Why you should adopt a "full-funnel" marketing approach
Differentiation between data and technology brands is disappearing, applying even more pressure on short-term objective chasing.
All too often, we see efforts diverted into delivering next quarter's budget, which spurs short-term tactics over strategically driven, brand-building initiatives. Over time, this “short-termism” can erode the underlying equity value of many brands and rob companies of greater competitive advantage and profitable growth potential.
👉People don’t engage with your content with intent to buy — they come to learn and educate themselves.
Long-term or short-term? A case for both.
The key to sustainable growth lies in balancing investment across short and long-term marketing activities, influencing behaviour at different points in the buyer lifecycle.
No one wakes up in the morning and decides, “I’m going to buy something today.” Instead, they go through a path to purchase that includes research and evaluation before committing to a sales call.
The key to building sales now and into the future is to turn incremental effects into lasting ones, building a strong and unique brand, growing trust over time, using the right strategies, to ultimately improve revenue growth.
How?
Invest in full-funnel demand-led marketing
According to McKinsey, “Full-funnel marketing is not just a campaign strategy; it’s a total shift in how marketing works.”
They go on to say that many marketers shift too much marketing spend toward the easy-to-justify capture of customers at the bottom of the funnel – at the expense of the less tangible generation of customer demand and attention at the top. This skew toward bottom-of-the-funnel (BoF) campaigns has significant implications for long-term value.
To address this imbalance, leading organisations are moving towards “full-funnel” marketing, an approach that combines the power of both brand building and short-term performance marketing through consistent thought leadership and lead nurturing campaigns to trigger sales.
When done right, content aligns with where a customer is in the buying process, be it awareness or consideration. It's consistent over time, inviting rather than pleading, thereby building cumulative brand value. By building up long-term differentiation, data and technology brands can achieve more sustainable growth and reduce the reliance on short-term activities. All while making the sales process a breeze.
In our experience, a thoughtful and data-driven full-funnel marketing strategy can drive significant value. By shifting to optimised demand-led activities businesses can achieve a 40%+ lift in ROI.
Genuinely understanding customers and integrating lead nurture and Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategies is what is needed to stand out from the crowd. This level of customer-led personalisation creates an opportunity for companies to get ahead and differentiate from fast-moving competition. By getting ahead, brands can move beyond doing the bare minimum to survive, and instead they can thrive.
📌Final tips to building a full-funnel approach:
Understand the stages within the marketing funnel. How the funnel works is simple. The top of the funnel indicates they are further away from a purchasing decision while those who make it to the bottom of the funnel are closer to a purchasing decision.
Create content for all stages of the funnel. Once you have an idea of who your buyer persona is, you can begin creating content for your buyer at different stages.
Choose the right channels. As you create content that considers the stage they're at in their journey; decide on the best channels to put the content in front of them.
Set realistic goals. When done right, building a full-funnel approach will trigger some short-term revenue, but the key is to focus on the bigger picture to create a long-term sustainable approach to demand generation.
Test, learn and refine; Track the performance of each piece AND the entire funnel holistically – then learn from the data each month to refine your strategy and execution.
Switching to a full-funnel approach doesn’t have to be complex. We recommend a gradual process.
A great starting place is to understand your audience, develop your funnel around your industry and audience intent, and create a documented content marketing strategy that maps custom content specific to each phase of their journey through the funnel.
You can then activate this plan across a combination of key channels to create short-term results while building momentum for long-term growth.
To drive business outcomes, businesses must be there for their customers at all stages, creating relationships throughout the buyer journey. Credible and authentic content coupled with best practice distribution and amplification will give you an enormous edge once you get the mix right.
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