Is your brand story spread out over the internet resulting in a bunch of fractured sound bites and an audience standing at the edge of a canyon wondering where the road went?

 

Don't leave your potential client's hanging, make sure they can find you and know where to go to get what you have to offer them by mapping out your digital marketing funnel. Too many people put their eggs in one basket expecting people to go from awareness to advocacy in one jump, but that rarely works. If you want your audience to become active advocates of your brand, you need to guide them through the customer journey. Starting with a digital marketing funnel template is a good place to start.

 

The Digital Marketing Funnel Template:

 

How will your audience learn about your product or service?

At the top of a sheet of paper write down all the ways people will become aware of you and how they will see you. For example: On LinkedIn through comments and searches. From there where do they start seeing you? For example: On LinkedIn followers will then see my posts. Put a box around each step. 

 

Map out the Customer Journey

 

When you start mapping out your digital footprint you will need to know two things:

 
  1. The platforms you are telling your story on

  2. The platforms your audience touches on their journey

 

Here is an exercise you can do to help you uncover the route potential buyers take to your product or service. Forget everything about your business and become an uninformed consumer looking for a solution to the problem you solve. Rule: You can't search using words describing your solution, trademark, or company name. You want to see what shows up when people need the help you provide but they don't know who you are. Are you showing up?

 

Another exercise: Be self-aware of the journey you go through when you have a problem and are making a buying decision, don't go through the process on auto pilot. As you go through your own buying journey, you will discover those points in the funnel where messages need to inserted and how others are guiding you from awareness to advocacy.

 

Brand Awareness and the Customer Journey

Brand awareness is the first rung in the marketing funnel and where most people spend the bulk of their money and time. The problem occurs when they expect their audience to go from awareness to action in the course of a few ads or posts. Unless you want to constantly be looking for new customers and paying money to Facebook and Google in order to keep your cash flow going, you need to move away from transaction based marketing and into brand storytelling along the full marketing funnel.