By now you've probably heard of (or even use) marketing sales funnels. If you're good, your business is already using marketing automation in your funnels. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you have ONE marketing sales funnel. That's good, but you want to be better than good right?
If you only have one funnel (or zero, ouch!), your business is missing a LOT of opportunity to increase sales and retain customers. Below are additional marketing sales funnels that you're likely not using now that can take your sales to new heights.
New visitor to TOFU conversion
Attracting new visitors for a top-of-funnel conversion that triggers a marketing automation is the most common. A typical new visitor TOFU conversion funnel typically includes methods to attract new website traffic, promote a top-of-funnel offer for a simple value trade conversion that initiates an email marketing automation drip. This email drip would work to nurture prospects to take the next step in your marketing sales funnel. Does your funnel stop there?
Your business needs more than this! Especially if you're in the SaaS or subscription model business. Simply working towards one single conversion is not enough.
TOFU to MOFU conversion
The next sequence is to take your top-of-funnel conversion and nurture them towards a middle-of-the-funnel conversion. For example, your top-of-funnel offer could be a free eBook in exchange for name and email address. Your email drip would nurture them into taking the next step, which could be signing-up for a free trial or demo (middle-of-funnel conversion).
This is where many companies stop.
MOFU to paid customer conversion
You're not in the business to only promote free trials and it's hard to make money and grow your business by simply driving prospects to a middle-of-funnel offer. You need another marketing sales funnel to convert free trials or marketing qualified leads into paying customers.
A few ways you could tackle this could be of course an email marketing automation drip, but don't forget other channels such as remarketing and smart content.
For example, an email automation campaign for a software free trial could teach prospects how to quickly get setup and take advantage of a feature that would help them reduce a pain point or reach a goal. You could have a series of emails that show the prospect how to get the most value during their trial period.
You could also segment this group for retargeting. If their on a free trial, you could show retargeting ads that promote a special offer to entice them to upgrade to a paid account.
Smart Content is mostly exclusive to those using the HubSpot software, but if you have it, use this feature! Smart content allows you to change your website content and calls-to-action based on where the prospect is in your marketing sales funnel. For example, a prospect has already downloaded your eBook and started a free trial, when they visit your website, instead of displaying the same eBook and free trial offers, you could promote a special offer to entice them to upgrade to a paid account. New website visitors would see top-of-funnel offers, those who already converted there would see middle-of-funnel offers and this group of free trial users would be shown a completely different set of offers, based on where they are in your marketing sales funnel.
Paid customer to engaged customer
Much of your marketing costs are to earn new customers. Since it costs so much to generate new customers, make sure you have processes in place to keep current customers around.
Customers who are paying you money deserve their own funnel. Your goal here to to get and keep them engaged. For example, if your a SaaS company and they upgraded to a paid account, you could have an educational series to teach them how to use your software.
Keep customers happy and engaged to increase the lifetime they remain a paying customer.
A more complete marketing sales funnel would look like this:
Visitor > Top-of-funnel conversion > Convert this segment to middle-of-funnel conversion > Convert middle-of-funnel conversions to paid customers > Keep paid customers engaged and staying customers longer.
As mentioned earlier, many companies only focus on attracting new prospects, but fail to keep nurturing all the way through the entire marketing sales funnel. As you can see, businesses that operate this way are missing a lot of opportunity and it's costing them. I encourage you to take a step back and think about how you can extend your funnels deeper, to generate more paying customers that stick around.
Content marketing is a great channel to use in your funnels and can be used in every stage in the process. Learn more about how to leverage content marketing by downloading our free eBook below.
