Why Your Climate Positive Brand Should have a Marketing Funnel

Every business wants more customers, but how do you find them and keep them coming back for more? A key tool you should be utilising is a marketing funnel. I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about marketing funnels and why your climate positive brand should be using them.

What is a Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is a visual representation of the steps a potential customer takes from first finding out about your brand to being converted into a paying customer.

The aim of the marketing funnel is to cast a wide net over your target audience to then start to nurture prospective customers through each stage of the funnel, narrowing it down to those people who are likely to buy from you.

Customer paying for product or service using visa card

What are the Stages of a Marketing Funnel?

There are four key stages of the marketing funnel:

Awareness: A potential customer discovers your brand, usually through organic content marketing, paid ads or word of mouth.
Consideration: They feel your brand can help them solve a specific problem and want to learn more.
Decision: The prospect has done their research and has decided to become a paying customer.
Retention: As the marketer, it’s your job to ensure the now paying customer keeps coming back for more.

Gaining a deep understanding of the problems that customers face is how you build products/services that provide value and grow. It all starts with a conversation.

You must let go of your assumptions so you can listen with an open mind and understand what’s actually important to them. That way, you can build something that makes their life better. Something they actually want to buy.

Team brainstorming ideas using post it notes

Why you Should Use a Marketing Funnel for Your Climate Positive Brand

It’s important to have a detailed, well thought out marketing funnel for your climate positive brand. Every marketing funnel is unique for every business and will differ depending on your target audience, industry, and business goals.

Without a marketing funnel, it can be hard to determine the best type of content you should be creating as a brand to turn a potential customer into a paying customer.

It’s also a key tool for the marketing team and it will give them insight into the customer journey and whether certain stages need improving.

For example, if you notice you have a lack of repeat business, it could mean your retention stage of the marketing funnel needs some serious work.

Types of Content You Can Use in Your Marketing Funnel

Within each stage, you should be creating quality content that helps to push your target audience down your marketing funnel. Great content will help you turn leads into paying customers, but it will also keep your customers coming back for more.

Here are a few examples of the type of content your climate positive brand should be creating within each stage of your marketing funnel:

Educational content
Blogs
Paid social media ads
Meet the team
Brand story
Case studies
Behind the scenes
Personalised video messages

Climate Positive Brand Marketing Funnel Example

I wanted to create an example of a marketing funnel that any climate positive brand could adopt and modify to fit its needs.

Marketing Strategy

First things first, you need to have a marketing strategy in place that outlines who your target audience is, what your business goals are, the marketing channels you will be using, etc.

Once you know who you’re targeting and what you want to achieve, you can start developing your marketing funnel to echo your strategy and start to plan the type of content you need to create within each stage.

Man and women sat at table with laptop, phone and notepad on table

Awareness Stage

To help reach your target audience and to get your brand discovered, here is an example of the type of content you could be publishing in the awareness stages of your marketing funnel:

Post 1 video a week across your social media channels. - These videos could be anything from how-to videos, office walkthroughs, your production process, vlogs etc.
Write and share 1 blog a week. – Blogs are a great way to boost your website's SEO, helping you to get found online and they are also great content to share across your social media channels.
Share 3 photos a week across your marketing channels. – Sharing 'lifestyle' photos can help your target audience get a feel for your product or service and how it relates to their lifestyle.

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Just remember, in the awareness stage, it’s important to move your target audience down the marketing funnel so encourage them to follow you on social or send them to a bespoke lead generator such as your newsletter or landing page on your website. Lead generators will help you qualify genuine leads and allow you to continue to market to them.

Consideration Stage

Now you’ve been discovered; you now need to pinpoint what your audiences’ pain points are and how you can help solve that specific problem.

Create and publish 1 video case study across your marketing channels a month – Video case studies are ideal for telling stories, especially when it comes to pain points. Drill down on what the customer's problem was, how you helped solve that problem and the results they saw.
Run weekly paid social media ads– If you’ve managed to push people to your website in the awareness stages, you can re-market to them through paid social media ads. This can help reinforce your brand message and get them back on your website, moving them into the consideration stage.

Decision Stage

If the customer has done enough research and feels you’re the brand that can help them solve their specific problem, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to buy from you.

Include product tags on social – If you’re a brand that sells products, you’ll need to be sharing high-quality photography on a weekly basis. To encourage customers to buy from you, add product tags to your posts. This enables customers to quickly navigate to the product they are interested in and hit that all-important buy now button!
Push prospects to landing pages – Every product or service should have its own landing page with details about that product or what they can expect from working with you. Make sure to have a clear call to action on every page, whether that’s to ‘buy now’, 'schedule a meeting' or ‘book now’.
Share reviews from real customers – Make sure to share reviews and testimonials from existing and past customers. These should be shared across your marketing channels but should also be featured on your website and landing pages. This will make your brand look credible and trustworthy, helping customers move through the decision.

Retention Stage

Now you have paying customers, how do you get them coming back for more?

Run weekly/monthly email marketing campaigns – You could send things like exclusive offers, access to events before anyone else or other customer rewards. This will remind past customers of the brand and encourage them to buy from you again.
Send personalised follow-up messages – A big part of retention is customer service. A week or two after the client has bought from you, why not send a personalised video message or handwritten card asking how they’re getting on with the product or whether they felt they got the most out of your services?