Brand Funnel Mastery: A Guide to Sales & Loyalty

What is the brand funnel?

In a competitive market, where the main difficulty for brands is to stand out from their competitors by positioning themselves in the consumer’s top of mind, brand funnel analysis is critical to identify business opportunities and design marketing actions to increase product sales or services.

If you want to attract consumers, convert them into leads, and transform them into your brand’s consumers and promoters, read on!

The brand funnel, also known as sales funnel, marketing funnel or conversion funnel, is a customer journey that helps to understand the stages of client engagement with a brand. A funnel that goes from the general to the specific, detailing all the stages a consumer goes through to become a brand promoter.

Thus, the brand funnel represents the process that consumers follow from the moment they become aware of the brand until they become loyal consumers, based on a series of pre-established phases in which the level of conversion from one stage to another is identified. This conversion makes it possible to determine the percentage of consumers who are lost in each of the phases, as well as to design and adapt the relevant strategies according to the desired objectives.

The main objectives of the brand funnel are:

• Reach and engage new consumers who fit your target.
• Attract new potential consumers, getting them to consider buying the product and trying it.
• Convert consumers into repeat buyers, i.e. brand loyalists.
• Transform these loyal buyers into promoters and brand advocates, so that they continue buying and recommending us.

How to make a marketing funnel?

To define the brand funnel it’s necessary to identify how many of your consumers are in each of the following stages of the funnel:

• Awareness: total number of consumers who know the brand, whether or not they have tried it.
• Consideration stage: consumers who are willing to buy the brand.
• Conversion: total number of consumers who have tried the brand and made a repeat purchase.
• Loyalty: consumers who are loyal to the brand, i.e. who declare the brand as preferred.
• Advocacy: consumers who are brand promoters who are committed to the brand and say they would recommend it.

To determine the marketing funnel, it’s necessary to size each of its metrics, to know the percentage of consumers in each of the phases, as well as the conversion rate of each of them. Brand funnel metrics be measured through research, conducting Brand Health, Brand awareness or Brand Positioning studies.

Knowing the health of your brand will allow you to visualize your consumer journey as a funnel. In this way, you’ll be able to optimize conversion, reinforcing the areas where your potential consumers get lost in order to increase the percentage of those who reach the end of the funnel, thus increasing sales.

What types of brand funnel are there?

Mainly, three types of funnels are defined according to the objective they pursue and, therefore, according to the stages of the funnel in which you want to work:

1. Attraction funnel (top of the funnel): works the first phases of the funnel, where the objective is to make the brand visible and attract potential customers.
2. Maturity funnel (middle of the funnel): belongs to the middle stages of the funnel, where the main objective is to gain the consumer’s trust by achieving proof and repeat purchase.
3. Loyalty funnel (bottom of the funnel): it’s the final part of the funnel, where the consumer’s preference towards the brand is worked, thus achieving their loyalty to turn them into promoters.

According to the type of company and brand, the funnel can be adapted and customized to suit the needs and objectives of each one.

What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel is a system that builds customer loyalty, a process established to ensure that a potential customer meets the objective set. It is necessary to know your target audience and define the funnel thinking about how to capture it. Know their needs and how your product or service can meet them.

Also, the sales funnel will serve to identify which consumers interest you, segmenting the target without addressing all the potential in the market.

How to make a digital funnel?

The digital funnel is defined as those stages that a user has to go through from the moment he/she arrives at a website until he/she performs an action that meets one of the established objectives. For example, signing up for the Newsletter or completing an online sale. These actions must be well studied and optimized to achieve the final objective: sales and customer loyalty.

The 3 main types of digital funnels allow to know and define business opportunities:

1. Traffic acquisition funnel (top of the funnel): aims to make the website visible and attract potential traffic, i.e. to get visitors to your website and get them to register by leaving their email address. This first stage requires a significant investment in terms of time and money (SEO, social networks, advertising campaigns…).
2. Lead maturation funnel (middle of the funnel): the objective is to gain the lead’s trust through content and valuable resources, usually shared through email marketing and/or social networks.
3. Sales and loyalty funnel (bottom of the funnel): to make the leads make a purchase, winning them over to achieve their loyalty and subsequent advocacy.

Digital funnel example: Netflix

An example can be found in the streaming service Netflix, a content platform that successfully converts its customers through a simple funnel:

Attraction phase:

• Home page: unveils the latest movies and series, where it displays its “free trial and no obligation” message (sales pitch that works consideration).
• Pricing page: explains clearly and simply the different options.

Maturity phase:

• Registration page: the customer is linked to the brand.
• Payment information: allows payment through different options, with special emphasis on data security to increase customer confidence.

Loyalty phase:

• Registration page: the customer is linked to the brand.
• Payment information: allows payment through different options, with special emphasis on data security to increase customer confidence.

Sizing your Brand Funnel will allow you to identify business opportunities, design strategies focused on your target audience. Through the Zinklar platform, you can carry out your study in a fast and agile way. Request a demo!