Seniors Online - The Funnel

“Where’s the funnel?” - 1960s Backyard Mechanic

I know what a funnel looks like, its that thing with the wide circular mouth at the top and a skinny tube at the bottom. Back in the day petrol cans were made of tin with a screw cap to stop spillage. The frustration when your car ran out of gas and you had no tin funnel, the language “#*#**!!”.

Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel does the same job as the old tin funnel. For an online business, the big circular mouth is the advertisement you broadcast to the world to attract potential customers. The skinny tube at the bottom represents the customer you made a sale to, hopefully many sales to many customers.

Your funnel is the journey of a customer becoming interested in what you have through to the sale of your product or service. Every stage of your business, from the moment of interest, via every intermediate step, to the sale, is your imaginary online funnel.

From Interest to Sale

You have built your website and chosen your business model. Listed below are the mechanics of the journey through your funnel. 

1. Customer Awareness – the top of your funnel. You have sent a message out to the world using ads on YouTube or other social platforms. Your content, be it written, visual or audio, is an important part of your marketing message. When your potential customers engage with you in response to your content or advertising you can move to the next step. 

2. Customer Interest. Your potential customers are interested in your content, or the product or service you have advertised. If my blogs resonate with my potential customers, they will make comment or choose to have blogs sent direct to their email account. Signing up for newsletters or following you on social media are other ways customers engage with you and your content.

3. Customer Evaluation: Potential customers, do what we all do, we evaluate your product or service and make comparisons with other similar offerings. The comments section is what they might read and give their own reviews. Depending upon the value of the product or service my own evaluation could go deeper, as it would with your own potential customers.

4. Customer Intent: After making their own evaluation potential customers will show a strong interest in purchasing your product or service. If the price is right for them, they might add extras to their purchase, sign up for a free trial or decline to go further.

5. Customer Decision: Potential customers are making the final decision to buy your product or service. They may ask for further information to be clear in their mind that they are making the right decision.

6. The Sale: This is the bottom of the funnel, where the potential customer completes the purchase and becomes an actual customer.

7. After Sale Relationship: After the sale, you want to retain contact with your actual customers. Enhance the relationship with follow-up emails, special offers, and excellent customer service to encourage repeat business and referrals.

The Best Funnel

This virtual funnel if well-designed beats any old traditional funnel, hands down. It helps you understand the flow of your potential customers through the funnel. You can identify where they stop their journey and how you can take action to improve each step, so more of them continue through. This helps you to increase conversions and sales at the pointy end of your funnel. 

What’s Next for Seniors Online

Marketing is what’s next. Think, feel, act is how one commentator described marketing. No doubt more to talk about, we all want to get a strong flow through our funnel.