Marketing Funnel: How to Build and Create a Successful One

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.

This guide has everything you need to develop a winning marketing funnel for your brand.

In this marketing funnel guide, you’ll learn:

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel represents the journey of a customer from awareness to conversion. Not everyone converts, so the funnel narrows as fewer customers proceed along it.

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 to identify problem areas within the funnel and troubleshoot them so you lose fewer leads along the way.

Some brands have chosen to abandon the model altogether, which usually proves to be a mistake. 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 how its different stages work together and then apply individual strategies to get the most out of each one.

The differences between B2B and B2C marketing funnels.

Business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) prospects have similarities, but the marketing funnels employed to attract and turn them into paying customers are often different.

In B2B, for example, companies may need to convince multiple decisionmakers 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.
The B2C sales funnel is often shorter — relying on converting an individual, rather than a business, team or department — into a customer. B2C marketing often seeks to create an emotional connection. As a result, more money is spent on channels like social media and TV advertising in B2C.

Stages of the marketing funnel.

While the journey through the marketing funnel can vary from customer to customer, the primary focus is ultimately on the singular journey from vague awareness that there is a problem to be solved to a confirmed sale.

The specific stages of the funnel aren’t as important as understanding the broad categories they fall into: top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-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.

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

Here are some specific stages that fall within the top of the funnel:

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 or that is attractive and interesting enough to solve problems that it gets traction on social media sites.

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 keep in touch 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 — downloadable eBooks for example, invitations to webinars on your own website and 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 purchase 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. 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 that you retain their business.

Three ways to measure the success of your marketing funnel.

Conversion rates. This helps you to work out how your individual marketing channels are performing. Divide the total number of leads by the total number of conversions (those who proceed to the middle-of-funnel) and multiply by 100. The result is a conversion rate percentage. For example, a blog reaching 10,000 people leads 100 people into your funnel and has a conversion rate of 1%. Average e-commerce conversion rates range between 1% and 4%.
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 are you going to leverage that and get them coming back time and again over the course of their life? Highly-related products, add-ons and repeat subscriptions will assure good LTV and growing profits and help determine future marketing strategy, forecasting and budgets.

Once you know the stages of the funnel and how customers should move through it, you can line up lead generation efforts for each stage.

Marketing funnel examples: B2B vs B2C.

Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing funnels are similar in purpose, but they’re worlds apart in how leads are moved through the funnel.

B2B marketing funnels

B2C marketing funnels

B2B marketers’ leads tend to be professionals performing detailed research to find products and services that will help to improve their company in some way and the sales cycle tends to be longer.

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.

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.

A B2C lead might begin their journey by clicking a banner ad at the top of a website they visit, then provide an email address through a pop-up on the shop page and save products to their ‘favourites’ for future viewing and consideration. After receiving a follow-up email, they return the next day to add items in their basket before checking out — making use of a promo code they received in that email.

In a B2B marketing funnel, a prospect might search for software on Google, find your landing page and download a free eBook. 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 keeps in touch to request a demo (or your sales rep may keep in touch 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.

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 that fewer leads leave the funnel in the future.

How to create a marketing funnel — key strategies.

You need to figure out the combination of tools and strategy to make your specific funnel work for your company. When you’re ready to build a plan of action, consider the following tips to optimise your marketing funnel.

Use marketing automation.

Marketing automation helps you efficiently generate viable leads, track user engagement and nurture future 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 personalise each step of the customer journey and helps you to 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, in order to maximise ROI from your sales and marketing efforts.

This is where it’s important to practise 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 organisation you’re targeting. B2B marketers will definitely want to pay close attention to these qualities when deciding how to market to relevant decision-makers. Some attributes you may consider are:

Number of employees
Company revenue
Industry
Financial viability
Location

Behaviour-based factors.

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

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 and white papers. 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 behaviour 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 purposes.

Each stage of the funnel is made exponentially more impactful when the marketing and sales teams work together.

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 affected their decision-making.

Which marketing funnel metrics should I track?

The final step is knowing how to measure the performance of your marketing funnel by implementing key metrics. These could include:

Sales funnel conversion rate - the number of prospects entering your funnel at any one time.
Entry sources - where this 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 piece engagement rate - which content is driving the most conversions and revenue.
Opportunity arrival rate - the number of prospects currently in the funnel.
Close rate - AKA the “win rate” which is the number of opportunities which turn into sales.

Frequently asked questions about marketing funnels.

Is the marketing and sales funnel the same?

The sales funnel was perhaps once in the remit of sales, but growth of digital content has led to marketers taking a more central role. The division of responsibility will be different in each company, but what is clear is that sales and marketing must both work in harmony for successful customer conversions.

What are common mistakes in marketing funnels?

Some companies overcomplicate their funnel by introducing too many distractions. Others don’t target their marketing at convertible prospects enough. Many businesses don’t take the time to build their brand awareness in great enough detail and at big enough scale at the top-of-funnel.

What are the biggest benefits of a marketing funnel?

The most important benefit of a marketing funnel is that it can be monitored and mistakes identified at specific stages and then remedied, maximising each opportunity to convert. You will get a wealth of data on consumer behaviour that can be leveraged in the future. Automating your funnel will save time on admin and paperwork too.

Build and optimise your marketing funnel with Marketo Engage.

Marketing automation is a must-have for reliable, scalable marketing efforts. It not only helps your marketers save time, energy and resources, but it also lets them avoid human errors that can inhibit lead retention. For these reasons, you should strongly consider making automation part of building your marketing funnel.

Marketo Engage offers lead management tools to help you to get the most out of every stage of the marketing funnel. The platform allows you to analyse data about leads and customers, personalise 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 tailor your marketing campaigns to their needs — all at scale.

Take an interactive tour and learn more about how Marketo Engage can strengthen your ability to create funnel marketing strategies that work.

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Marketing Funnel: How to Build and Create a Successful One

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2022-07-22

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Discover what a marketing funnel is and how to build one that delivers leads time after time. Read our comprehensive guide to find out more.

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