100+ Facts about Marketing & Fun Tips to read on a Break

Small businesses can leverage Instagram Live and Facebook Live to boost customer spending in a few ways. First, small businesses can partner with influencers and invite guests relevant to their industries to provide valuable information (e.g., healthy recipes to boost your immune system during the pandemic) to their customers.

Small businesses can hold their own live sessions where they tell their customers (including ex-customers and potential customers) what is new in their stores and how to buy during the pandemic, e.g., curbside pickup or seeing the items “in person” through FaceTime.

Tofu is the first stage and the wider part of the funnel. Tofu is all about making the targeted audience aware of your business.

Prospects can be drawn into this stage through marketing campaigns such as events, trade shows, advertising, blog posts, infographics, and social media.

Marketing experts define 3 main stages of the funnel:

1. TOFU (top of the funnel) attracts attention
2. MOFU (middle of the funnel) generates leads
3. BOFU (bottom of the funnel) drives payments.

At each stage the user intent is different, which means that your content will pursue different goals and the results will be measured in different values.

If you intend on bringing a new product to market that claims to fulfill a consumer need, then you actually need to know what that need is.

This is the method that Toyota used when it deployed researchers to hang around supermarket parking lots and watch customers load groceries into their cars. Based on the observed difficulties people were having, Toyota redesigned their cars’ trunks to have more space and allow for easier sliding of bags.

Snackable content is a short form of easily digestible content that can be shared on social media. It's often visually engaging and can be posted consistently.

In the year 2000, the average attention span of a human was 12 seconds. Now it is around 8. So if you want to grab people's attention, your content should be to the point and be in bite-sized pieces.

Google processes 3.5 billion searches a day and continually maps out the web to connect you to the most suitable information. Running Google ads allows you to reach customers at the moment they want to discover a product or learn about a service.

Google Search ads are text-driven, so you only have to focus on creating quality ad copy to get results.

Text ads need three parts:

1. Headline text. The standard ad headline is 30 characters.
2. A display URL.
3. Description texts. The description text is no more than 90 characters.

Your ad has to be short and to the point. You should narrow your value proposition down to a few words that have an immediate and effective impact.

1. Responsive marketing -- it's about identifying and fulfilling pre-existing needs.
2. Anticipative marketing -- it's about recognizing trends in society and building products that fulfill newly emerging needs.
3. Need-shaping marketing -- it's about creating needs that don't exist yet. This requires large investments in innovation and development.

• Start by choosing the platform you want to focus on, ideally where you already have a presence. You can always expand to other platforms at a later stage.
• Look at the type of influencers you're interested in. Are you looking for celebrities with huge followings, micro-influencers with less than 2000 followers, or somewhere between 5-10k followers? 
• Social listening can help identify where people are discussing your industry and brand and help you find the most influential voices in your industry.
• Consider the expected ROI of your social influencer marketing campaign.

• Do you want to be the low-cost leader or the luxury provider?
• Align your product to a specific benefit. For example, the Head & Shoulders shampoo brand positions itself as good for eliminating dandruff, which makes it appealing to consumers looking to fix a flaky scalp.
• Position your product by its application. That’s how Nike positions its products – it designs unique shoes for particular sports. 
• Position your product for specific occupations, like Apple does, by marketing its software as good for design

Today’s consumers are averse to ads. If they’re not actively blocking them with browser plugins, they’re simply tuning them out. This isn’t to say ads never work, but for small businesses, they can be a wasted expense.

Always lead with a strong marketing strategy that reliably connects you with potential customers — even if you’re short on advertising funds for a month. Consumers don’t like to see ads, but they do enjoy gaining value.

If you supply menstrual products, then your marketing is obviously only going to be effective on part of the population; it’s this group that you want to target.

If the target market you choose is too narrow, you risk not having enough customers to be able to service the market profitably.

The profitability of a target market depends on a number of factors – like how many people belong to that market, what their average income is, and how well their needs are currently being met.

