The new digital marketing funnel

by Amir NadaLast updated Jan. 25, 2021

Pretend I’m your digital marketing consultant.

You’ve just asked me for some ideas to increase your leads and sales, and this is my response:

“I think you should put your entire marketing budget into telemarketing.”

You’d probably think I’d lost my mind, and I don’t blame you. Not too long ago, it was a common marketing strategy to just cold-call potential customers. And it worked. It was a viable marketing strategy because access to consumers was limited and they weren’t as informed as they are today.

Now? Try to cold-call a Millennial, chances are you could receive a backlash on social media which could subsequently harm your business and brand.

So if you don’t depend on outdated marketing techniques to connect with potential customers, why do you still trust an outdated marketing funnel to drive your business objectives?

Consumer behavior has changed, and by extension so has the journey that consumers follow. It is only logical, then, to ditch the old model in favor of something that accurately describes the digital buyer’s journey of today.

In general,the digital marketing funnel serves as a framework to help understand and follow the various stages consumers pass through during the customer lifecycle.

Commonly, buyers passed through the funnel one stage at a time, like the graph below:

But the new digital marketing funnel is a looping journey with twists and turns.

Let’s break down each stage with a simple example.Let’s pretend our customer is Nicole, a 32-year-old professional.

While browsing Instagram on her phone, Nicole sees an ad for an online shoe sale which is running for the next 72 hours. She checks out the ad, and keeps scrolling. – Awareness

The next day Nicole sees a similar ad on another social platform for the same online shoe sale, except this ad shows one of her preferred brands. Nicole stops again and clicks on the ad to see what models are on sale – Awareness,Consideration

Nicole Googles other e-commerce stores to compare prices and see if she can get a better deal on the same model she likes – Consideration, Research & Discovery Loop

The next day, while browsing the web, she keeps seeing display ads for the same sale but this time the ad message states “free shipping & returns” – Awareness

Nicole clicks on the ad, selects her preferred model and completes her order – Consideration, Purchase

2 days after her purchase Nicole receives a thank you email from the same store including a $20 voucher for her next purchase – Loyalty loop

2 month later Nicole receives another email from the same store informing her about another sale which is about to commence – Loyalty loop, Awareness

The next day Nicole sees an ad from the same store about the new sale – Awareness

Nicole skips the consideration stage and purchases another pair of shoes using her $20 voucher – Purchase

Now that you know the stages of the new digital marketing funnel you’ll be able to eliminate strategies that didn’t work and optimize your bottom line.

BUT if you truly want to master your conversion funnel and grow your business just keep reading…