Businesses today have so many ways to reach their audience. From viral social media ads and influencer partnerships, to good old-fashioned print ads, the possibilities are virtually endless.

The problem is, more marketing channels doesn’t necessarily equate to more customers. With so many ways to market, it’s all too easy for your efforts to become spread too thin, leading to your brand voice getting drowned out.

That‘s where full-funnel marketing comes in. It’s a marketing approach designed to cover every brand touch point in the customer journey, making sure nobody falls through the cracks.

What is Full-Funnel Marketing?

Full-funnel marketing involves creating content for every stage of the marketing funnel. 

It’s based on the understanding that the customer journey through a marketing funnel isn’t usually a straight line, but more like a maze of interconnected touch points across a variety of channels.

The aim of a full-funnel strategy is to connect these touch points, providing a clear path that leads potential customers to making a purchase with your brand, regardless of the journey they took along the way.

How is Full-Funnel Marketing Different to Other Marketing Strategies?

Full-funnel marketing is a comprehensive approach to marketing, focused on guiding potential customers through every stage of the buyer’s journey, rather than honing in at one particular stage. Here are a few of the key differences between a full-funnel approach and other marketing approaches.

	Full-Funnel Marketing	Other Marketing Approaches
Coverage	Covers the entire buyer journey, from awareness to post-purchase engagement.	Often focus on specific stages of the buyer’s journey, e.g. lead generation, customer retention etc.
Targeting	Different segments of the audience are targeted with different messages based on their current position in the funnel.	Messages are more generalized for use across the entire funnel, or, specific messages are developed for one stage, not every stage.
Integration	Multiple marketing channels are integrated to ensure full coverage across the entire funnel.	Efforts are often focused on one channel, e.g. social media platforms, with less thought given to how they can work alongside other channels.
Metrics	Multiple metrics are used together to track performance across the entire funnel.	Individual metrics are often prioritized to assess performance at one key stage of the funnel.

Benefits of Full-Funnel Marketing

• The ability to reach a wider audience, increasing the likelihood of finding potential customers.

• More effective marketing materials and relevant calls-to-action that speak to customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey, boosting customer engagement and conversion rates.

• A consistently positive customer experience that boosts brand loyalty and advocacy.

• Increased momentum as customers journey through the sales funnel, reducing the likelihood of customer churn.

• Better ROI than other marketing approaches; studies show full-funnel marketing provides up to 45% higher ROI than single-funnel approaches.

Crucial Elements of A Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy

Customer Journey Mapping

Mapping the journey a customer takes through your sales funnel allows you to more accurately plan for how you’ll meet them at every stage. You’ll be able to better anticipate the questions or concerns prospects may have, and generate marketing materials that address them in advance.

Customer journey mapping will also identify key moments where a prospect is likely to commit to a purchase, or fall out of the sales funnel. This allows you to focus on these points when they arrive to maximize your chances of success. 

Audience Segmentation

Customer segmentation allows you to tailor messages specifically to the different groups, giving you a greater chance of success. Customers could be segmented based on:

• Demographics e.g. age, gender.
• Geographic location.
• Customer behavior, e.g. previous products viewed.
• Likelihood to convert.

Developing Buyer Personas

Once your audience is segmented, you should strive to develop buyer personas for each individual segment. This is a general overview of what the average customer in each segment looks like, including their behaviors, concerns, and needs.

Developing these personas gives you a snapshot into the psyche of each different type of prospect, allowing you to develop more personalized marketing materials that speak directly to them.

Multi-Channel Marketing

Modern customers are spread across a wide variety of channels. The more channels you utilize, the higher the chances you’ll meet your target customers. Marketing channels you could consider expanding into include:

• Email marketing.
• Print adverts, e.g. magazines, newspapers.
• Radio adverts.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
• Social media.
• Content marketing.
• Affiliate marketing.

Image Sourced from Gartner

Be sure to remember that marketing efforts should be customized for the channel they appear on, just as they should be customized for the buyer persona they’re targeted to. For example, social media adverts tend to be less formal than newspaper or magazine adverts.

Additionally, considering the significance of online presence, ensuring a user-friendly website through effective web design is paramount. A well-designed website not only enhances customer experience but also plays a crucial role in establishing credibility and trust with potential customers across all stages of the funnel.

