The number one trending topic I am finding when speaking to ecommerce brands is around their desire to adopt a full funnel marketing approach. It’s clear from these conversations that the need to both CREATE and capture demand is growing. But how do you approach this?
Firstly it’s key to understand the concept of the funnel.
It’s a model that illustrates the customer journey from initial awareness of a product or service to the final purchase decision and beyond. Showcasing the role of digital marketing at each stage.
At the top of the funnel, creating a strong brand presence is crucial. Make relevant customers aware of the brand, the products (USPs) and your brand story.
Be part of your target consumer's consideration set - communicating your USPs and differentiation in the market and to competitors.
With the goal of turning that interest into action and customer acquisition.
Often overlooked for the quest for new customers, but incredibly important for long-lasting success. Creating customers that go beyond a single transaction by re-engaging at the right times.
And that’s the funnel. Pretty simple, right?
Although in reality, that path to purchase is not purely linear. There’s a little something called the “messy middle”, as consumers bounce between touchpoints before making a purchase.
Knowing what the marketing funnel is, applying a full funnel marketing approach as an ecommerce brand is about:
A cross-channel marketing approach to engage with customers, across multiple marketing channels, to create a consistent experience. You could go hard on social at the point of awareness for example which would do a great job of getting your brand in front of new customers.
BUT if it’s a considered purchase and you aren’t appearing on, say, shopping results, whilst they are exploring their consideration set, then you risk a competitor swooping in and taking over at that point.
Imagine we are the Head of Ecommerce for a chocolate bar reseller. We entered the market a year ago and are seeing good onsite performance and sales but are struggling to scale this up.
This is to increase awareness of our own brand as the go to location for your affordable chocolate needs, which in turn can increase my overall traffic and revenue numbers.
At The Awareness Stage - Getting our message and brand in front of as many of the right people as possible. Using KPIs such as Impressions, CPM, Ad Recall, Brand Lift and Reach to judge performance.
What would be the most cost effective method of getting as many eyeballs on our brand and story as possible? Marketing channels to consider would be Paid Social, Demand Gen,
Programmatic, Video advertising, Content Marketing or even traditional channels such as out of home.
At The Consideration Stage - It’s all about having those users in the market for chocolate bars to consider us an option for purchase by exploring our website. KPIs such as Sessions, CPC, Add to carts, Time on site and Bounce Rate may be used to judge performance.
Here the most effective methods could include: Generic Paid Search, Pmax and Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns.
At The Conversion Stage - This is where we currently already feel confident in this example business, in turning those visitors into sales onsite. Using KPIs such as Conversion Rate, Sales, Transaction, Revenue, ROI to judge performance.
Most common channels considered here would be PPC, Affiliate Marketing, Comparison shopping services (CSS) to name a few.
Loyalty Stage - Getting those users to come back to us, when they need their chocolate fix or perhaps when something fun is happening onsite. KPIs such as Repeat purchase rate or Customer lifetime value to judge performance.
Key channels for activity at this stage of the funnel often include Email Marketing, Loyalty programmes, post purchase campaigns, Branded search and also Closed User Groups like Blue Light Card in Affiliates.
Ultimately, to achieve the business objective, each stage of the funnel has to play a role in moving customers through the different stages. Focusing and over relying on only certain stages means there will eventually be a maximum growth that can be achieved.
Which is why so many of my recent conversations have been around the need to not only capture demand but also to CREATE it, and therefore avoid the historical tendency to focus on that short term conversion stage.
At Genie Goals we have a no one size fits all approach to our channel selection within the funnel.
Instead our emphasis is on identifying the channels most effective, efficient and powerful at driving your campaign message at each stage of the funnel - based on the objective it is trying to achieve. All laddering up to the overall business objective. This is because what works for one ecommerce brand is not necessarily going to be right for another due to the different complexities and objectives each business will have.
In a time where competition is fierce and consumer expectations are high, adopting a full-funnel approach is becoming more than just a strategy and instead almost a necessity. It allows for a holistic view of the customer journey, balancing the need to create demand while efficiently capturing it.
For me the emphasis will always be on identifying the channels most effective, efficient and powerful at driving your campaign message at the different stages of the funnel.
