How to build a successful marketing funnel

A marketing funnel represents the journey of a customer from awareness to conversion.

Exceptional marketing funnels don’t spring into existence overnight. They develop from a unified strategy and fluid communication between sales and marketing teams. While it takes time and effort, building a marketing funnel is the key to turning prospects into paying customers.

In this guide:

• What is a marketing funnel?
• Why use marketing funnels?
• Stages of the marketing funnel
• The differences between B2B and B2C marketing funnels
• How to create a marketing funnel — key strategies
• How to measure success
• Marketing funnel examples: B2B vs B2C
• Build and optimize your marketing funnel with Marketo Engage

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a method for converting leads into customers by first targeting a wide number of consumers — how wide will depend on your budget and the size of your potential audience.

Sometimes called a “sales” or “conversion” funnel, it provides a model for understanding the customer experience so you can better meet the needs of your target audience. It also helps you identify problem areas within the funnel and troubleshoot them, so you lose fewer leads along the way.

Ideally each person you target would stick around for the entire customer journey. But the number of audience members inevitably narrows — hence the funnel metaphor.

That funnel includes four stages:

The marketing funnel ensures focus, beginning with a broad range of prospects and ending with a direct and intimate understanding of who your leads really are, what they want to buy, and if they will be interested in additional purchases in the future. It’s best to examine first how the different stages of the marketing funnel work together, and then apply individual strategies to get the most out of each stage.

One main use of a marketing funnel is to identify where holes in the funnel are located. Once you know that, patching them becomes a lot easier.

Why use marketing funnels?

Maintaining a marketing strategy

Once you know where your customers are falling off in the marketing funnel, you’re positioned to implement strategies that directly address shortcomings in your marketing strategy.

Consistent promotion

The more familiar you are with the marketing funnel stages, the better you’ll be able to develop tactics for each one.

Increase sales

With those tactics in place, you are prepared to expertly guide each potential customer through to the point of sale.

Save time and effort

Knowing your customers’ marketing journey and predetermining marketing strategies for each stage of the funnel means you will already have a plan set for when prospective customers drop off.

Predictive sales

Once you have a sense of how big your audience is at every stage of your funnel, the better you can forecast future sales.

Customer retention

Retaining existing customers is a critical stage of the marketing funnel. To maximize their lifetime value, your strategy should include clear plans to re-engage and nurture customers as soon as they reach the bottom of the funnel. This ensures ongoing engagement and strengthens their connection to your brand.

Stages of the marketing funnel

Top-of-funnel

The top of the marketing funnel should be as broad as possible and filled with many potential leads.

At this stage, the marketing team is chiefly responsible for generating interest and sharing information about a company’s products or services. Not everyone will move on from the top of the funnel, but you are only interested in prospects who could be converted later.

The top of the funnel should be as wide as possible. Marketing tactics include email campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO), and content marketing like blog posts, videos, eBooks, and white papers.

Specific stages include:

• Name. This is the point at which the individual’s name has entered your database.
• Engaged. This is where the target is moved further down the funnel after taking a specific action, whether it’s clicking a link or opening an email.
• Target. At this stage, you should employ lead scoring to determine if the target is a qualified potential buyer and whether future marketing efforts are necessary.

Top-of-funnel marketing aims to increase awareness among potential customers who are not yet purchase-ready. Create online content that appears high in Google searches, that solves problems, or that is attractive and interesting enough to get traction on social media.

Middle-of-funnel

Once a lead reaches the middle of the funnel, they are likely to become a paying customer, and marketing should begin preparing for the handoff to sales.

A sales rep should reach out personally, but they should also be ready to pass a lead back to marketing for additional nurturing as needed.

Most leads aren’t sales-ready at this point, but the personal touch of communicating with a sales rep is still a key part of nurturing the evolving relationship.

The middle-of-funnel can be separated into two distinct stages:

• Lead. This is where a target truly becomes a lead with verified interest. After direct interaction with a sales rep, it’s possible to move them to the next stage.
• Sales lead. A lead only becomes a sales lead if they’re a qualified buyer who’s ready to purchase. If not, it’s best to return the lead to marketing for additional nurturing efforts.

Middle-of-the-funnel content should build purchasing intent with your company, so this is a good time to supply more detail — such as downloadable eBooks, invitations to webinars on your own website, or other educational content.