How to Implement a Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy

Top of the Funnel

The main aim at the top of the funnel (TOFU) is to introduce your target audience to your products and services, ideally beginning to build the trust that will lead to a conversion further down the line.

One of the main ways this is achieved is by building brand awareness. There are a number of key ways you can achieve this: 

• Optimizing your content output to generate organic traffic to your website, (a SaaS content management provider or similar service may be able to help).
• Utilizing paid advertising through TV, radio, social media, and print.
• Developing a content marketing strategy that includes informative blog posts and articles.
• By building a social media presence through engaging content on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.

Additionally, it’s important to actively promote your website across various channels to ensure maximum visibility and traffic generation.

The top of the funnel isn’t the place to push too hard for a sale; the aim is to inform, not persuade at this point. You can meet as many customers as possible by spreading your marketing materials to all the channels your target audience can be found, informed by your buyer personas.

Middle of the Funnel

The main aim in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) is to get your target audience to seriously consider you as a purchase option, partly by highlighting what sets you apart from your competitors.

It’s useful to establish yourself as an authoritative brand in your industry at this point; one who can be trusted and knows what they’re talking about. There are a few ways this can be achieved:

• Attending events and trade shows, which are a perfect place to meet your target customers and show off your products.
• Developing thought-leadership content for publication on relevant blogs and websites in your industry and beyond, showing that you’re at the cutting edge of your industry.
• Offering demos and product trials shows interested parties first-hand how they can benefit from your products and services.
• Promoting positive reviews and testimonials shows your audience how successful others in their position have been with your help.

The middle of the funnel is also the perfect place to position yourself as an industry leader, showing off what makes your business a cut above your competitors. There are a few ways to achieve this:

• Publishing comparison content that highlights the differences between your solutions and those of your competitors, without appearing too ‘salesy’.
• Hosting webinars allows you to give prospects an educational experience in a manner that’s convenient to them.
• Develop content that targets middle of the funnel keywords. This is useful for establishing better rankings on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) among an audience that’s still considering their options and looking to learn more, (look at some SaaS SEO studies for a look at how this can help).

Image Sourced from blog.hubspot.com

Bottom of the Funnel

Prospects who’ve reached the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) are close to closing a deal. Your aim now is to get them across that finish line.

You need to remove as many obstacles to purchase as possible at this point, employing marketing content that cements your brand as the perfect choice. You can achieve this by:

• Offering coupons and discounts in your email marketing for prospects who are teetering right on the dodge of making a purchase.
• Utilizing behaviorally-triggered content, such as cart abandonment emails offering free shipping, to prevent any prospects slipping through the net at the last moment.
• Using clear calls-to-action in your marketing materials, encouraging prospects to make a purchase, or directing them to a landing page designed to give them that final push.
• Create a customer portal to allow prospects to easily navigate through their purchase journey, access account information, and manage their transactions. 
• Focusing on personalized content that reinforces a positive relationship with your prospect and keeps them engaged right to the end.
• Crafting compelling landing page content that addresses any remaining concerns, showcases testimonials or success stories, and provides a seamless path to conversion.

Monitor Results

Of course, the process of full-funnel marketing continues even after the customer has made their way through the marketing funnel. It’s crucial to measure the performance of your efforts, so you can determine how successful they’ve been, and identify any potential improvements that could improve your chances of success next time.

Metrics to track include:

• At the top of the funnel – keyword rankings, website traffic, impressions.
• In the middle of the funnel – webinar attendance, content downloads, mailing list subscribers.
• At the bottom of the funnel – customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, custom retention.

Capture Every Conversion With Full-Funnel Marketing

Full-funnel marketing ensures that you’re speaking to your customers at every stage of their journey, making sure no lead slips through the cracks.

By prioritizing targeted messaging and an integrated approach to marketing, full-funnel marketing widens your audience reach, boosts engagement, and fosters lasting customer loyalty. All of this ultimately adds up to offering a superior return on investment. 

Implementing it successfully often involves meticulous planning, including customer journey mapping, audience segmentation, and personalized content creation, as well as monitoring crucial marketing metrics throughout.

The investment is well worth it, though, with full-funnel marketing offering a roadmap to success in a competitive business landscape.

Featured Image by Scott Graham on Unsplash