Why Every Business Needs a Full Funnel Marketing Strategy

Why Every SME Needs a Full Funnel Marketing Strategy

 

Running a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) can feel overwhelming, and you’ll feel like you are wearing far too many hats. However,  when you’re unsure where your potential customers are or how best to reach them, it becomes a struggle. 

When you’re wearing far too many hats, you cannot be focused on every aspect of your business. We’ve seen business owners who only did marketing when they had time. This is so counterproductive that you might as well do nothing instead. We understand that marketing can often become confusing. A full funnel marketing strategy brings SMEs  clarity, direction, and – crucially – results. By taking a  step back and focusing on the entire customer journey,  you can reach the right people, with the right messages, at the right time, getting better returns for your marketing efforts or investment. Let’s see how it works in real life:

 

 

What is a Full Funnel Marketing Strategy?

A full funnel marketing strategy views the customer journey in its entirety, from the very first moment they become aware of your business through making buying decisions and all the way to lasting loyalty and advocacy. Rather than targeting immediate sales only, this approach nurtures relationships at every stage and produces better customer experiences. Here are the different stages of the full funnel marketing strategy:

• Awareness: The first time your potential customers hear about you. It can be an ad,  a recommendation, social media, or any platform you use to get your message out there. 
• Interest: This is when your prospects want to find out more about you and would like to learn about your offer. They are not ready to make a decision, but they are exploring options.  
• Desire: At this stage, they realise that they have a need you can potentially fill. They don’t really believe you yet, and they are unsure whether your solution is the right one. But they realise that they have a problem. 
• Action: This is when your potential clients are partly convinced that you can help them, so they get in touch. They want more based on the content you have provided. It can be a small action, like a microcommitment, signing up for a newsletter, or a larger commitment: booking a consultation or placing an order. 
• Loyalty: Loyalty is often ignored by purchase funnel marketing, however, it is just as important as other steps. Once you’ve got a client you want to keep them and want them to become an advocate for your brand.

 

The key components of a full funnel strategy should include all stages of the customer journey. These components are designed to attract, engage, and convert prospects into loyal customers in the most natural way possible. 

 

Awareness: This is the top of the funnel, focused on making potential customers aware of your brand and offerings . Tactics include:

• • Content marketing (blog posts, articles, infographics)
  • Social media marketing
  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Paid advertising (PPC, social media ads)
  • Public relations and media coverage

Interest: Once you’ve captured their attention, you need to build interest by providing valuable information and establishing yourself as a credible source 1. Key activities here involve:

• • Creating informative and engaging content (eBooks, whitepapers, webinars)
  • Email marketing (newsletters, lead nurturing campaigns)
  • Building a strong social media presence and engaging with your audience
  • Providing excellent customer service and support

 

Desire: This stage is about creating a desire for your product or service by highlighting its benefits and unique selling points. Strategies to consider are:

• • Showcasing customer testimonials and case studies
  • Offering free trials or demos
  • Creating compelling sales pages and product descriptions
  • Highlighting your unique selling proposition (USP)

 

Action: Convert interested prospects into paying customers by making it easy for them to take the desired action 1. Focus on:

1. • Optimizing your website and landing pages for conversions
   • Offering clear calls-to-action (CTAs)
   • Providing a seamless checkout process
   • Offering multiple payment options

 

Loyalty: The funnel doesn’t end with a sale. Nurturing existing customers to ensure repeat purchases and brand advocacy is crucial 1. Efforts should include:

1. • Providing excellent customer support and service
   • Creating a loyalty program
   • Personalising offers and communications
   • Soliciting feedback and reviews
   • Building a community around your brand

 

Measurement and Analysis: Throughout the entire funnel, it’s essential to track key metrics and analyse your results to optimize your strategy.

This involves:

• • Tracking website traffic, lead generation, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value
  • Using analytics tools to understand customer behaviour
  • Regularly reviewing your strategy and making adjustments as needed
  • A/B testing different tactics to see what works best

 

Unlike traditional marketing that often focuses solely on immediate sales, a full funnel approach nurtures leads and builds long-term relationships and generally gives you a much higher return on investment over time.

 

Marketing SWOT vs. Full Funnel Marketing Strategy

A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is a valuable tool for understanding your business’s current position within the market and the effectiveness of your marketing. We offer this and much more when you book a consultation with us.  However, it’s only a snapshot in time. A full funnel marketing strategy takes the insights from your SWOT analysis and translates them into an actionable plan to achieve your business goals. And that’s exactly what our Marketing SWOT service entails: actionable steps and a plug and play long term marketing plan that will keep on producing results every day for many years to come. There is – of course a price difference. A marketing SWOT analysis is priced at £1,500 and a full marketing strategy costs £2,500, but it also includes the following:

• USP identification
• Marketing Plan
• Social Media calendar
• Hashtag and keyword research
• Tech stack recommendation 
• Full funnel map
• Predicted ROI and revenue growth. 

 

Here’s a comparison of a Full Funnel Marketing Strategy and Marketing SWOT :

 

 

Feature	Marketing SWOT	Full Funnel Marketing Strategy
Purpose	Analyse the current market position and competitive landscape.	Develop a comprehensive plan to attract, engage, and convert customers throughout their entire journey.
Focus	Internal and external factors affecting the business.	Customer journey and experience.
Outcome	Identification of key strategic considerations.	Actionable marketing plan with specific tactics for each stage of the funnel.
Implementation	Primarily an analytical tool.	Requires ongoing implementation, monitoring, and optimisation.

