We like to say the traditional marketing funnel remains the foundation for digital marketing best practices. Without a clear understanding of the funnel, digital marketing agencies cannot as effectively operate and optimize marketing campaigns for clients. The key insight is that a customer truly isn’t a customer until they have purchased a product or service. Until then, they are a shopper. And shoppers continue to funnel through this process from brand awareness, interest, and consideration to purchase, loyalty, and advocacy. We’ll look at each stage and address which digital marketing services address that portion of the funnel in the first part of this blog post.
Brand Awareness:
| Digital Marketing Service | Weight | Explanation |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | 90% | Due to inbound marketing services, SEO allows brands that are found in the organization search engine results pages to make themselves aware to searchers and shoppers. |
| Paid Search (PPC) | 90% | Paid Search has an identical effect as SEO. The difference is paid search collects 15 – 20% of search traffic while SEO collects 80 – 85% of the traffic. |
| Display Advertising | 100% | Display Advertising is primarily a brand awareness function because display advertising traditionally occurs on third party websites, thus the searchers intent may not be to initially purchase. However there is still value in making them aware of your brand. |
| Email Marketing | 50% | Due to can SPAM laws, we dropped this to 50% because marketers cannot credibly create brand awareness with email marketing. |
| Social Media | 80% | Because of the paid search function in most social media channels, developing brand awareness can be effective for brands. |
Interest:
| Digital Marketing Service | Weight | Explanation |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | 100% | SEO has the greatest impact at this stage due to searchers already being interested in the products or services being offered. |
| Paid Search (PPC) | 100% | Paid Search has a similar effect as SEO. |
| Display Advertising | 80% | Display Advertising has the propensity to have an effect on interest buyers and shoppers. However its impact is typically attract lowers conversion rates at this stage compared to paid search and SEO. |
| Email Marketing | 70% | Assuming the brand has built a list, tapping people at this stage of the funnel can be a very effective proposition. |
| Social Media | 80% | Similar to brand awareness, social media has the ability to reach consumers through paid search via social media channels. A great example is facebook’s search graph functionality. |
Consideration:
| Digital Marketing Service | Weight | Explanation |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | 100% | At this stage, the shopper has already made up their mind to buy. SEO again places your brand in front of the shopper so you are included in their competitive set. |
| Paid Search (PPC) | 100% | Paid Search has a similar effect as SEO. |
| Display Advertising | 60% | We lowered the percentage for display advertising because if shoppers are ready to buy or considering brands to purchase from, you cannot as effectively impact this stage of the process because the consumer will pursue other channels to fulfill this stage. |
| Email Marketing | 80% | We moved the percentage up fro email because as your brand remains top of mind to the shopper, they will consider you more if they’ve received emails from you while also shopping around to other brands. |
| Social Media | 80% | Again, people visit social media channels to socialize, not to purchase. But there remains some impact on the shopper who may consider social media channels to shop for products and services, even if it seldom occurs. |
by “Justin Croxton”
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