A/B testing is a marketing strategy that pits two different versions of a website, advert, email, popup, or landing page against each other to see which is most effective.

Inbound marketing refers to any marketing activity that attracts leads to your business like a magnet.

Instead of running a television commercial or developing a blind PPC campaign, you start an Email list.

One of the greatest sources of disagreement between marketing and sales is defining an appropriate lead, whether it’s qualified, and when it can advance through the B2B channels. These disagreements often stem from an inability to qualify leads through personalized engagement. There’s no better way to determine if a lead is sales-ready than to directly ask them, “Are you ready to talk to sales?” 

• Create a specific hashtag to track what your influencers are doing.
• If you're aiming for more sales, affiliate codes or tracking links can help establish how much is generated from influencers.

Success may vary between brands, so don't give up if your first one does not meet up to your expectations. You may find using influencers as part of your marketing strategy is very beneficial to everyone.

B2B marketing occurs when one business markets its products or services to another business or organization.

 You have to identify the Decision-Makers and figure out how to gain Buy-In from C-Level leadership.

A/B testing works by randomly showing two versions of the same asset (ad, website, pop-up, offer, etc.) to different users. The random part is important because this provides more accurate information without skewing the results. 

One version is the “control” group, or the version already in use. The second version changes a single element. You can change multiple elements, but it does make it harder to tell what change made the difference. This is called multivariate testing (more on this later).

Decide what to test, create two versions, decide on how long to run the test, collect enough data, analyze.

If you’re running an on-site test, you’ll want to think of all the sales-related pieces of your website, and then figure out which elements to split test:

• headlines
• CTA text
• CTA location
• CTA button color or surrounding space
• pop-ups
• featured images
• copy
• the number of fields in a form

With off-site tests, you’re probably testing either an ad or a sales email. Send out two versions and then track which one converts better. Then you can adapt your structure, copy, images, or offers.

• Make it pop. Use bright colours and attractive stickers.
• Ensure your brand is visually consistent.
• Use clear CTAs. People want to be told how they need to interact with your content.

However, be aware that the transition from the swipe up feature may take a while to catch on, and your link sticker numbers may fail to grow immediately. However, when they do, you'll be prepared.

• When you see what types of content your audience responds to, you gain insight into who your audience is & what they want.
• A/B tests help to increase conversion rates. Knowing what works gives you data that helps you streamline the conversion process.
• It’s hard to predict what type of content people will respond to. Testing regularly helps you stay ahead of changing consumer behavior.
• When visitors see content they like, they stay on your site longer. Testing to find the type of content your users like will help you create a better site — and one that users want to stay on.

• Consider how to highlight what makes you unique, such as free shipping or the variety you offer.
• Empower customers to take action. Make it easy to purchase your products or services with calls to action like Order Now, Sign Up, or Get a Quote.
• Include keywords to keep your ads relevant.

Take your possible keywords and use an online keyword tool to test them. Look for keywords that have high search volume and low-to-medium competition.

Include one to three keywords throughout your content, including title, headline, intro paragraph, closing paragraph, and photo captions.

Try Something Really Different

Inconclusive test results could mean your variations are too close. A/B testing can help you see if a small change impacts conversions, but sometimes those tiny tweaks don’t have much impact at all.

Analyze Different Traffic Segments

• new versus returning customers
• buyers versus prospects
• specific pages visited
• devices used
• demographic variations
• locations or languages

 Effective, engaging outreach takes considerable time and effort. Imagine trying to manually personalize every email, online chat, or text message to multiple individuals within multiple buying groups and verticals, according to where each account is in the buyer journey–across hundreds or even thousands of accounts. 

AI Assistants, powered by Conversational AI, are gaining momentum for their ability to touch every lead with personalized engagement at scale. 

Convenience refers to the consumer’s shopping experience. 

You can choose online or offline option but makes life their easier, and it’s one of the things that people look for when they want to make a purchase.

Your brand encompasses physical manifestations of your business as well as your company culture, voice, tone, and structure. Use your answer to define every aspect of your brand.