Bottom-of-funnel

The final portion of the marketing funnel is where you’ll find the most promising leads —those who are ready to head to the purchase stage or paying customers you want to retain for future purchases.

In either case, the bottom of the funnel involves more direct interaction with the leads. It’s when you extend a trial offer, provide a promo code, or show off a product demo.

The sales team should be stepping up at this phase with the necessary content to help leads become buyers — without acting in an aggressive manner that will turn customers off.

You can divide the end of the customer journey into a couple stages:

• Opportunity. This is when sales leads are ready for further interaction with the sales team and are actively seeking to buy.
• Customer. When a lead is successfully turned into a customer, it is only the beginning of your relationship with them. You should continue to work with and nurture your customers to ensure you retain their business.

The differences between B2B and B2C marketing funnels

Business to business

In B2B, for example, companies may need to convince multiple decision-makers to buy their products, so the sales cycle is often longer. Firms must generally supply more information when selling to businesses, and there is less likely to be impulse purchasing, or purchasing based on consumer desire alone.

Business to consumer

The B2C sales funnel is often shorter — relying on converting an individual, rather than a business, team or department — into a loyal customer. B2C marketing often seeks to create an emotional connection. As a result, businesses spend more money on channels like social media and TV advertising in B2C.

How to create a marketing funnel — key strategies

Use marketing automation

Marketing automation helps you efficiently generate viable leads, track user engagement, and nurture prospects.

In addition to automating recurring marketing activities, marketing automation tools allow your marketing team to confidently make data-driven decisions without experiencing information overload. Look for a tool that integrates with your CRM to provide your team with accurate information on customers in real time, lets you personalize each step of the customer journey, and helps you target leads with content they’re likely to appreciate.

Practice lead scoring

Once you have leads in the funnel, you need a clear, consistent method for determining which are most likely to convert to maximize ROI from your sales and marketing efforts.

This is where it’s important to practice lead scoring — a ranking system that rates the value of each lead. Potential customers are given a numerical score based on the estimated value they represent.

Lead scores should be based on a variety of key factors that combine to create an ideal lead profile.

Demographic factors

Demographic factors give your company a better idea of the type of person it’s selling to. Relevant characteristics include:

• Title
• Role
• Purchasing authority
• Years of experience
• Type of email address used
• Social network participation and influence
• Affiliations
• Career interests

Company-specific factors

These factors relate to the organization you’re targeting. B2B marketers will want to pay close attention to these qualities when deciding how to market to relevant decision-makers:

• Number of employees
• Company revenue
• Industry
• Financial viability
• Location

Behavior-based factors

These factors are based on actions taken by the lead, which can impact a score positively or negatively. Some positive behaviors include repeatedly visiting a webpage, opening an email link and subscribing to your company blog. Negative behaviors include unsubscribing from emails, not visiting the website for more than 30 days, and adverse comments on social media posts.

Produce a healthy mix of content

Different types of leads will be receptive to different forms of content. If you only offer blog posts, you’ll miss out on prospects looking for longer-form content such as eBooks, guides, and reports. If you only produce written content, you’ll get ignored by leads who prefer visual offerings like videos and livestreams.

When you’re crafting your content, remember that your primary goal should be to engage and inform, not to sell. Few parties will engage with content that’s nothing but a lengthy sales pitch. Instead, include relevant calls-to-action (CTAs) at appropriate places in your content.

If a lead is at the interest stage, they will benefit from informative blog posts that mention relevant products or services in passing. Once the prospect becomes familiar with you and trusts your point of view, they’ll be more receptive to your CTAs.

Align to avoid handoff mistakes

The handoff is the critical moment when strong leads are transferred from marketing to sales near the bottom-of-funnel.

Team leaders should host strategy sessions to avoid misalignments. For instance, the marketing team might have a certain picture of what a qualified lead looks like that doesn’t match up with what sales has in mind.

Prevent handoff misalignments through constant communication between marketing and sales. Each side should agree to a mutual definition of what constitutes a qualified sales lead.

They should also jointly monitor data, looking for behavior patterns that indicate the lead is ready to buy. Encouraging regular interaction between marketing and sales will prevent misunderstandings and strengthen the efforts of each department.

Understand how customers move through your funnel

When you map the customer journey, marketing and sales can communicate better than ever. Both teams have a common language, and they can use the same data and strategies to identify when to move a lead down the funnel or if they need to be returned up the funnel for trust-building and nurturing.

