
By the end of reading this post you will have more ideas on funnel marketing, funnel stages, marketing funnel categories, difference between B2B and B2C funnel marketing and 10 best funnel marketing softwares with high purchase level due to their exclusive features.
Have you realized that in most marketing websites, lots of customers barge into the website, but only a few make it to the purchase level.
Then the few that make it to the purchase stage have to be nurtured very well along the line in order to keep them moving down to payment.
This process of nurturing the customers and converting them from awareness, or a mere browser, into a paying customer is called a marketing funnel.
A funnel is simply some set of steps a customer needs to go through before they can reach the conversion stage.
And conversion is when you persuade your website visitors to do something you want them to do, maybe you want them to make a purchase, sign up, or fill out a form.
All those actions your website visitors take is known as the conversion (where the visitor converts from browsing to taking the action you want them to take, and it involves some steps).
This marketing framework that guides a customer down to the bottom line, which is the conversion stage is called a funnel because of the nature of the procedures by which the stages lies upon.
At the beginning of the process, a lot of target audience are attracted to the site, mostly new visitors, all with their problems trying to find a solution.
Then as you go further down the funnel, many of them drop out for some reasons, but mainly because they could not find the solution they are looking for, leaving only interested audience.
Then as we go more further, only a few of the interested audiences will give your service a try. So if you look at the process closely, you will see the way the audience drop out between the stages narrowing from the top to the bottom, it surely looks like a funnel.
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Marketing funnel stages
Although, there is not an agreed upon single version of marketing funnel, some have many stages while some have a few, with different names and actions.
It depends on your type of business and the flow of customers into your business. But the main stages are as follow:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
1. Awareness
This is the first stage of the marketing funnel. At this stage, people know the existence of your service or product.
This stage is carried out by spreading brand awareness and drawing audiences attention. At which the or brand strategies a medium that will appeal to the audiences and make them receptive for future interaction.
Awareness can be carried out through a lot of mediums like the facebook ads, social media marketing, advertising, trade shows, blogging content, inforgraphics, webinars, newsletter and even direct mail.
And after advertising or writing an article on this mediums, the audience who, through the aforementioned mediums finds a product or service (that is in one way or the order) related to there problems.
Then, they click on to discover more about the product and services. At this moment the audience are nurtured so they could go down-to the next stage.
2. Interest
At this stage of the funnel, the action of the audience varies, some focus on a specific product while others just compare brand, products and services.
And some are just there to explore what you have. At this point, proven strategies must be put into action in order to entice and persuade the customer on the reasons why they should try your products or services.
While some of this audiences develop interest in your products or services, other non-interested audience just drop out, thereby reducing the number of people in the funnel.
At this point, your goal should be to motivate them with your product’s features and benefits upon it’s competition. And if possible, compare them, stating out clear facts on how your product is of more advantage.
Another important thing at this stage is to make your audience follow you by signing up for email newsletter and other platforms like facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube channels. etc.
As such, you can communicate with them and find out their suggestions on some of your services and products, and the same time making them share your brand content on their social media too, making way for inviting more audience.
Thereby providing more opportunities to move them down the funnel.
3. Desire
This stage is somehow similar to the interest stage, because it involves persuasion and guidance towards your products and services.
The difference between them is that at this stage, the visitor is having an interest in your products and services with a very high purchase intent.
It is where the real conversion begins.
While a costumer is making a decision on which product or service to go for, your goal is to convince him/her how your product is worth having with numerous reasons why they should buy from you.
Give them reasons like what your product can do that the other competitors of your class cannot. How your services provides support to it’s customers.
The price range between you and the other brands, amongst other relevant advantages that will tie them down to your brand.
The information you need to provide at this stage should include solutions that best fits what your customers are looking for.
You must clear all forms of obstacles that might stand on path to purchase. And it is very important to motivate your customers as you interact with them, using all forms of persuasive approach to boost their desirability.
4. Action
This is the final stage of the funnel. At this stage, the audience is convinced your product is the solution for the problem they are looking for.
This is the stage that purchase takes place. And even at this stage before the purchase, you must use all forms of persuasion so as to make not to change their minds.
And try as much as possible to make the purchase path as easy and smooth as possible.
Marketing funnel categories
There are two categories of the marketing funnel. The B2C marketing funnel and the B2B marketing funnel.
B2C consumers is the category where consumers interact, and buy directly from the business. While B2B consumers is when a business organisation interact and purchase directly from another business.
