How Various Funnel Styles Can Help Your Business

 

Ronald Kennedy
Publish Date: June 25, 2021

Several Case Studies Regarding Funnels

You may ask just what is “a funnel?” And why businesses use these? The definition of a marketing funnel is a way of breaking down the customer journey all the way from the ‘awareness’ stage (When they first learn about your business) to the ‘purchase’ stage (When they’re ready to buy your product or service).

Let’s look at some case studies of companies using marketing funnels to bring in customers from multiple marketing channels. How funnels can help your business is ‘key!’

Amazon Funnel

One of the great examples of an online superstore that records what customers view while visiting the website – and turns that information into sales – is Amazon. The Amazon website installs cookies onto a customer’s computer browser, ensuring that Amazon remembers what the customer looked at and makes suggestions about products based on those bought in the past or other comparable or complementary products.

This process guides customers through a funnel by cross-marketing (and selling) other products that they may prefer, or persuading them to buy two or more items instead. If a customer buys Korean Noodles, for instance, pictures and hyperlinks to kimchi, dumplings, and other Korean foods are lined up underneath that product they are buying.

From this point, the customer receives reminders about buying more Korean and perhaps other Asian foods while on Amazon. Not only will she get notifications while on the Amazon website, but those suggestions will also follow her across other platforms, such as Facebook and browser homepages and anywhere else targeted advertisements appear.

Walmart works the same way, offering daily emails, reminding customers of the items they had looked at the day before. If there is a sale, then that is promoted as well. Both companies rely heavily on cookies – small bits of code that enable website owners to track customers who have visited so merchants can better understand what their customers are looking for and want.

The merchants can then use cookie information to guide customers to similar products of interest.

Even at the point of purchase, the journey does not end for connecting with customer. There are also up sell promotions where a customer who is buying, say, a software package is offered an add-on software program before checking out with the shopping cart.

Cross-sell promotions also occur at the checkout point, although they are equally effective just after the purchase is verified.

A customer receives a thank-you email but also a notice that there are other products they can buy to enhance and complement the original purchase.

If a business is selling a large bag of flowering seeds, for example, they might send a notice about starter seed pod containers at the shopping cart checkout point.

You’d tell your customer they could plant seeds inside each pod instead of risking putting them in the ground, where they could be destroyed by bad weather or pesky animals.

You might also offer plant food to give the plants a solid nutritional foundation for growing stronger right from the early sprouting stage.

Veterinarian Funnel

A recent content marketer named Ragha Haran, which by the way ran her own digital marketing agency, displayed a funnel case study. It showed how a veterinarian could expand her business using a joint marking/sales funnel system.

This funnel consisted of two campaigns; one for owners with healthy pets that covered how to keep pets disease-free, and the other for those with sick or aging pets.

 Starting with video sales letters, they reflect how owners can give their sick and aging pets a better life.

The video opening frame shows the veterinarian standing at her kitchen counter with raw vegetables, pet medications (maybe vitamins, too), and raw meat laid out and ready to be cooked in a roaster oven.

This visual message implied that cooking healthy, fresh food for one’s pets, as opposed to canned or packaged foods that might contain suspect sources, may lead them to have a healthier life. Both campaigns led to blog postings offering further advice on pet care.

Customer leads were captured here, as well as from another funnel from Facebook advertisements. As an incentive, potential customers could view an informative video, if they first agreed to receive emails.

Next in the marketing funnel, emails gave important advice, told stories about pet issues, talked about what pet brands were safe to use, and gave away little gifts from time to time.

Interested pet owners could sign up for the website’s membership to receive more in-depth information and buy products. This system helped the veterinarian get leads from anywhere on the internet, with members all over the country.

While only local pet owners would bring in their pets for examinations, the veterinarian expanded her financial base with her advice and products, thus increasing the streams of added income.

The result of the marketing funnel system implementation, according to Haran, was that the veterinarian boosted her ecommerce platform by 50 percent with 541 new email subscribers ($950 spent on ads), garnered 23 recurring subscribers ($730 a month), earned $3,568 in initial sales, and generated $15,000 total revenue from other promotions in one month.

Sumer Copywriting created the funnel design, along with the video sales letter and email content. This case study is an excellent example of how a small business can expand its platform and visibility exponentially by adding a well-tuned marketing channel with creative content that leads to recurring sales in membership fees and product sales.

1 – 800 – Flowers Funnel

1-800-Flowers.com received the Gold Award from www.TopTenReviews.com in May 2017 for best deliveries. The company came out on top in every service category.

When looking at the funnels it uses, one big plus is its mobile app, which allows customers to order flowers on the go. Many other florists do not offer this service, including FTD Florist, the second – place winner in the Silver Award.

Customers interested in using the mobile app create their account online first, save their contact and credit card information, and then download the 1-800-Flowers app. to access their account.

Many of the florist companies listed have partnerships with other supporting companies, but 1-800-Flowers list them across the top of the homepage when customers sign in.

This allows buyers to expand their gift-giving adventure, although another account sign-up is needed. Designer products are also offered as well as gourmet food and beverage gifts. A nice touch that 1-800-Flowers offers is a “sympathy adviser” customers can reach by phone for help with ordering flowers for a funeral.

None of the other ten reviewed florists offers that. Customer service is available by chat on the website, although most of the other listed florists also offer that.

As part of 1-800-Flowers’ marketing/sales funnel, anyone a customer sends flowers to for a special occasion (such as a birthday or anniversary) stays in the customer’s account database. The customer then receives reminders in advance of that person’s birthday or anniversary prompting the buyer to order again.

In Conclusion

Remember, once customers engage with these companies, such as by creating an account, they receive a cookie or other tag that brings up advertisements of products they have looked at wherever they go on the internet. That way, should they decide to look again at something they were interested in previously, they can now simply click on the link.

Even if the customer does not buy just yet for whatever reason, the company is nurturing the customer with its funnel by bringing the product to their attention.

But before you start any business, you need the knowledge through ‘booth camp’ training and a beautiful designed website promoting your business. What are you passionate about? So let’s start building your Free Website.