• Define your key brand messages to focus on awareness, familiarity and purchase intent.
• Embed campaign tracking and attribution to adequately review performance.
• Perform keyword research to identify strengths and opportunities (both paid and organic search) 
• Identify the appropriate channels to promote the right content to the right people.
• Define a paid and display media budget to reach the correct audience.

1. Decide what feature you want to test.
2. Create two versions of the same ad, landing page, app, etc.
3. Decide how long your test will run. I suggest at least two weeks, but it may be longer or slightly shorter depending on your traffic and industry.
4. Choose a testing tool to help you run your test (more on that later).
5. Launch!
6. After a couple of weeks, take a look at the results. Which version won?
7. Rinse and repeat. A/B testing is most effective when done continually.

A cause marketing strategy requires a partnership that benefits both parties.

You could create online courses on spiritual topics. You could partner with a church or other religious organization and donate a portion of your profits to that cause. You could invite customers to add a donation amount to their purchases.

The old 4 Ps framework must now be replaced by the 4 Cs framework focusing on customer value, cost, convenience and communication.

• Customer value: Forge long term enviable customer base. One such example could be Apple.
• Cost: Price of the product is not the only cost. Effort and time involved in acquiring, setting up, using, storing, and disposing of a product is as important. Lower it.
• Convenience: Make your product as easy as possible for the customer to purchase and acquire.
• Communication: Ensure that the relevant information reaches the right consumers

You can increase engagement by using technical and tonal systems for your writing.

The AAP method consists of:

• A - Agree. At the beginning of your writing, confirm to the reader the keyword they search will give them the result they seek.
• P - Promise: Then promise the reader that you'll give them the knowledge to achieve the results they want. Here you can insert some personal experience.
• P - Preview. Preview so that the readers know what to expect from the rest of the article.

What channels and content works best to grab attention with the target audience? What makes them take action?

The ACT stage in the e-commerce marketing plan is aimed at encouraging interactions that will result in lead generation. It focuses on creating interactions with content rather than conversion at this point in the funnel. MoFu (middle-of-funnel) marketing works to position the company as the best provider to suit the customer's needs.

Plan the next year’s activities with appropriate budgets and KPIs specifically aimed at the middle of the funnel.

This method is based on offering people some perceived value in return for their resources.

Steps:

1. Research market opportunities
2. Choose a target market
3. Decide on a unique positioning
4. Implement marketing tactics
5. Evaluate the results

These steps form a circular process that can be repeated to adapt to new market conditions.

What is the growth timeline and how do you intend to reach new customers?

Reach involves building awareness of your brand, products, and services. After all, no one can buy from your business if they don’t know it exists.

ToFu (top-of-funnel) tactics as part of your e-commerce marketing plan should focus on how you can use other websites and offline media to drive traffic to your owned media e.g. website, blog, or social media profiles.

Your customer is the center of your strategy, not your product. So you need to know:

• Their way of thinking and interest
• what kind of experiences do they like
• what's their needs
• what's their motivation, and purchasing barrier
• what's their goal

Observe your market, construct a buyer persona to guide you and then, segment the market

Bofu is where you turn leads into customers. As a marketer, you have already built enough trust with your prospective customers and can present your brand in a compelling way that inspires your prospects to take action.

The bottom of your funnel might look like a limited-time offer for your products or services. Your task is to ensure prospects have enough information about the product beforehand, so they will want to complete the transaction.

Creating a marketing plan is critical for the success of any company. The plan doubles as an alignment tool because it enables managers to brainstorm ideas and communicate shared visions and goals with one another.

What to include in the plan:

• Summary of the current situation of the company and the market
• Marketing objectives for the year
• Chosen marketing strategy
• Action plan
• Methods for evaluation

Make the plan clear and concise. Keep it under one page so everyone in the company can read it.

• The most popular form of snackable content is in the form of bullet-point lists and short videos (videos between 30 seconds and four minutes).
• Infographics are a great way to share high-value information efficiently.
• Remember to leave links and ways for people to follow and subscribe.