Distribution channels often change depending on the customer base.
Difference between B2C and B2B marketing funnel
B2C customers often navigate the funnel alone or with trusted advisors like family and friends. B2C customers directly interact with company and not their representatives.
B2B customers have more and more target customer groups. B2B users interact directly with sales representatives at the lower levels of the marketing funnel.
10 best sales funnel softwares with high purchase level
1) GetResponse
Getresponse conversion funnel is one of the most ranked marketing funnel in the circle. Although it is quite expensive, it’s features says otherwise.
Their features includes the conversion funnel, email marketing, social media campaigns, landing pages, webinars, email automation, etc.
It is very easy and quick to setup virtually and it is designed in a user-friendly system such that you can setup everything yourself.
Their system allows you to see how your audience filter through every stage of your funnel to conversion and the conversion rate.
Their landing pages are always up-to-date with interesting newsletter templates.
2) kartra
Kartra marketing funnel is a user-friendly software designed in a simple and comprehensive way, to take you through every step within your dashboard.
Unlike other marketing funnels, Kartra is a multipurpose software with many marketing features.
Their features include website developer, email marketing, landing page builder, lead database, video hosting and checkout forms amongst others.
Kartra’s platform allows you to host videos and optimize it, with a chart showing who are watching your videos.
Incase of any difficulty, Kartra have a training portal with video tutorials to help you along the way.
3) clickFunnels
Click funnel marketing funnel software is the most user-friendly software on the list. It is designed in such a way that it can be used by people with little or no technical and marketing skills.
Their system is self-explanatory and is very helpful for beginners. Their helpful features include a pop-up editor, a landing page editor, which can be used to see how your page will look and behave when finished.
They have an inbiult marketing automation and affiliate marketing tools. Incase of any problems and confusion, clickfunnels have a help button within the biulder which will direct you to their help book or chat with their agents.
4) keap
Keap is a marketing software that is targeted towards small business. It’s biulder is very easy to use and has a lot of options to choose from.
Their services include lead database, landing page builder, sales pipeline automation, marketing automation, business phoneline, text messaging and recurring payment amongst others.
All depending on the plan you subscribed for. The higher the plan, the higher the services.
5) wishpond
Wishpond marketing software is built with an eco-friendly system with an interesting templates. Their plans are affordable and they have quality features.
This includes pop-up windows and editor, marketing automation, landing page builder, and email marketing.
Infact, they take care of your email marketing. Their system also allows you to test your newsletter templates and see which performs better.
6) Thrive themes
Thrive themes marketing funnel has one of the most cheapest plan of only $30 per month for a membership plan.
Their features are very interesting, this includes the visual drag and drop website builder, quiz, online course biulder, testimonial plugins, headline optimizer, scarcity campaign biulder, and landing page builder and testing amongst others.Thrive themes do not offer free trial but their plans are very affordable.
7) lead pages
Leadpage is a marketing software that allows you to build your landing page from scratch with just a simple drag and drop.
They have interesting features like the popup window, alert bars, a website, and dozens of pre-built templates and page editors with an A/B testing features.
They allow you to collect unlimited leads. Their plans are affordable and they offer a 14 day free trial.
8) Landingi
Landingi is a marketing software that specializes in landing pages. Their marketing funnel can be built when you integrate the landing page software with other marketing tools, like CRM and email marketing software.
The software is very easy to use, edit, and publish, with an unlimited landing page, leads, custom domain, cloud hosting, etc. They have a livechat icon on their dashboard Incase of any problems or difficulty.
9) Instapage
Like Landingi, instapage is also a landing page builder that can be used as a marketing funnel. Their system has a conversion optimizer ,which can increase your conversion rate up-to 400%.
Their services include a landing page builder, A/B testing, professional page launch service, guaranteed uptime, page migration service, custom forms, custom features implementation, etc.
10) Kajabi
Kajabi is a multipurpose marketing software that allows you to build a marketing funnel software. It offers multiple features like building a blog, creating landing pages, email marketing, affiliate programs, online classes etc.
Their software is very easy to use, with the help of their virtual sales pipeline builder, that it can be used by people with little or no marketing knowledge.
Conclusion
You can use your funnel for more than just signing up and products purchase. It can also be used to monitor your website activities like seeing how your website visitors move through a specific website flow.
And making it easier to know what your company must do to influence customers. You can also use it to track newsletter sign up, right from viewing the newsletter sign up to the submitting form, up-to confirming the email.