In 2020, businesses in every field were forced to reevaluate their operations, including how to save money wherever possible. As a result, marketing budgets were cut, and brand recognition activities were pushed aside in favor of initiatives with faster ROI. Companies rationalized this strategy by assuming that focusing on conversion-oriented methods would allow them to stretch their budgets further.
Conversion-oriented marketing stimulates swift action from consumers, such as a quick sale, which translates to instant ROI that marketers can report back to leadership when they focus on the lower funnel. In comparison, fully understanding the sales benefit of brand awareness marketing which focuses on the top funnel, can take companies some time.
In order to grow their business, brands need to concentrate on all aspects of the marketing funnel. To maintain a healthy sales pipeline, marketers should continue to interact with current, loyal customers, while also launching campaigns to acquire new ones.
Here’s how marketers should operate a balanced marketing plan as they recalibrate from the pandemic to face a new reality, and pave the way for brand growth.
Also Read: Creating Content for Various Stages of the Buyer Journey in 2021
Pay attention to the complete customer journey
It’s simple – if a customer has never heard of a company, they will be unable to engage with it. That is why, in order to target prospects and establish a pipeline for future sales, marketers should launch brand awareness campaigns. Simultaneously, marketers should nurture existing customers and prospects who are already familiar with the brand, reminding them to interact and complete conversion, whether it’s a sale, a content download, or another KPI. Customers have more options than ever before when it comes to the products they will buy. Hence it’s critical for businesses to stay top-of-mind recall and cultivate existing relationships when a sale is on the line.
Utilize data to educate business leaders about the significance of brand awareness campaigns
Business leaders want to see how marketing contributes to sales. Although lower-funnel activities can result in immediate sales that executives prefer to see, they are ineffective at driving future purchases unless customers have a compelling reason to return. As a result, an over-reliance on conversion-oriented marketing will eventually lead to a decline in sales and brand growth.
Marketers need to educate executives on the importance of lower-funnel activities and remind them that sales are not the primary indicator for measuring marketing performance. A conversion can be a sale, but it can also be a prospect signing up for a newsletter, listening to a webinar, downloading a whitepaper, or adding products to their cart when looking at the complete funnel.
Marketers can use data-based evidence of brand influence building on increasing latent sales to persuade company leaders to devote a larger amount of marketing expenditure to upper-funnel initiatives. They can do so by tracking the effects of upper-funnel marketing on long-term sales and/or brand equity and encouraging executives to be patient with sales outcomes.
Also Read: The Secret Behind the Effective Marketing Funnels
Determine which messages and channels will be most effective with prospects
Marketers understand how important it is to target audiences with the right message, at the right time, on the right channel to catch attention and generate sales. But to win over modern audiences, this must be taken a step further.
First and foremost, businesses should be mindful of each individual’s particular requirements as well as the bigger impacts that people face in the world. This allows brands to better position how their product or service can solve or meet the needs of each individual.
Second, the messages delivered to top-of-funnel audiences should be distinct from those delivered to bottom-of-funnel audiences. For example, a reasonable goal for top-of-funnel engagements could be to encourage audiences to consider the brand and learn more about it; for lower-funnel engagements, a message could be a call-to-action encouraging someone who has already visited the website to return and check out items saved in their cart.
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