Email fatigue is real and it’s one of the main things that affect your sender status. If subscribers are getting too much email, they might unsubscribe or worse, they’ll ignore you until you start hitting the spam folder.

Start slow and test how your audience responds by watching engagement rates and unsubscribes. Don’t forget to count any automated campaigns that are running. If someone is in the middle of a drip campaign that sends daily updates for 7 days, it’s good practice to keep them off the mailing list until they’ve completed it to avoid mailing them too heavily.

A marketing funnel is a structure businesses use to turn strangers into loyal customers.

A marketing funnel helps envision the entire process of the customer's journey from noticing the business to finally making a purchase. Digital marketers will cast a wide net to get as many leads as possible and then nurture them in every stage of the journey through the purchasing decision.

A/B testing is used to find the best marketing strategies. It is be used to test everything from website copy to sales emails. This allows you to find the best-performing version of your campaign before spending your entire budget on one that don’t work. 

While A/B testing is time-consuming, its advantages are enough to offset the time investment. Proper A/B tests make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your campaign. Narrowing down & combining the most effective elements of a campaign creates a higher return on investment, lower risk of failure, & a stronger marketing plan.

It's not only about the way of advertising your product. It's about forming a bound with your customer and build trust.

Don't forget about an impactful message that's meaningful to them!

It's essential to create a two-way dialogue so that you can learn from your customers and improve your offering.

• When creating a budget, ensure to factor in time for planning, executing and reviewing your influencer program. A successful influencer marketing campaign is not an automated ad strategy but involves monitoring and follow up.
• If you have time and money, consider setting up a formal ambassador program.
• An influencer marketing agency is a good bet for brands that need a wider set of influencers to do the research and coordination.

Ensure your landing page matches what you're advertising.

Use the Google Search ads integration with the HubSpot CRM to optimize your targeting and drive high-quality leads.

Use ad extensions to make ads easier to interact with:

• Lead form extensions help you generate leads by allowing people to submit their information. 
• Call extensions let you include a clickable phone number in your ad.
• Price extensions show offers in detail so people can quickly find what they want.

High unsubscribe rates don’t necessarily mean that customers hate your business, but they can signal other issues that should be addressed. Rising or higher than average unsubscribe rates can point to customers receiving too many emails or emails they feel are irrelevant to them.

Test an adjusted content strategy and watch to see if rates improve. Also, don’t be afraid to ask! Survey your readers on what their ideal frequency would be to gain some real insights.

We know it can be exciting to get your first send off the ground, but take two steps back before jumping in. Create a plan of attack for the type of emails you want to send, how often they should be sent, and the type of content that will be in them so that you can start sending at a regular cadence. This will stop you from getting in the trap of sending sporadically or whenever something comes up, which can be bad for your list health.

Different types of marketing strategies are designed to achieve different goals. 

• You can use your marketing strategy to target consumers at different stages in the sales funnel. 
• You can use the metrics you generate from these strategies to pin down your customer buying journeys.

There are a few ways in which you can improve your chances of creating a piece of viral content: 

• Use lots of visual imagery, such as photos and video. 
• Piggyback on a trending or popular subject. 
• Build your audience first, then release the content. 
• Ask your followers to share the content. 
• Offer something that’s more educational, inspiring, or entertaining than anything your 
• competitors have produced. 
• Provide an incentive for sharing the content. 

An augmented reality marketing strategy brings the third dimension into your marketing efforts. 

It’s likely a more expensive option than other types of marketing strategies on this list, but it’s also a forward-thinking option. 

When you create content, you want it to appear in the search engines. Through search engine optimization (SEO), you can generate massive ROI through search engine marketing (SEM).

Think of SEM as a challenge to drive your content into the top few listings in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Creating unique, value- and data-driven content can help you generate backlinks to your work and make your content more appealing to the search engines.

Behavioral marketing takes advantage of that data to tailor marketing messages to specific consumers.

