NINE REASONS WHY YOU NEED A MARKETING FUNNEL

The marketing /revenue funnel/sales funnel refers to the buying process that companies lead customers through when they purchase their products. The definition also refers to the process through which a company finds, qualifies, and sells its products to buyers.

The typical marketing funnel generally includes the following nine steps:

• Problem Identification Period - prospects becomes aware of a specific problem that he/she needs to resolve.
• Solution Identification Period - prospects become aware that a potential solution exists.
• Research Period - prospects research to find potential resolutions to their problem(s).
• Evaluation Period – prospects evaluate several potential product resolutions.
• Decision Period - prospects make a final decision on which, if any, products to purchase.
• Purchase Period - prospects purchases one or more products.
• Repurchase Period - prospects decide to contiue/discontinue  purchasing more product.
• Followup Period - product vendor follows up with prospect to resolve product complaints, if any.
• Relationship Period - vendor continues to work with prospects to further develop a long term relationship.

WHY ARE MARKETING FUNNELS IMPORTANT?

Marketing funnels are one of the basic requirement of successful online businesss. A marketing funnel takes Potential customers from product discovery all the way thru purchasing your products/service.  The goal is to create a highly automated and measurable system in the customer's purchase processing journey.

Customers must first be convinced that the seller is ethical and that the product or service has value or at least, has percieved value. They must also determine if the risk is relatively low. Additionslly, they need to "know, like and trust" you and have some level of comfort that your product or service can "cure their pain" before they will ever part with their money.  

You also need to maintain constant communications with them in order to develop long term relationships and recurring sales.

A marketing funnel serves the important function of taking your potential customers from their first interduction to you through all the steps necessary before they become first time customes and potentially recurring frequent buyers of your products.

Three components of a good marketing funnel.

1. Contact Management System.

A contact management system provides you a way of getting prospective customers to subscribe to your e-mail list. Building your email list is impoortant  because this allows you to have full control so that you can measure what happens with your e-mail subscribers. 

Once you have gotten contacts through this stage, you can then: 

• email them at your leisure and time schedule 
• monitor their response to your offers
• modify your  marketing activity 

2. Conversion system.

A conversion system is generally any action that happens once a prospect subscribes to your list. It's a process that allows you to slowly build trust with your potential customers and eventually convert them to a buyer of your products.

You should continuously provide value to your prospects/customers through things like emails,  newsletters, podcasts, free reports and etc. In later communications you can share one of your other products with your customers to help generate additional recurring income.

A good system should automatically keep track of who bought and who didn’t which will help you with your followup emails..

3. Followup system to maximize customer lifetime value.

Customers who have already bought from you are potentially the most valuable to your business. If your customers are happy with the experience they are much more likely to buy again.

So you need a system that caters to people who have already purchased one or more products from you. You need to keep track of what customers purchased specifict products so that you can offer these people some of your other products, which they haven’t bought yet.

As your business grows, it will obviously become harder and harder for you to keep track of such things for every single one of your customers by yourself. That’s why a good marketing funnel automates this process for you and keeps track of the data automatically. When researching a funnel system for your specific business, you will be well advised to find one that has, at a minimum, the following essentials:

• It allows content allowing your customers to get to know you.
• It turns your prospects into e-mail subscribers.
• It keeps you in touch with your e-mail subscribers and provides value for them and builds their trust in you.
• It Converts them from consumers into buyers.
• It delivers a great customer experience and promotes long term relationships.
• It provides a means for your upsells to maximizes your customer lifetime value.

As noted ealier, marketing funnels are essential to a successful internet business. They are deliberately designed to go in hand in hand with your specific business model. It keeps track of results, automates the process, and reduces the amount of time that you need to invest into the day to day operation of your business. 

I have found a funnel builder system that works for me and I would highly recommend it to you, if you are interested.  It includes free weekly webinars to keep you abreast of all the latest marketing techniques plus you will also get several free done for you funnels that you can use to start your own business if you don't already have one or to start up a secondary one.