Why full-funnel marketing is key to profitability

How often have you seen ads promising a single tool or platform as the ultimate solution to all your marketing challenges — guaranteeing quality leads and sales while saving you time and money? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No one consumes media in a vacuum, so why limit your marketing to a single channel? 

Focusing on the platform with the highest ROI may seem efficient, but it neglects potential customers at various stages of their journey. A broader, full-funnel strategy that nurtures prospects from awareness to conversion can drive even better results.

The myth of the quick fix

When sales are slow and immediate results are needed, it’s easy to fall for promises of a set number of leads each week. These tangible numbers seem like the perfect justification for continuing your investment. However, you soon realize these leads aren’t what you need. Instead of generating valuable opportunities, you waste time educating, pitching and following up with leads who either disappear or aren’t qualified.

Your marketing could do some of this heavy lifting, reducing the hours needed to chase poor leads. Even when a single tactic starts strong, it’s difficult to sustain that level of growth without other components to support it. A blend of organic, paid and grassroots efforts can yield better results from all channels.

The fallacy of top-of-funnel dominance

We all want to be No. 1 in search results, our brand in lights on a billboard, our commercials winning awards and prime spots during broadcasts. But these placements do more to feed our egos than bring us results. While mass marketing has its benefits, not every brand is for everyone. 

Brand awareness is a vital component of the marketing funnel, but it can be the most significant drain on your budget. While a Super Bowl ad can reach over 100m viewers, how many of them are likely to buy from you? Your ad dollars are better spent raising brand awareness in more targeted ways.

Even top-of-page search rankings can be deceiving in their effectiveness. If your clicks, leads and sales don’t correspond with the high rankings and impressions, it’s time to adjust your strategy, targeting and likely messaging.

Dig deeper: How to use conversion data to enhance top-of-funnel marketing

The shortcomings of bottom-funnel optimization

The opposite response is to focus exclusively on bottom-of-the-funnel tactics since the ROI is typically much higher here. However, if nothing helps fill that portion of the funnel, your well of leads quickly runs dry. As the cost per acquisition continues to climb, you will spend more money in the long run. How do you fix the ineffective spending?

Embrace the power of the marketing funnel 

Full-funnel marketing solutions can yield a much higher ROI than single-channel approaches because they meet users where they are in their journey. Users bounce from app to app while streaming media on smart devices and then hop on social media to get advice from friends. A full-funnel strategy gives you the means to guide a user on the path to purchase, with multiple touchpoints tailored to the user’s wants. 

Each phase of the funnel feeds the remaining stages. This is why targeted brand awareness is essential to successful conversion campaigns. With search ad costs increasing rapidly, the need for upper-funnel solutions has also increased. Strategies that include upper funnel tactics increase the effectiveness of customer-acquisition campaigns, resulting in lower cost per lead than SEM alone.

Dig deeper: 3 ways to optimize your marketing funnel for driving revenue and leads

It’s important to adhere to the following when implementing a full-funnel approach.

1. Know your audience

Understand who you are marketing to, what they think about and how they behave at each stage of the path to purchase. You’ll better determine what media channels they’re more likely to use at each touch point. You will also be able to tailor your messaging to speak to their wants.

2. Nurture relationships

Don’t ask your audience to do too much at once. You want users to buy, but if they’re just learning that you exist, you still need to build the know-like trust factor before they spend money. Encourage the relationship with valuable content that highlights your authority and trustworthiness. 

3. Set up event tracking

Set up tracking for each phase in the funnel, not just the sale. This way, you can better understand the channels performing well and the customer journey. Your analytics can help you pinpoint areas for improvement quickly so you can implement needed changes efficiently. 

Analytics are imperative to proving the effectiveness of your new strategy, so test your events before and after the campaign launch. If your event tracking is properly configured, you can retarget the audiences you gather at various points in the funnel.

A multi-channel approach for long-term success

While it’s tempting to search for that one perfect marketing solution, sustainable growth comes from a well-planned, multi-channel strategy. Effective marketing is a diverse ecosystem of tactics, strategies and messaging that meet your prospective customers where they are. Each channel in a full-funnel marketing plan amplifies the effectiveness of the others; if one is stopped, the others suffer. 

Be patient as you build your funnel. Initial planning and setup are vital, so account for the time and resources needed. This will require more than a single-channel solution, but the resulting increase in qualified leads and sustainable growth will prove worth the investment.

Dig deeper: Why marketers should focus on growth loops, not funnels in customer journey orchestration