Using cookies, IP addresses, web histories, and more information, behavioral marketing allows you to ensure that each customer sees the right message at the right time. 

When you write a guest post for someone else’s blog, he or she will usually allow you to include a call to action (CTA) at the end of the post. 

You can include a link back to the sales page that would most appeal to that blog’s audience. It’s a great way to briefly hijack someone else’s platform to gain more eyes for your own content and digital products. 

The power of pipeline marketing lies in its ability to unite marketing and sales under one roof. This is particularly effective for entrepreneurs who have small teams. If you’re serving as both the marketer and the sales professional for your business, you have to think of those two activities as one unit.

Essentially, pipeline marketing allows you to directly connect your marketing efforts to future revenue. Instead of using marketing to generate leads and sales to close customers, you make it all part of the same process.

Pipeline marketing combines sales and marketing data to focus on converting leads and prospects into customers instead of continuing to generate more leads. Entrepreneurs can use pipeline marketing to make their sales process more efficient and less costly.

Think of pipeline marketing as a way to converge your sales and marketing efforts where they matter most. It’s a strategy that allows you to focus on the narrower part of your marketing funnel instead of the top.

Email campaigns keep you directly tied to your audience. Use them to segment your audience, as described above, and use opt-in forms on your Kajabi website to allow users to sign up. 

You can send emails that contain educational content, information about sales, discounts, coupon codes, and more. 

SEO covers things like meta tags, keyword selection and optimization, and more.

When it comes to keywords, you have plenty of options. Latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords can help your content become more contextually relevant to both users and search engines. LSI keywords are phrases that relate to your primary keyword

How do you intend to convert a lead to a sale? What activities will persuade your audience to take that vital next step and turn into paying customers? BoFu (bottom-of-funnel) looks at the end of the process; generating the conversion.

Today’s customers expect a personalized digital experience. This might be dynamic landing pages, multichannel marketing offering a range of conversion techniques such as email, LiveChat, and product demos, and fully optimized mobile browsing.

Mofu is where you position your company as the best product or service provider to suit the customer's needs.

This stage is used to provide enough value through podcasts, comparison charts and webinars so that your website visitors are interested to learn more about your company and establish a relationship with you.

You can further nurture prospective customers by offering free trials or product demos.

A framework can help to create an effective marketing strategy. 

Building a marketing funnel can help you visualise you’re strategies and help develop an effective campaign.

The first step on your social media journey is to do research—do your homework! Research where your target audience is “hanging out,” so to speak, virtually?

Also, if you are going to hire help, do not hire interns or entry-level [employees]; social media has grown a lot more advanced and its use of analytical tools is on the rise. There needs to be a person who will advise you about what strategy to set that makes sense for your target demographic and industry.

It’s important to remember that payment can be made through online e-commerce transactions or offline channels. The customer journey is not linear and a deep dive into analytics and customer data is essential to understanding the path to purchase. You should consider this as part of your omnichannel marketing strategy.

Identify conversion funnels and paths to purchase.

Plan how you can personalize the digital experience within your current constraints and resources.

Establish a communication process between your marketing and development teams.

Plan: Create a digital marketing strategy, mission and objectives

Reach: Grow your audience online, situational analysis and competitive landscape, target audience, budget and goals

Act: Encourage brand interactions and leads, media and channels

Convert: Increase online and offline sales through optimization, KPIs and success metrics

Engage: Build customer loyalty and advocacy

For any business to sell its products, it requires having a unique product marketing strategy. The success of any product in the market is directly linked to the product marketing strategy used. With the right product marketing strategy, a company can know its product’s place in the market.

A product marketing strategy is simply a plan followed by a business to move a product and create visibility in the market. Without this plan, it is almost impossible for a product to enjoy success. A product marketing strategy ensures that the consumer does not forget the product.

Small businesses must start with a thorough understanding of their potential customers. What makes them tick? Once you know that, you can start promoting your business in a way that resonates with your target audience.

Ask yourself three questions:

• What is my ideal customer’s core problem or “pain point”?
• How does my business solve that problem?
• Why would they choose my business over my competitors?

