Marion Barnham • January 24, 2025
Did you know that a full 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure a sales funnel, and a whopping 79% of marketing leads are never converted into sales. (Source: Salesforce Survey)
96% of visitors to your website aren’t ready to buy anything (yet).
This means you have to put in the effort and create a great marketing funnel to turn these leads into customers. And then the second, third or fourth time they visit you will have won a customer.
This blog post will answer the following questions:
- What is a Marketing Funnel?
- How did it all start?
- What are the stages?
- How can you make it successful?
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Imagine a funnel or a pipe and then add a little bit of marketing magic and there you have it ‘’A marketing Funnel’’. We wish it was that simple.
Well, you do have a funnel, which means that you lead someone from one end to the other. That someone of course is your customer. Actually, when they stand from the one end they are just visitors of your website or social media profile etc and after they move through the funnel they turn into happy customers.
How it all started
In 1898, E. St. Elmo Lewis developed a model that explained how a brand-customer relationship is built and what are the individual stages that they go through. More specifically the stages are:
- Awareness: The potential customer is aware of their problems and the possible solutions.
- Interest: The potential customer shows interest in a group of services or products, therefore they become your website’s visitor.
- Desire: The visitor begins to evaluate a certain brand, which means they are now a prospect.
- Action: The prospect decides whether to purchase and if they do they finally become customers.
The basic principles of a marketing funnel remain the same until today,but some prefer to add some variations such as loyalty and advocacy. So the funnel doesn’t stop when they become customers but when they become promoters of the product themselves.
What are the stages and how to use them effectively
At Barnham Marketing, we like to keep things simple and we use the TOFU-MOFU-BOFU model.
This makes it easier for most companies to understand how the funnel works and more importantly to follow through.
TOFU~ top of funnel, this stage is all about giving answers to a problem. Your main focus should be to find the pain points of your target audience/buyer persona.
How do you do that effectively?
Writing a blog with the possible solutions to a problem is one of the most common ways to do it. You need to remember that you shouldn’t talk about your product for more than 20-30% of the content.
I recently wrote a piece on how to write a Blog that converts, there you will find all the necessary information and best practice tips.
MOFU~ middle of funnel, is about addressing yourself as a thought leader. This is the main difference with TOFU, this time you talk about a problem and how your product or services are what your audience needs.
There are many tools that lead to a successful MOFU:
- Guide
- White Paper
- Ebook
- Report
- Webinar
- Press Release
- Video
I believe that a mixture can give the best results possible. My suggestion is to have a monthly webinar and white paper planned as part of your content marketing plan.
BOFU~ Bottom of funnel, it is the most critical step. This is the step to close the sale. This could also involve an in-person meeting with a sales representative but from the marketing side of things it could mean:
- Trials
- Live demos
- Consultations
At this point, they know who you are and what you do and they have made their market research on your competitors. All that is left to do is to give them the chance to try the product and seal the deal.
If you liked our content, please share on social media, and if you need our advice just send us an email, we are always happy to help you.