 

 

 

 

Our SWOT and Marketing Plan vs. Other Agencies’ Marketing Plan

Marketing plans go for 5-10-15K in the UK, and you might still be left confused. Even though they are hard to understand for the average SME owner, many UK digital agencies lock clients into long-term contracts without a clear understanding of their needs or whether the service is the right fit. They will provide a generic recommendation assuming that they “know everything about your business, clients, and goals (OR AI does). We do things differently.

Our entry-level service is a Marketing SWOT, providing an overview of your current market position and opportunities. In recent years, many larger companies developed their in-house marketing team, creating better alignment with their overall goals and objectives. This left SMEs behind, especially those who were randomly engaging with marketing agencies and didn’t implement a marketing plan into their overall strategy. LMNts Marketing is here to close the gap and level the playing field for small and medium sized businesses. 

Here’s what sets us apart:

• Transparency: We provide recommendations for you to implement, empowering you to take control, whether or not you choose us to implement the plan.
• Expertise: Over three-quarters of our clients trust us with their marketing strategy implementation and sales funnel design after seeing our knowledge and research.
• Tailored Approach: We build sales and marketing strategies from scratch, recognising that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. We also work with your existing infrastructure, so you don’t have to create content for months before the launch. We even implement your existing software and tools into the plan. We have also successfully collaborated with in house marketing specialists, as well as other agencies. 

As LMNts Marketing, our goal is to become the number one full funnel agency in the UK. In recent years, we’ve refined our target audience, adjusted our prices, and built strong partnerships. As a result, we can help more SMEs get more return on their marketing investment.

A Plan Is Only as Good as the Implementation

Even the most well-crafted marketing strategy is useless without effective implementation. It’s also essential to have the right team, tools, and processes in place to carry out your plan successfully. That includes:

• Consistent Implementation: Regularly implementing the tactics outlined in your strategy and making adjustments.
• Monitoring and Analysis: Tracking key metrics to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Without the implementation of monitoring, you’ll end up shooting in the dark. 
• Optimisation: Making adjustments based on data and feedback can help you improve your campaign  performance.

At LMNts Marketing, we’ve built a collaborative team with capabilities in design, branding, web development, social media, SEO, and copywriting to help you with your strategy implementation. We approach every project as a unique challenge, focusing on the angle, voice, and message that will resonate with your audience.

Actionable Full Funnel Marketing Strategy

Here are some actionable steps you can take to implement a full funnel marketing strategy for your SME:

1. Define Your Ideal Customer: Understand their needs, pain points, challenges, decision process, and online behaviour.
2. Map the Customer Journey: Outline the steps customers take from initial awareness to purchase and beyond.
3. Create Targeted Content: Develop content that addresses the needs of customers at each stage of the funnel and decision making process.
4. Choose the Right Channels: Identify the platforms where your ideal customers spend their time (and trust) and focus your efforts there.
5. Automate Where Possible: Use marketing automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks and personalise each customer’s unique experience.
6. Track and Measure Results: Monitor key metrics to assess the effectiveness of your campaigns and make adjustments as needed.

 

 

Here’s how automation can enhance your full funnel marketing strategy:

• Lead Generation: Capture prospect information through online forms, landing pages, and social media. If you are paying for traffic, in any way, chances are that you will have to pay again to get the same person to visit your site, unless you capture their details at the first visit.
• Lead Nurturing: Send automated email sequences and personalized messages based on your prospect’s behaviour. Gather information about their preferences, to make sure that you are only sending relevant offers.
• E-commerce Sales: Personalise product recommendations, recover abandoned carts, and track customer behaviour so you can identify sales opportunities.
• Customer Feedback: Automate feedback collection through surveys and online reviews to manage and improve your reputation.
• Content Distribution: Schedule social media posts, manage email campaigns, and track website analytics.

 

A note on GDPR Compliance: UK SMEs using marketing automation must comply with GDPR. You cannot rent, buy, or otherwise source email lists. You need to get people to agree to getting emails from you.

 

 

The Cost of a Full Funnel Strategy in the UK

The cost of a full funnel marketing strategy varies depending on the scope of your business, the complexity of your target market, and whether you choose to implement it yourself or hire an agency.

Here’s a general breakdown:

• DIY: Costs can range from a few hundred pounds per month for basic tools and software to several thousand pounds for more advanced solutions. This option requires a significant time investment.
• Agency: Costs can range from £2,000 to £10,000+ monthly cost, depending on the agency’s size, reputation, experience, and the scope of services provided.

Regardless of the route you choose, a well-executed full funnel marketing strategy is an investment that can generate significant returns.

 

DIY Marketing Fails Without a Funnel Strategy

Many SMEs attempt DIY marketing without a clear funnel strategy, leading to wasting time, money, and effort. Without a structured approach, your marketing activities may be disjointed and ineffective.

Here are some common pitfalls of DIY marketing without a funnel strategy:

• Lack of Focus: You will end up spreading your efforts too thin across multiple channels without knowing which ones are most effective.
• Inconsistent Messaging: Failing to deliver a consistent brand message across all touchpoints can lead to confusion. And the confused mind always says NO.
• Low Quality Leads: You will end up speeding your energy and money on getting unqualified leads that are unlikely to convert into customers.
• Missed Opportunities: Not nurturing leads and guiding them through the customer journey will mean you’re leaving money on the table.
• Inability to Measure Results: Lacking the tools and processes to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaign will feel like you’re shooting in the dark. 

By understanding where your customers are in their buying journey and what they need at each stage, you can create targeted campaigns that resonate with them and get them to trust you.

 

Get a Marketing SWOT with a Full Funnel Strategy

If you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level, start with a Marketing SWOT analysis. This cost-effective service will provide you with a clear understanding of your current market position and the opportunities available to you.

 

For more information on Why Every Business Needs a Full Funnel Marketing Strategy talk to LMNts Marketing