1. The Gameboard
The Gameboard is designed to guide our clients through a digital path, where each digital channel is addressed sequentially. Ideally, our clients would use the Gameboard as a checklist as they move forward in their digital endeavours…. But wait…
YES!!
Although the Gameboard emphasizes the unification of digital channels, it fails to help identify optimal service mixes for individualized businesses. The purpose of this blog is to highlight the importance of the Digital Funnel from a consumer’s perspective.
The Gameboard is a milestone marker
We start by introducing the Digital Funnel, which is a tool that works alongside the Gameboard in identifying individualized service mixes for our clients. Following that, we (the Digital Coordinators here at Glacier Media Digital) have prepared a 6-8 part series where we will introduce case studies from a number of business types, showing how the Gameboard and Digital Funnel can be used.
2. The Digital Funnel
✓ A sales tool
✓ A guide for digital channel development
✓ A template for developing an integrated marketing plan
✓ A cheat sheet for understanding consumer behavior
Every customer travels through the Digital Funnel, whether they know it or not. We all move at our own pace, but no matter the product or service, we move from an awareness phase (top of the funnel), to a consideration phase (middle of the funnel), and finally to a conversion phase (bottom of the funnel). Why does this matter?
We need to first get a pulse on the health of our client’s funnel in order to help them identify the service mix that will support them in achieving their business goals.
We can break down business goals into three broad categories:
- Brand Awareness – let people know that your business exists
- Brand Consideration – educate consumers on the benefits of your brand, and what they’re missing out on if they go elsewhere
- Conversions – sell your products/services
If these goals look familiar at all, they should; they represent the three stages of the Digital Funnel: Brand Awareness, Engagement, and Conversion. After putting a marker on where a business sits on the Gameboard, we can then use the Digital Funnel, in tandem, to align our clients’ goals with consumers’ goals.
2.1 Top of the Digital Funnel – Brand Awareness
YES!!
The goal at this stage is to find your audience and speak to them. In marketing, unless you push your product/service out to an audience that cares, no one will consider buying from you. We need to cast the largest net possible to find out who best responds to your brand. We do this by promoting ‘snackable’ content: highly visual, attention-grabbing, and easy to consume.
Put the buyer’s interests and needs first.
Ideally, a business is constantly running a top-of-the-funnel campaign to make sure they are filling their funnel and progressively refining their audience to ensure that the leads are of high quality. This helps ensure there is a full pipeline of leads, allowing a business to focus on engaging and converting those leads. Not to mention, we are able to re-target people who engage with the content we produce at this stage with our bottom-funnel tactics (more on this later).
All of the services at the top of the funnel have one characteristic in common: they are all used for the purpose of driving Brand Awareness. Services that fall under the top of the funnel, are not, per se, designed to provide performance-based metrics; such as how many people walked into my business OR how many people purchased an item online. Rather, top-of-the-funnel tactics are great for businesses that are:
✓ Lacking awareness
✓ Looking to facilitate brand recognition
✓ Wanting to reach people at the nascent stages of their product/service research
✓ Rather avoid high-cost pay-per-click channels such as Google Search
2.4 Middle of the Digital Funnel – Engagement
The goal of this stage is to help move people from simply knowing about your brand to considering your product/service. At this stage, we need to educate people about how your offerings align with their needs. We do this by promoting informational content.
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
Content that we push out to consumers in this stage of the funnel is more engaging and interactive than in the awareness stage, helping to better define the brand. Further, we now start to benefit from tracking behaviour on your website and engagement with your content to identify and distinguish leads. Not to mention, we will be able to re-target people who engage with the content we produce at this stage with our bottom-funnel tactics (more on this later).
Middle-of-the-funnel tactics are great for businesses that are:
✓ Lacking high-quality content, such as videos and blogs
✓ Looking to facilitate engagement with their brand
✓ Wanting to reach people at the information-seeking stage of their product/service research
✓ Rather avoid high-cost pay-per-click channels such as Google Search
2.3. Bottom of the Digital Funnel – Conversion
YES.
At this stage, we are promoting specific products/services that we know will benefit our audience (based on the information we’ve been collecting throughout the Digital Funnel). We do this by creating targeted ads with a clear Call to Action, and an easy way to covert (fill out a form, make payment, etc.). This content focuses on what the consumer is missing out on if they don’t choose our brand.
As the world continues to evolve, business owners should not remain static.
Bottom-of-the-funnel tactics are great for businesses that are:
✓ Lacking sales closing tactics
✓ Looking to reach consumers right as they are making a purchase decision
✓ Wanting to re-market to their leads
3: In Conclusion
Building an online presence can be tiring, confusing and frustrating, even with the numerous options available. But, if business owners know how and where to start building an online presence things can be less frustrating.
Every customer travels through the Digital Funnel, whether they know it or not. We all move at our own pace, but no matter the product or service, we move from an awareness phase (top of the funnel), to a consideration phase (middle of the funnel), and finally to a conversion phase (bottom of the funnel). By using the Gameboard and the Digital Funnel, in tandem, we can align business’ goals with consumers’ goals.
Stay tuned for our next few blogs in this 6-8 part series where we will introduce case studies from a number of business types, showing how the Gameboard and Digital Funnel can be used to identify ideal product mixes of digital services.
Yours Truly, the Glacier Media Digital Coordinators