As marketers, from day one it drilled into us: awareness, consideration and conversion are all the parts of the sales and marketing funnel that you need to move your prospect from “hey” to “how much?”

But as our customers evolve, we’re finding that this one-size-fits all funnel is not ideal when it comes to closing new business. According to a report done by Pardot, 79% of marketing leads don’t convert. Okay before you move on, just let that settle in really quick. Almost 80% of your marketing efforts will never convert to revenue, that’s a number I’d want to change ASAP. 

This just tells us that we aren’t keeping up with our customers’ needs. A great marketing funnel is built around your customers and where they expect more engagement or more autonomy. 

The Anatomy of a Marketing Funnel 

Before you can build an optimized marketing funnel, I think it’s always good to take a step back and start with the basics. Let’s first just talk about what a sales and marketing funnel is. 

Simply, it’s a framework that a business uses to turn leads into customers. It’s mapping every single touchpoint that a stranger might take before they pay. From the social post they saw, to the landing page they explored, to the sales person they emailed – these are all touchpoints that funnel leads to the ultimate goal: converting into a paid customer. 

Yes, every funnel has unique touchpoints, but there really are three characteristics that all sales and marketing funnels have: ToFu, MoFu and BoFu. 

ToFu: Top of Funnel

The top of your funnel is how you introduce strangers to your products. This is where a lot of brand awareness takes place, but also in this phase it’s important to understand what channels your leads are coming from. 

MoFu: Middle of Funnel

The middle of the funnel is where you bridge the gap between awareness and decision. So what activities can you do to help move a customer who’s shown interest but hasn’t quite committed? Middle of the funnel is where the majority of lead nurturing take’s place. 

BoFu: Bottom of Funnel

The bottom of the funnel is where your lead makes their decision, to either buy or churn. Activities that take place in the bottom of the funnel or all meant to help convert a lead into a customer. 

The Right Channels for the Biggest Impact 

Alright, so we’ve got the basics down. Knowing the fundamentals of a marketing funnel will help you identify what marketing activities will be the most effective at each phase.

Marketers have been taking an omnichannel approach when it comes to lead generation, meaning we’re using multiple touchpoints to connect with leads. Anywhere from social, to landing pages, emails, events – we use many marketing channels to cast a large net. 

Part of funnel analysis is identifying the right place in the customer’s journey that those channels will have the biggest impact. Leave your assumptions at the door, you’ll want to evaluate this by looking at the data. 

Let’s take social media as an example. You can make the assumption that social media would be a great awareness tool, but every customer uses social a little differently. In the past, B2B marketers have placed social media as a top of funnel activity, but according to the International Data Corporation, IDC, 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level executives use social media to make purchasing decisions. 

Social media has evolved from just social networking to a powerful conversion tool for many companies, that’s why it’s so imperative to understand your customers unique buying behavior so you know where to focus your efforts and more importantly, optimize your budget. 

Building a Funnel From Scratch Can Be Hard 

Understanding where your customer is coming from and what touchpoints you have with them before they convert will help you create an optimized sales and marketing funnel. But this is a really big task to take on. 

In that same Pardot report we mentioned earlier, we learned that 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure their sales and marketing funnels and on top of that 65% of companies have not identified a lead nurturing process or strategy. 

That’s a lot of companies who just don’t know their customer. And to be frank, without the right analytics toolset this is a really hard, time consuming, cross-functional project that many marketing team’s don’t have the bandwidth for. But it’s a necessary exercise for any company who wants to improve marketing conversion rates and increase revenue growth. 

Harness AI to build the perfect marketing funnel 

This is where the right data science tools and AI can help. Dealtale’s funnel analysis allows you to connect multiple data points, like HubSpot and Google Analytics, so that you can evaluate where leads are coming from and where they are churning.

Our tool allows you to get a comprehensive understanding of what your customer journey looks like and what the ideal funnel is based on their touchpoints. Basically, with an optimized funnel you’re saving yourself too much work and lots of money. 

Contact us today to build the perfect marketing funnel for your business!