The inbound marketing funnel is one of the most popular digital marketing strategies. It represents the customer’s journey from first contact with the brand to conversion and, eventually, loyalty.

Creating and maintaining a relationship with the customer is the essence of the inbound marketing funnel, which builds trust with the public as it progresses through its stages.

And this concept is present in digital businesses in the Americas and the EU, which use digital marketing as a strategy

Divided into three main stages, with the aim of attraction, conversion and enchantment, the inbound marketing funnel has a structure designed to guide your marketing and sales actions.

At the top of the funnel stage, the focus is on bringing visitors closer to your brand through your content, whether it’s on your website, blogs or social networks.

At the mid-funnel stage, these visitors are already leads. They therefore need to be qualified for the next stage. This happens by creating content with the aim of nurturing the leads, in order to lead them to the bottom of the funnel.

And finally, at the bottom of the funnel, these leads are converted into satisfied customers, because they have decided to buy.

In this article, we’ll explore each of these stages in detail. This will give you insights to implement in your company’s funnel.

The stages of the inbound marketing funnel

1. Top of the funnel: arousing interest

The first stage of the inbound marketing funnel is attraction. At this stage, the aim is to capture the attention of potential customers so that they identify with your communication.

In other words, the idea is to exploit an existing pain and talk about it. As the prospect progresses through the stages of the funnel, the solution to this pain will be offered through a sale or conversion.

Thus, the brand is not mentioned, nor is content that leads to sales. The main idea is just to bring prospects closer to your brand/company, to create a connection.

This initial link can be created as follows:

Content marketing

For content marketing to generate results at the top of the funnel stage, you need to build a healthy mailing list that is capable of generating business.

And how do you do that? You need to develop and offer content (texts, ebooks, exclusive videos, online events, etc.) that is interesting to prospects who, in order to access this material, fill in a registration form that asks for their name, email address and other data (according to your marketing objectives and in compliance with the GDPR).

The intention is to collect a list of emails that belong to real people, with a common interest (that of the shared content), and with whom the company can communicate later.

By the way, this is where email verification works as an excellent ally. For the list to deliver the expected results, you need to integrate a real-time verification API. In this way, all invalid and harmful emails are prevented from entering the lists.

Unfortunately, typos and temporary emails are very common in registration forms. These addresses become invalid emails, which generates a poor quality list and also damages the reputation of the email marketing sender.

2. Meio de funil de inbound marketing

The middle of the funnel is the moment when visitors actually become business opportunities.

After the first contacts made at the top of the funnel, visitors deepen their knowledge and relationship with the brand. This is why they need to be nurtured through content. At this stage, the goal is to educate in order to convert, but this is not yet the moment when the purchase decision is made.

In this way, the brand/company gets closer and closer to its consumers, earning their trust and establishing a solid relationship. This is a relationship that can also be called “establishing authority”, i.e. the potential consumer understands that the brand is knowledgeable in the area they are interested in and will begin to be sensitive to the brand’s suggestions that follow.

Here’s how it happens.

Offering valuable content using email marketing

In the middle of the inbound marketing funnel, content should be more in-depth and specific to interact with leads. Types of valuable content include:

• Newsletters: containing elements of interest to the consumer in detail, with the aim of creating a relationship and closeness with the lead.
• Ebooks and guides: longer materials that offer insights and solutions to specific problems.
• Infográficos interativos: ao invés de apresentar um infográfico tradicional, crie um material que estimule interação (qualquer ação direta do usuário, como o clique em um vídeo, por exemplo). Essa estratégia torna o conteúdo mais atraente.
• Webinars, webseries, podcasts: video and audio content help to engage and establish a brand’s authority. By the way, you can watch SafetyMails videos on YouTube right now!

You can combine strategies. For example: the newsletter can contain an infographic, an ebook or lead to a video. The video can mention the ebook. The ebook can contain an infographic. The infographic can contain an ebook and lead to a video, and so on.

Each extra piece of material carries with it the possibility of a conversion. Explore all the opportunities and increase engagement with your audience!

The importance of automation

Marketing automation makes it possible:

Segmentation of leads, which selects recipients according to their profile, behavior and the stage of the funnel they are in. This is essential for communication to reach the right audience.

Email sending flows, which generate personalized campaigns that meet the company’s marketing objectives at any given time

Monitoring of campaign performance, i.e. the KPIs that show the communication’s strengths and weaknesses.

All these stages of automation are important for guiding leads through the inbound marketing funnel, resulting in a decision to buy.

3. Bottom of the inbound marketing funnel

Now it’s time to turn leads into customers. At this stage, it’s important to offer solutions that directly meet their needs, with well-targeted offers.

Here, there can and should be live product demonstrations or trials to allow leads to try out your product or service.

Setting up meetings with sales consultants to present your solution can solve the lead’s specific problems.

Special offers and discounts are great arguments to encourage the decision to buy.

Important

Conversion doesn’t end with the sale. To ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty, you need to continue the relationship with them after the purchase. This includes

Support: offering an effective onboarding process and ongoing support to ensure that customers get the most out of your product or service.

Loyalty programs: create programs that reward customers for their loyalty and for referring new customers.

Feedback and continuous improvement: solicit feedback from customers and use this information to improve your products, services and processes.

Conclusion

The inbound marketing funnel is a strategy designed to develop lasting relationships and obtain significant and constant results for your business.

Knowing the behavior of leads at each stage of the funnel not only improves the efficiency of marketing campaigns, but also builds a solid relationship with them, boosting your brand’s authority in the long term.

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