An effective marketing funnel casts a wide net and guides the potential customers that land in it through the various stages of the buying journey. If your marketing funnel hasn’t been successfully leading prospects to convert, it may be time to consider revamping it.
With so many digital touch points these days, leads may enter your marketing funnel at any stage of the buying process—from awareness to consideration to purchase, or anywhere in between. While it may not need a total overhaul, evaluating the effectiveness of the elements you use to draw prospects through each level of your funnel can help you identify areas that need improvement.
To learn more about how to begin improving your marketing funnel, see the tips members of Forbes Agency Council share below. These are the first things these experts would look at when revamping their own or a client’s marketing funnel.
Forbes Agency Council members explore key areas to examine when revamping a marketing funnel.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Your Customer Personas
I would evaluate the customer personas you are basing your messaging on and refine them by having workshops with actual customers and prospects to make sure you are coming across as a company that understands their pain points and can help them. – Neil Stinchcombe, Eskenzi PR
2. The Bottom Of The Funnel
Focus on the bottom of the funnel. They’re ready to buy! That’s where you have prospective customers in their final decision-making cycles. What do they need to get over the line? This is the place to play the short game; a few small efforts can create immediate, tangible revenue results and build momentum. By contrast, the top of the funnel is a long game, with patience required to unlock ROI. – Michael Margolis, Storied
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3. Areas That Are Hard To Measure
The first things I would look at are the areas you have the least ability to measure. You either need to find better ways to track them or reprioritize those channels so that you can learn from them more quickly. If you can’t measure success, it’s difficult to justify continuing your efforts on those channels. – Greg Kihlstrom, The Agile World
4. Your Market Segments’ Pain Points
The first step is to make sure you really have a true understanding of your market segments and their pain points. Persona research is invaluable. Make sure your messages—at all stages of the funnel—are relevant, personal and benefit-focused. Engage the sales team in building your understanding of deal flow and key message points. And make sure you have a robust measurement system in place. – Nancy A Shenker, theONswitch
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5. Your Copy
If you want to A/B test certain elements of your marketing funnel, it makes sense to start with copy because it is significantly simpler to modify compared to more technical and graphic-heavy elements. Once you have created copy that converts, it will be easier to build out the rest of your marketing funnel. – Adam Binder, Creative Click Media
6. Roadblocks You Find In The Data
Dig into roadblocks. We encourage clients to dive into the data and find out where customers or users are getting stuck in their marketing funnel. If people are finding your website, browsing a few pages and then not taking any action, at least you know where you need to focus your energy. Combine data with audience feedback to unlock these sticking points. – Samantha Reynolds, ECHO Storytelling Agency
7. Analytics For Each Step Of The Funnel
The first things I look at when revamping a client’s marketing funnel are the analytics for each step of the funnel. There are many types of funnels, so what you audit in the data can vary depending on the campaign. Ideally, you want to look at click-through rates, opt-in rates, applications and appointments booked, add-to-cart rates and conversion rates. Identify your weakest points and fortify them. – Alex Quin, UADV MARKETING
8. Every Point Of The Buyer Journey
Understanding the journey a customer takes with your brand is critical to correcting costly errors and improving customer retention. Secret shopping is an essential tool to combine with qualitative and quantitative customer research to gain real-time visibility into the customer experience at every point of the buyer journey. Without that insight, you’ll have no confidence in your strategy. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
9. Average Time On Page
Average time on page is the real indicator of whether or not a funnel is working to persuade ideal prospects. No one has time to waste these days. In the pro services space, we get to use content to engage audiences, but how can we know it’s working? Time on page tells us if our ideas are meaningful and sticky. – Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group
10. Where The Funnel Is Leaking
Find where the funnel is leaking. Often, the entirety of the funnel isn’t broken, but key parts of it are fractured. If a client has plenty of traffic to their site but low site purchases, we have pinpointed that the conversion part of their funnel is broken. This is where we need to focus. All in all, analyze performance, find the leaks and start testing solutions. – Bernard May, National Positions
11. Loyalty Metrics
The number of repeat customers tells me about customer satisfaction, how good a job is being done with email marketing and reengaging the customer, if there is a strong customer base and, ultimately, lifetime value. If repeat customers represent a low percentage of sales, this is a good place to start to improve the overall business, including the marketing funnel. – Michael Parise, DENT Agency LLC
