Last Updated on November 20, 2021 by Team Experts

In the marketing world, everyone talks about creating an effective marketing plan and marketing funnel. But what do these two terms mean?

Well, a marketing plan is a comprehensive document businesses use to organize, execute, and keep track of their marketing strategies over a specific period of time (usually a year). And a marketing funnel is what helps businesses prioritize and implement the marketing strategies to get the most out of the marketing efforts.

Why are these two terms so important? Or, how to create a great marketing funnel and marketing plan? Let’s jump to the article to know this!

Marketing Plan

As discussed above, a marketing plan is a document that outlines a business’s marketing strategies and what actions you need to take to achieve the goals. There are several types of marketing plans, including paid marketing (PPC or advertising), content marketing, social media marketing, etc.

Some of the elements of a marketing plan are-

• Marketing Objectives
• Market Research
• Business Target Market
• KPIs (key performance indicators)
• Marketing Strategies
• Marketing Budget
• Competition
• Monitoring the Performance

Why Does Every Business Need A Great Marketing Plan?

Every business, regardless of size, needs a great marketing plan. The purpose behind creating a similar audiences google ads, it helps you decide how to sell your products and services to the customers.

Instead of assuming that your offerings are perfect for everyone, a marketing plan allows you to focus on your target audience, who are most likely to buy from you.

When you target the right audience smartly, it helps reduce the marketing costs and boost the chances of converting a lead into a sale. Thus, you can use your marketing budget effectively and generate qualified leads.

While creating a marketing plan, you take time thinking about how you want to show up in the market. You focus more on what your potential clients want to hear. This way, you build trust, avoid confusion, and present your brand in the best possible way.

Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel is a model that signifies the path a potential customer or overlook goes through before making a buying. It describes the entire customer journey with great insights into their behavior, giving them an idea about nurturing the relationship with the buyer or how to close a deal.

Thus, it connects the dots between your marketing strategies and lead generation. The various stages of a marketing funnel are-

• Awareness

When a potential customer gets to know about your brand or business, they are called new leads. Marketers try to instigate the leads’ interest in their brands via emails, newsletters, content, social media, etc.

• Consideration

Once the leads become aware of your business, they enter the consideration stage. They show more interest in knowing more about your brand or business.

• Conversion

Now that the qualified leads know about your business and its products and services, it’s time to convert them. At this stage of the marketing funnel, marketers try to nurture the decision-making process of the leads. They talk about their offers, or how their brand is better than the others, etc.

• Loyalty

After a lead makes a buying decision, you should interact with them regularly to keep them coming back. Maintain your customer loyalty by creating a loyalty program, social media contests, giveaways, etc.

• Advocacy

Once your customers become your fans, they reach the advocacy phase of the marketing funnel. They love to buy from you again and want to refer your products and services to their family or friends.

Why Should You Create A Marketing Funnel To Ace Your Marketing Efforts?

You have amazing products and services. You have created a great marketing plan and implemented effective marketing strategies to reach potential customers. But, they aren’t likely to buy your products the first time they see them.

You need to attract new leads and push them through the marketing funnel to convert them into sales. This is where creating a marketing funnel becomes important!

A marketing funnel helps you keep track of the customers’ behavior at different stages. It shows what the customers find interesting and at what point they are dropping off. So, you can tweak your marketing strategy at that specific point and plan better.

A marketing funnel simplifies the customer journey and lets you know what tricks to use to move the prospects down the funnel. Aside from this, it is an excellent tool to connect with your target customers at every phase.

Whether you want to create an email list, drive more traffic to your online store, or boost sales, a marketing funnel can help you with all this.

So, How To Create A Great Marketing Plan And Marketing Funnel?

Below are a few important steps to write a great marketing plan and create a marketing funnel-

Writing A Winning Marketing Plan

Write your business’ mission and explain how you will acquire it.

Determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your progress. It will help you break the mission into short-term goals and discuss the results with your team.

Know your buyers’ persona, including their age, sex, demographics, job, etc.

Describe the type of content you will create, for example, blog posts, ebooks, videos, etc. Decide the channels on which you will share the content. Also, include the PPC advertising you will likely use.

Define the marketing budget, outlining all the expenses.

Know who your competitors are. Research about the leaders in your industry and profile each of them.

Creating A Marketing Funnel

Understand your audience. You can analyze the existing customer data and create customer personas.

Once you understand your typical customer’s buying journey, it’s time to determine the number of stages in the funnel.

Think about the tactics, channels, and type of content you’ll use at each stage. For example, you can use SEO and blogging to drive organic traffic to your website. PPC advertising is a great way to target specific groups of people.

Create interesting, unique, and high-quality content for each stage.

Optimize your marketing funnel and monitor changes.

Conclusion

A marketing plan, as well as a marketing funnel, plays a crucial role in your marketing efforts. If you don’t have a marketing plan, you could waste your money on advertising or marketing efforts that may not work for your business. Furthermore, without a marketing funnel, you won’t be able to structure the customers’ journey to tackle the reasons behind a failed sale. Therefore, it is necessary to have a great marketing plan and a marketing funnel.

Now that you know how important these two tools are, it’s time to apply the knowledge. Get started with creating an effective marketing plan and marketing funnel for the upcoming year!