When the marketing and sales teams work together, each stage of the funnel is made exponentially more impactful.

Mapping the customer journey involves balancing your ideal lead with real-world results. Pay attention to how leads engage with your content and behave during interactions.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, as former customers or leads who exit the funnel are often forthcoming about what they’re looking for and how the experiences within your funnel impacted their decision-making.

How to measure success

• Conversion rates: This metric helps you assess the performance of individual marketing channels. To calculate a conversion rate (CVR), divide the total number of conversions — those who successfully move to the next stage of the funnel — by the total number of prospects or visitors at the current stage, then multiply by 100 to express it as a percentage. For example, suppose you run a landing page campaign, and 1,000 visitors land on the page. Of these, 150 complete a form to download your eBook, a middle-of-funnel action. The CVR would be:
  
  CVR = (150 ÷ 1,000) × 100 = 15%
  
  This means 15% of visitors converted to the next stage. Tracking CVR across channels helps you identify which strategies are driving the most engagement.

• Entry sources: Where your traffic is coming from.
• Time in stage: How long users are remaining in each funnel stage.
• Exits from stage: How many users are leaving the funnel.
• Content engagement rate: Which content is driving the most conversions and revenue.
• Opportunity arrival rate: The number of prospects currently in the funnel.
• Close rate: Also called the “win rate,” which is the percentage of opportunities that turn into sales.
• Cost per acquisition (CPA): CPA measures the total cost of completing a specific action. This could be the costs incurred in moving a single customer down your marketing funnel, from the first touchpoint to ultimate conversion.
• Lifetime value (LTV): After your customer has made their first purchase, how will you get them coming back again over the course of their life? Highly related products, add-ons, and repeat subscriptions will assure good LTV and growing profits, while helping determine future marketing strategy, forecasting, and budgets.

Marketing funnel examples: B2B vs B2C

B2B marketing funnels

• B2B marketers’ leads tend to be professionals performing detailed research to find products and services that will help improve their company in some way. The sales cycle tends to be longer.
• No matter when a lead exits the funnel, they will leave behind valuable information for B2B and B2C marketers. What’s important is making the best possible use of that information to make sure that fewer leads leave the funnel in the future.
• This B2B funnel didn’t involve an appeal to emotions or decisions made on a whim. When B2B sales happen, it’s because B2B prospects have identified a business need, thoroughly researched the options, and come to a conclusion about the best fit for their needs. It’s mostly a matter of getting in front of these leads through digital exposure and establishing the level of trust needed for direct communication.
• In a B2B marketing funnel, a prospect might search for software on Google, find your landing page, and download a free eBook or guide. They later come back to download a report with more details about your product. After performing further research on your software, company, and any competitors, the lead reaches out to request a demo (or your sales rep may reach out proactively). Sales can then present a product package that’s suited to the customer’s needs based on the comprehensive profile that’s already been created with the assistance of CRM and marketing automation tools.

B2C marketing funnels

• B2C leads are often marketed to as if they don’t know what they want. For instance, B2C marketers rarely provide customers with detailed reports. They’re more likely to use testimonials or attention-grabbing ads and stories that appeal to emotions.
• A B2C lead might begin their journey by clicking a banner ad at the top of a website, then provide an email address through a pop-up on the store page, and save products to their “favorites” for future viewing and consideration. After receiving a follow-up email, they return the next day to add items in their cart before checking out — making use of a promo code they received in that email.
• The simple B2C funnel encourages the lead to visit your store and browse, while also creating a low-pressure scenario that allows the lead to mentally prepare to buy something they like. If they change their mind, they can save an item for later.

No matter when a lead exits the funnel, they will leave behind valuable information for B2B and B2C marketers. What’s important is making the best possible use of that information to make sure fewer leads leave the funnel in the future.

Build and optimize your marketing funnel with Marketo Engage

Adobe Marketo Engage offers lead management tools to help you get the most out of every stage of the marketing funnel. The platform allows you to analyze data about leads and customers, personalize marketing content across channels, and manage marketing budgets, while providing visibility into the entire marketing and sales process. Marketo empowers you to determine which audiences to target and to tailor your marketing campaigns to their needs — all at scale.

Watch the overview video to learn more about how Marketo Engage can strengthen your ability to create funnel marketing strategies that work.