The marketing funnel: having one and DEFINING it is an absolutely necessary component to a strong marketing strategy. In this episode, I’m going to break down each stage of the marketing funnel and how you can build one for your business to start funneling in right-fit leads.

 

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Connect me on LinkedIn: Lauren Loreto & follow with me on Instagram: @shesbusyaf @brandgoodtime

 

All right. Y’all you are listening to the She’s Busy AF podcast with Lauren Loreto of Brand Good Time. I own a boutique marketing consultancy. That’s what I like to do, it’s fun. That’s my business – but today we are not here to talk about that. We are here to talk about your marketing funnel and why you need to give a bleep about it. Yep. I just said bleep. So in this episode, I’m gonna talk through top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, why those are important, why you should give a crap and how you can start implementing strategies in your business now, to actually be able to say, “Hey, I have a marketing strategy.” So without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive in.

 

The Funnel

The funnel. The funnel, the funnel, the funnel – this is taught in any basic intro to marketing class in college. I took it, definitely learned about it. It is a necessary component to a strong marketing strategy. I would say it’s best described as the “journey” a lead takes. So a potential client getting to know you and your business, through towards the purchase stage, because consumers do not typically buy off one piece of content – specifically in the service based B2B world.

So many times I’ve gone to work with a new client, who has no real established marketing strategy, and the place I really like to start with them is by helping them visualize a funnel. That’s why we’re talking about this today – nine times outta ten, they are wondering why their email list or audience isn’t growing. This is typically because they’re putting out a ton of top of funnel content with no middle of funnel strategy to get them to the bottom of the funnel, which is to close.

That is why, while it’s true that a buyer can come into the funnel at any stage, having a robust strategy is crucial so you can meet any lead, exactly where they’re at. So today I’m gonna talk to you about how to give a poop about your funnel, and make sure that an ideal client is moving through the way they should.

 

Top Of Funnel

So the first thing we’re gonna talk about is the top of funnel strategy. I like to compare top of funnel strategies to being in it for the long haul. I feel like I say this in all my brand intensive calls. It’s like, “this is for the long haul.” Was that a song? I probably just made that up – anyways to this day, I get a lot of questions about how long until I see results when it comes to anything related to marketing.

My honest answer is this – you’re gonna see results when you start playing bigger in your top of funnel strategy. In this order, I’m talking about content marketing, which is blog content, YouTube, podcasting, and then SEO. Then from there, social media content, and then from there paid advertising. I always put paid advertising at the bottom, especially if you are like just establishing a marketing strategy. That should not be the first place you’re turning.

If you listen to any of my previous podcast, you know how I feel about it. So the content you are creating in the top of funnel cycle, should be serving the purpose of creating brand awareness and instilling trust. So think about that with the type of content that you are putting out. The trick is doing this strategically – you should not be spending hours and hours and hours and hours a week, or even a month, on the top of funnel content, unless you can afford to have a dedicated team member doing so. I really wanna emphasize that here, a concentrated strategic focus can go a long way. So just be very mindful of where and of how you’re spending your time with top of funnel strategies.

 

Middle of Funnel

Next, I wanna talk to you about middle of funnel strategies. So the middle of funnel is where you’re going to start presenting solutions to the problem that your ideal client is facing. So I personally like to be aggressive here. I don’t sugarcoat. I use a ton of polarizing opinions. That’s what goes in line with my brand and my brand personality. I tell it like it is – we just talked about this in a podcast that’s coming up in a couple episodes. We’ve just recorded it, but very important for me to let that shine through my content.

So middle of funnel strategies can look like opt-ins for freebies, email newsletters, and nurture sequences in depth. I’m saying in depth for a reason, webinars, podcasts, YouTube videos, something like this, where you are giving away a lot of formation that is more middle of funnel. They are taking the time to listen to you, learn from you. They’re getting to know you even more than just the surface level awareness. Again, you really want to with this funnel too, perform middle of funnel tactic strategically, and you want to make sure that they are complimenting your top of funnel efforts. It should just funnel seamlessly.

 

Bottom of Funnel

Bottom of funnel, alright. So this is the very bottom of the funnel. A lot of people don’t talk about this, and bottom of funnel tactics are important because this is where you get to show what it’s like to work with you, truly. Because you are now taking this next step to put extra care into your process, show how, like amazing you are with automations. But what I’m trying to get at here is that the bottom of funnels strategy is really to ultimately accelerate the deal cycle, and make the prospect feel really good about the purchase decision they’re about to make.

They should feel like, “wow, this is cool.” A large part of this is having a damn good system for closing a client. So an example of this workflows in honey book or dip Soto. So I have a workflow in Honeybook right now where it sends a proposal, and that proposal has a cover page, & it tells more about me, and then it’s got the “about the company”, and then it’s got, “here’s what we can do for you with the pricing.” Then it’s got an agreement, followed by a deposit, followed by a questionnaire. It is like all in one. My close rates have gone up so much in the last two years since I started implementing that.

 

In Conclusion

The thing remember here is that you just really want to be strategic about it. Think too, like you’ll be spending so much less time if you have automations and workflows set up for something like this. But even if you don’t that’s okay. Put thought into how this bottom of funnel strategy works so that your prospect has it super freaking easy for them to book with you. So if honing in on your marketing strategy is one of your goals. I definitely want you to start here with this top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel related content. Get this in order, get it down on a piece of paper, visualize it. What does the top of funnel content look like for your business?

What kind of efforts are you gonna be putting into there? What does the middle of funnel nurturing look like? What does that bottom of funnel look like? I guess you could call it a client onboarding process, getting them onto your services – what does that look like for your business? If you are looking for more support in this, I offer 60 minute brand intensives where we can refine your marketing funnel and create a 90 day plan for your marketing strategy to start bringing in more qualified leads all the way from the top of that funnel. So I will go ahead and drop the link in my show notes to inquire. We’ve done quite a few sessions this year. I’m really excited to see where this year’s clients go with their strategy, but I will leave that in the show notes for you.

Please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. If you have any questions at all, and think you for tuning into this podcast, all right. Y’all so this is Lauren Loreto, and you just listened to another episode of She’s Busy AF, we drop new episodes every Wednesday, and it would mean the world to me. If you screenshot this episode and share it on Instagram, if you found it helpful at all, I would love to also see your funnel strategy. So feel free to share them with me. I would love to see what you make of it. Be sure to tag me on Instagram @ She’s Busy AF if you share, and thank you so much for being a part of the community, I would love to thank you by resharing those tags. With that being said, I will see you on the next episode.