Have you ever wondered if the journey of your customer is trackable or even viewable? I have good news for you – it is. You can – in many cases – track how many people know about your business, how many of them have considered purchasing your goods and, of course, how many have already bought and referred your product to a friend. Being able to view the customer journey, optimize its steps and analyze your efforts is crucial for any kind of business. Trust me, the size does not matter (in this case). Every business should do it.

From Awareness To a Purchase

Let's say your customer journey has three main phases.

Each stage represents a different behavior stage of your potential customer. Say she has a problem which she is able to name. She begins to search for a solution – which you offer with your product or service. As soon as she discovers that your business, among others, offers the solution she is already in the awareness stage.

Your presentation, product, its price and other factors determine whether she will move further on the journey. The consideration stage, needless to say, is a phase in which a potential customer already considers your product, is comparing it to your competitors and is aware of its pros and cons.

Decision. That's the phase we aim for. We want her to buy our product, right? That's when a decision is made. In this stage, your potential customer has already conducted the research, has chosen you over your competitors and is happy to buy what you have to offer.

We just described – in a very simple way – what a customer journey can look like. Sometimes it takes weeks to guide her through all stages of the journey, sometimes it is only a matter of minutes. 

Imagine yourself buying a coffee in the city center. You probably don't do any thorough research, but you certainly look for coffee quality and price. You don't spend days comparing the product to other cafés or bars. You make the decision according to a few key factors. Your journey is fast and your decision is made pretty quickly. But it does not mean the café owner should not pay attention to the key factors, like what the café window looks like, or if their prices are reasonable, as it influences the customer's journey.

The Basic Idea Behind the Marketing Funnel

The customer journey can easily be viewed as a funnel. To explain the basic idea behind the marketing funnel, let's use the widely-known model AIDA which stands for attention, interest, desire and action. Each of these phases represent a stage in which you might find your customers. 

📖 Read more about the concept AIDA

Obviously, your ultimate goal is to guide them through the stages without friction and in the shortest time possible. 

Let us look at an example of a basic marketing funnel.

People obviously start at the top. This represents the awareness stage. As customers move further through the funnel, they know more about you and your offer and start, as well as continue, to consider it more and more. 

Here is what a perfect marketing funnel would look like.

This would mean that everyone who discovers your product will eventually decide to purchase. Going back to our example, 100% of the people who enter your café will buy a coffee. Of course, that's a seller's utopia. In an ideal world, this would work, not in the real one.

Carefully measure your funnel and optimize its steps so that more people end up being your customers.

Model Your Own Marketing Funnel

Let's finally give a more concrete example of what a marketing funnel can look like in your case. Say you run a real estate business, and aim to attract potential house buyers with your website. That's also where you generate leads that you can then convert. Your main channels would be:

• social media or ads on Google or Youtube
• a website
• a chat or phone call
  

You would try to attract as many people as possible with your marketing budget and lead them to your website to show all the products or services you have. 

After they land on the website, ideally you want them to fill out a form, in case they are interested in a particular offer. 

As soon as they do so, you connect with them via phone or email and find out whether their interest can lead to a conversion. 

This is what your funnel would look like.

Math Behind a Basic Marketing Funnel

Let's do some math now. Say your marketing efforts help you reach 10,000 people with your ad. 3% of them interact with your ad and visit your website. That would mean you have 300 people on your website, right? 

How many of these people are you able to convert into leads? That depends on how your website attracts its users and how juicy your offer is, doesn't it? Let's say you have a 10% conversion rate (10% of website visitors convert into leads). In this case, you would have 30 leads waiting to be contacted. 

How many of them can you convert into sales? Again, factors like your response time, will play their role now. If you made it to 50%, you’ve just made 15 sales. Now, go back and think about what can be improved...

Measure each step of the funnel, focus on the customer and do your best to improve the areas where it falters.

Going back to our example, simply by making your ad more appealing, you can increase your outcome from 3% to 6% which (if other metrics don't change) would make 30 sales at the end of the day. Improve your website from a 10% conversion rate to 15% and you can almost touch the sky… You know where I am heading, right?

Where to Get Data for Your Marketing Funnel

You may be wondering where you can get all of this data? Tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Business Manager or our own app can simplify the process of ad management.  These tools can give you great insights into how many people you’ve reached, how many of them interacted with your content, how many made it to the website and finally, how many were converted into leads. 

There are a plethora of ways to measure your marketing funnel – the customer journey. Even a piece of paper and good data sources can create miracles… 

One thing is for sure: If you don't measure your efforts carefully, you may be investing money and energy into something that does not bring you results at all.

Today, we've covered one of the more advanced terms in marketing. Yet, this concept – when simplified – can help you find out where your marketing efforts bring results and where they don't and, most importantly, map your customer's journey. 👌