How to build a digital marketing funnel

Introduction

The digital marketing funnel is the heart of any successful marketing campaign. It's how you turn traffic into leads, leads into sales, and finally sales into repeat customers. The funny is, that most organizations do not have a digital marketing funnel setup yet.

Understand your audience first by creating your personas

Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer. They help you understand the needs of your customers and create content for them at every stage of the funnel.

The persona should be named because it helps to keep things clear when referring to them in meetings or documents. You can name your persona after someone specific (e.g., "Bob") or use a more general description like "35-year-old woman looking for a new pair of sneakers."

The top of the funnel content, TOFU

The first type of content in a digital marketing funnel is called top-of-funnel (TOFU) content. It's essentially what you want people to see before they become customers, and it serves as the entry point for your website. TOFU content can be divided into three subcategories:

• Awareness: Provides information about your brand or product

• Consideration: Answers questions about how to use your product

• Conversion: Directs users through the sales process and gets them ready to buy

The middle of funnel content, MOFU

The middle of the funnel is a great place to build relationships with your customers. This content can be more educational and informative than the top of funnel, but it’s still engaging enough that it doesn’t feel like an advertisement. It should answer questions from your audience, give them what they need when they need it, and let them know that you listened.

Content at this stage can accomplish a few different things:

• Answer questions about your product or service

• Provide helpful information in regards to product usability or functionality

• Inform about industry trends

Your MOFU material should be relevant to both personas as well as those in the top of the funnel because once someone has already engaged with your content above them (or have been reached by paid advertising), then they are further down their buying journey and will likely be ready for more detailed information on how to use whatever product or service you offer.

Bottom of funnel, BOFU

For the bottom of funnel, BOFU stands for Buyer's Funnel. This is where your customers are at the end of their buying journey. You've engaged them and showed them why your product or service will solve their problem. Now it's time for them to make a purchase decision—and buy from you!

The bottom of funnel is also known as “closing the deal” or “the conversion funnels."

Think about how much time and effort goes into getting a customer in this phase of your marketing funnel (or selling cycle). It could be months or years depending on how long it takes from when they first discover your company until they decide to purchase something from you (or even contact someone else). So after all that hard work, don't let any potential leads slip away without converting!

Paid ads to drive traffic to Landing pages

Paid ads can be a good way to drive traffic to landing pages. You can use them on Facebook and Google, or you can use other services like AdWords and Bing Ads. Paid ads are very effective because they're targeted at people who are already interested in what you're selling, so you don't have to worry about wasting your time with people who aren't interested in your product or service.

If you have a landing page set up for the ad campaign, then it's easy for users who click through from an ad to land on the page and start their journey toward becoming customers (or leads).

Landing Page and Copy

You’ve now built a landing page and your copy. Now you need to optimize it for search engines, mobile users, desktop users, and voice search.

• Optimize your landing page for mobile: It's best to build a landing page as a one-page website so that it can load quickly on any device — especially smartphones and tablets. If you have too much content on one page it might take too long for people to load in their browser, which will hurt your conversion rate. A good rule of thumb is no more than 3 seconds is ideal; anything longer than that means people are leaving before they read what you've written or clicked through to another site from yours (or both).

• Optimize your landing page for desktop: Make sure the text on all sections of your page is easy to read without scrolling down! The best way we recommend doing this is by using bold formatting whenever possible — but don't overdo it! You also want to make sure that all links are easy-to-click so there's no confusion about where someone needs click next while they're reading through each section (this includes buttons/CTAs).

• "Optimize" Your Copy & Checklists - We talked about this earlier when we discussed how important it was not only having great copy but also making sure everything reads well together so that nothing seems out of place when someone comes across them while browsing around online looking at different pieces related articles or blog posts surrounding those keywords/topics."

CTA calls to action

There are some key elements to keep in mind when designing your CTA. Here’s what you need to know:

• Make the call to action clear. Don't make the user guess what they should do next. They should be able to clearly see and understand the CTA, so don't make it too small or complicated with images and text that doesn't relate to the purpose of your CTA.

• Make it stand out from other elements on your page by using colors that contrast with the rest of your design, or by positioning it near other elements that draw attention away from it (like an image). This way, users will know exactly where their next step lies after reading through an article or video segment.

CRM Database and Email Drip Campaigns

Your next step is to create a CRM database and an email drip campaign. You can either start from scratch or use an existing list of contacts that you already have on hand. If you don’t already have one, this is the perfect opportunity to start building your own stable of leads so that when it comes time for them to make their first purchase, they know exactly where they need to go!

To get started with your CRM database:

• Install [the correct software](https://www.crmsoftwarelist.com/best-crm-software/) for your organization (we recommend Salesforce).

• Create a lead source within Salesforce that corresponds with the type of content you’re sending people through email (i.e., social media marketing). This will help segment out which types of leads are responding best so that in future campaigns, you can focus on reaching out only those who respond most frequently and enthusiastically.

Fill your Digital Marketing Funnel!

You've got a Digital Marketing Funnel, and it's all set up. Now what?

First, you need to fill your funnel. To do this, you'll want to start with landing pages and calls-to-action (CTAs). Landing pages are the first step in your funnel—where people come into contact with your product or service for the first time. This can be an introductory page that outlines what your business does, or it could be an offer for a free trial of some sort.

Call-to-action buttons are clickable text links that direct visitors to take further action on your site; they might say something like "Learn More" or "Subscribe."

Conclusion

This is a very basic overview of what you can do to fill your digital marketing funnel. There are many more ways to do it, but this should be enough to get you started on the right path.