In marketing there is a lot of buzz about funnels. There are sales funnels, purchase funnels etc. All you need to do is to keep in mind that all these funnels describe the same concept. Funnels display the journey of customers as they move towards the purchase of your product.
The top of the funnel is wide, and the bottom of the funnel is narrow. It signifies the fact that you will give awareness to many people but not all will follow the journey and make purchases. You must keep finding prospects in customers during the whole journey. This funnel also has holes in it because many prospects will leave the funnels due to lack of interest or desire.
Awareness
The funnel starts from AWARENESS which means that people should be first introduced to your brand. If the customers are aware of your competition, then many of them will leave through the holes in this phase. The initial awareness should be pleasing so that the customer moves to the next step of the journey. Make sure you use all the channels at the right time to give awareness.
Interest
In the INTEREST phase the customers will begin to learn more about your product or service. They will start showing interest in the features of the product. They will have many other products in their minds which they have seen somewhere else. If the customer goes in-depth into features and compares them with the competitor, and finds better features there, then you will lose the customer at this stage. Once your prospective customer has passed the awareness stage your focus must shift now to the next phase. You may not be 100% accurate all the time but focusing phase by phase tactically will make improvisations in every phase.
Desire
The next phase is DESIRE. At this stage the customers are close to making a purchase. They are finally evaluating the product. They might also look back on the journey that they have made this far and might evaluate their decisions. The customers must not lose interest at this stage otherwise your efforts will be in vain.
Action
The final phase is ACTION. This is the step where customers make a YES or NO decision. They are going to make a purchase from you, your competitor or may not make a purchase at all.
The most important aspect of marketing is to keep the customer inside the funnel. And you must keep evaluating the journey all the time to see what went wrong and what move you made was accurate. Take out some time and write down the path which you followed while making a purchase. The more you think, the more you will be able to see it from the customer’s perspective.