The answers to these questions compose your value proposition.

While guest posting allows you to create content for someone else’s audience, influencer marketing results in original content by a blogger or social media personality who recommends your digital products to his or her audience.

 In most cases, you must pay the influencer for this service, but you can also give away free products and create other arrangements, depending on the influencer’s terms. 

• Attention is what the headline is for. Techniques for grabbing attention include FOMO statements, personalization, special offers.
• Interest. Use personal stories, statistics, acknowledge pain points.
• Desire. It conveys the benefits the customers will get if they use your product/service. Don't confuse benefits with features. Frame the messaging as benefits.
• Action. End each of your F shapes with a call to action so that the reader can click to take them to the next stage.

If you want to gain more customers quickly, consider setting up an affiliate marketing company.

Your affiliates earn commissions on every sale that they generate for your business. In most cases, each affiliate gets a unique link to your product page. 

Some experts call social media the new blog. People are posting value-rich content on social media, driving traffic to their sales and landing pages while building brand awareness and creating relationships with their audience members.

What you write must be in line with what readers are looking for.

The algorithms that determine what the user finds use text-based content. For example, if you sell blue-light-blocking glasses designed for gaming, your primary keywords can include "gaming glasses", "blue light blocking glasses for gaming", "glasses that reduce eye strain", "best gaming glasses."

Research shows that readers will skim pages in a shape that looks like an "F".

They will read the entire top line or two, and then they'll begin skimming just the left-hand side of the page. Sectional breaks with new headlines can reset the F shape.

Paid media advertising can take many forms: 

• Paid social 
• Paid search 
• Display advertising 
• Television and radio commercials 
• Billboards 
• Print ads 

Pay-per-click marketing or paid search advertising (PSA) is the other component of search engine marketing.

With Pay-Per-Click ads, you can reach your target customers faster than SEO, but you pay every time someone clicks on your ads.

Similar to content marketing, article marketing refers specifically to writing articles based around your business’s core purpose and industry. 

You can publish these articles on your own website, guest-post them on relevant industry blogs, or use them as lead magnets to attract email signups. 

Many companies use employee discounts as part of their benefits packages. You want to build a stable of engaged employees who don't just show up for their paychecks, but who come to work ready to promote the business. You need your workforce to help promote your brand.

Everyone loves a good contest. This type of marketing works particularly well on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, but you can also run contests on your Kajabi blog or other online properties. 

Inbound marketing offers many advantages, but companies still use outbound marketing to great success.

Direct mail, for instance, might get read as often as Email, but you must develop a list of qualified prospects.

How much your customers are willing to pay for your product? Think about your product value in the eyes of the customer, not the market price only.

What's your buget in order to reach and serve your customer?

This includes not only monetary costs, but also the time and effort required to reach them.

Co-branding or affinity marketing refers to a partnership between two organizations that have common interests and audiences.

You could partner with another Kajabi entrepreneur and create a course together. You might experience increased sales because you’re pooling your audiences.

B2C marketing refers to a marketing strategy that’s designed for a company that markets its products or services directly to consumers.

They can operate online, in brick-and-mortar stores, or both.

Marketing is the art of identifying and fulfilling consumer needs.

All kinds of organizations face marketing problems:

• Corporations fight for market share and revenue
• Universities compete for students
• Politicians cultivate their public image to get votes
• Cultural institutions want to attract more visitors

All organizations want to attract resources from the public, such as: money, interest, engagement, votes etc. The challenge is figuring out how to persuade people to hand them over.

The second step would be to understand what content to produce that your audience can binge, so to speak.

Content is still king on social media, and each brand needs to plan it carefully because that content is what gets the customers through the virtual door.

A content marketing strategy involves any type of content that you publish online, from your landing pages and blog posts to your social media accounts.

It’s an extremely effective strategy because it drives organic traffic from the search engines and converts visitors into loyal followers. 

Influencers are individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within a niche. Influencer marketing is a kind of social media marketing where influencers endorse and mentions products.

