo requests or email signups and apply the lessons from your best performing touchpoints more broadly – alongside identifying shared elements of lower-performing ones so that you can eliminate them.
If you’re looking for ways to refine your funnel, or if you have ideas of what to change but need support getting there, get in touch and we’ll help get your funnel flowing again.
Featured image by Robin Schreiner on Unsplash.