Influencer marketing works because of the high trust that social influencers have built up with their followers. Therefore, recommendations from them are seen as proof to the brand's potential customers.

Every email strategy should include a welcome campaign for new subscribers. How many email lists have you subscribed to only to forget because you didn’t receive a single email until 3 weeks later? Your customers should not be having the same experience.

Email is not billboard or ad marketing. Email attempts to build a 1:1 relationship between the brand and the customer. These prospects trusted you enough to hand over the keys to their inbox. Greeting them with a welcome email creates familiarity and trust.

When looking at ROI and engagement, email can be a powerhouse addition to your business, especially when you use email send best practices effectively.

• Emails have 50 to 100 times higher click-through-rates when compared to Facebook and Twitter.
• For every $1 marketers spend on email marketing, they receive $42 in return.

Businesses who start using email marketing effectively will keep using it as a key strategy in their toolkit and look for ways to expand their efforts through automation.

There are numerous versions of the marketing funnels.  

The simple marketing funnel model contains three stages to help visualise the entire process of the journey.

1. Tofu (Top of funnel)
2. Mofu (Middle of funnel)
3. Bofu (Bottom of Funnel)

Sales and marketing go hand in hand but have different functions.

• Sales are more focused on generating revenues.
• Marketing is more focused on driving sales.

Both can use the funnel strategy to create revenue for the company.

A point of purchase (or point of sale) marketing strategy involves upselling to the customer near the place where he or she makes a purchase.

In a retail store, for example, you might have noticed that small items are arranged on or near the counters. You might have experienced a Cashier who has tried to Upsell you on another product.

Agile marketing is a set of core values and belief systems that drive a company’s marketing strategy.

It favors lots of small experiments, consistent feedback from customers, rapid iteration, and data and analytics. 

A content marketing funnel is a system that helps a brand to attract potential clients and guide them through their journey from the first interaction to conversion to a paying customer.

• Spotlight some of the things customers are saying about you in your posts. Ensure to tag whoever said it so users can see that the recommendations come from a real person.
• Recruit ambassadors to recommend your brand.
• In your bio, state the benefits your product or service offers. "We make gear that helps you stay out longer, travel farther and live longer."
• Use photo captions in your benefits statement. For example, "Enjoy more thrill with no spills."

This stage in the funnel requires you to keep adding value to your brand experience to generate repeat purchases, build loyalty, and improve customer satisfaction.

• Plan how you can use content to nurture the post-sale relationship. Examples include storytelling, case studies and engaging social content.
• Outline your intended onboarding process using e-commerce marketing techniques and online messaging.
• Establish your multi-channel customer service process e.g. chatbots, social media, call centres.
• Identify post-sale customer data for remarketing opportunities that will build relationships

Think of your customer’s journey as a series of touchpoints. Each will be unique depending on how your customer found out about you and the steps necessary to convert him or her. Touchpoint marketing involves analyzing the touchpoints that your customers hit most frequently so you can optimize them.

The RACE Framework is the perfect tool to assist the e-commerce marketing planning stage, allowing you to focus on each stage: plan, reach, act, convert, and engage. The model divides the customer journey into clear phases, demonstrating appropriate marketing activities playing a different role in each stage.

Begin your plan by assessing the previous year’s performance. To create an effective digital marketing strategy, you must first have a good idea of what is working as a strength as well as knowing your weaknesses.

You should also have a view of the market and your competitors’ activities.

• Identify all of your current digital marketing activities.
• Work out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats using the SWOT/ TOWS frameworks.
• Outline your e-commerce marketing goals and make sure you’ve set SMART objectives. 
• Understand your target market, their needs, wants and expectations.

• A marketing funnel simplifies the customer journey.
• It is useful for nearly any customer interaction.
• It enables you to influence customers at every stage.
• It helps you understand and visualise the process, allowing companies to map out each marketing campaign stage.
• It provides a greater opportunity to drive bigger sales, more loyalty, and stronger brand awareness.