Straight to the point: one funnel is not enough. 

The secret sauce to reliable, replicable, and scalable success in 2021 and beyond is to run TWO types of sales funnel at the same time.

More precisely, to marry an Evergreen funnel with a Launch funnel. Trust us, it’s a match made in digital heaven.

At Tribe47 we consult on average four new online businesses a month. The most common mistake we’ve been observing is businesses having either just one funnel or none. It’s usually also the most costly mistake — in terms of lost opportunities and missed growth.

In a nutshell: if we were to compare funnels to couples, the Evergreen would be that quiet, reliable, and well-organized partner that holds everything together. On the other hand, the Launch funnel would be the spice of life in the relationship. It’s flirty, it’s unpredictable — keeps things dynamic and covered in biodegradable glitter… making sure the flame doesn’t die out.

A perfect combination of trustworthy, yet exciting and fun. The Dream Power Couple — but only when they gel.

Ready to swipe right on them? This guide is for you if:

B2B vs B2C Marketing

B2C (business to consumer) marketing covers all the interaction and communication between a brand and an individual consumer who (hopefully!) will get a brand’s product or service for personal use.

The consumers need/want your product or service to find a solution to a challenge, resolve a pain point, learn a new skill, satisfy some other desire, or make a dream come true.

Basically, make life a bit easier, more fulfilling, and fun. Which makes B2C marketing intensely personal.

The goal of this type of marketing is to create a trustworthy relationship with your audience, so they feel you understand them and are comfortable buying from you — not just once, but over and over again.

How does it compare to B2B (business-to-business) marketing?

The biggest difference comes down to the end-user and communication channels. With B2B you have to target the right decision-makers — like a CEO, team manager, head of HR, etc. As a result, you’ll have to play on different social media platforms (Linkedin instead of TikTok). You’ll have to adjust the language and visuals to convey trust, authority, and professionalism above everything else.

And a juicy ROI, too.

With B2C marketing, you usually have to convert only one person. Please mind though, there will be exceptions to it. If it’s a bigger purchase that leaves a visible mark on a household’s budget (like new kitchen equipment or premium membership) OR it demands significant amounts of time (like an online certification/degree), it might require a green light from your prospect’s partner or boss.

PRO TIP #1

Whether it’s B2B or B2C, it’s still all about people, so include all the decision-makers in your marketing strategy and communication. Be it an HR manager asking for CEO’s approval or a spouse tied by a shared household budget and schedule — address them in your copy. 

You can do it straightforwardly (in a clearly titled section or in the FAQ) or more subtly by dropping hints across the board. The cheekiest approach would be to create a little guide to help your leads and prospects convince other decision-makers.

Whatever you choose, help them to clearly present the benefits and emphasize the (financial, physical, emotional) return on investment.

The Ultimate B2C Strategy — The Digital Funnel 3.0

For the purpose of this guide, we’ll focus on B2C funnels, but your marketing team will be able to easily adapt our tips and techniques to your B2B marketing.

There are many B2C strategies — from improving your SEO to building an influencers’ network — but from over a decade of experience I can tell you upfront:

A modern digital sales funnel trumps them all.

When I say modern, I mean The Funnel 3.0, focused on ungated content, multichannel traffic campaigns, video production, and more. If that’s a fairly unfamiliar concept, read this blog post before you proceed with this guide.

Two Paths. Six Rockstars.

As mentioned above, we divide Funnel 3.0 into two types: the Evergreen and the Launch funnel. These together form 6 sizzling hot categories.

The Evergreen Funnel

Typically, it’s a type of conversion/sales funnel where you gradually turn strangers into curious visitors, then into leads, then into satisfied customers, and finally into excited fans deploying word of mouth for you. There will be some exceptions to that flow, as you’ll see in a second.

The main thing: it’s an automated process of client acquisition, not dependent on season or your daily actions (if set upright, it will become your passive income). In theory, it works fine all the time, in practice you want to have an eye on it because your industry’s or audience’s circumstances might gradually or suddenly change (like we experienced with COVID-19 and the global lockdown, for example).

What’s important, it takes care of the entire customer acquisition process — from building brand awareness to the first sale to maximizing the following sales and retention.

Since it addresses the coldest audience and creates brand awareness, you shouldn’t obsess about getting the lowest possible customer acquisition cost (CAC). That being said, you want to know when too much is too much.

In the long run, there are two important metrics to pay attention to and maintain in a 3:1 ratio — especially when you used to have an Evergreen that was making you 6+ figures… and then suddenly stopped.

Anyway, as mentioned above, you want that Power Couple effect — so your Evergreen should never roam alone. Unleash the Launch funnel’s charm and watch the sale numbers soar.

Here’s a visual example of what it can look like:

Now, the Launch funnel is a proficient attention seeker — but we’re going to stay focused on the Evergreen for now. There are 3 categories to explore.

???? PRO TIP #2

You’ll see “for whom” recommendations for each section, but that’s exactly what they are — merely suggestions for when you want to play it safe. If you like to innovate and experiment though, go ahead and readjust them. Mix and match them. This is the most satisfying bit about digital marketing — it’s all your playground.

1. Lifecycle funnel

For whom?

E-commerce with physical (or any “straightforward”) products

In this funnel, you want to showcase the product right away, before even building brand awareness. Improve your SEO, use multiple channels, and send the cold traffic to one of the offer pages — like a single product page, product category page, or a content piece (pre-sale engagement page).

Btw. If all these words like paid traffic, CAC, and targeting are not your daily bread and butter, we highly recommend you check our Performance Team’s piece on how to effectively fuel your funnel with quality traffic.

Back to Lifecycle. Give your audience a chance to buy straight away, if they feel inclined to. They might want to sign up for your newsletter first, hoping for a welcome discount — let them do that.

Whether they buy or not, deploy remarketing techniques like abandoned browsing or checkout remarketing, new subscribers, or new client remarketing. Don’t start chilling just because they bought from you — you want to maximize the sales by boosting conversion and increasing purchase frequency.

This funnel works great with really straightforward products — anything that your audience can comprehend at first glance. You’re aiming for a great first impression. If you confuse them, you’re gonna lose them. So make sure your visuals, design, and descriptions — both in the ads and on the websites — are on point.

2. Lead Magnet Funnel

For whom?

Online Education

The most important difference between this funnel and the previous one is that here you intentionally and skillfully postpone the moment of showing your product to a potential customer — you’re building a relationship with them, brand awareness, and momentum.

Send cold traffic to the ungated content — of high quality and value! — and then give them something extra (Lead Magnet) in exchange for their email address. The most important part of this funnel is gathering and nurturing leads through content and education. You want your leads to understand your vibe and values before you show them your product. Insert here an irresistible nurturing (and sales!) email sequence that will keep them hooked and engaged.

There are two types of a Lead Magnet to play with — and I’d recommend combining them for the best results:

What about the remarketing techniques? They’re kicking in as soon as your prospect makes the first contact with your ungated content and then transforms into new subscriber remarketing, sales campaign, new customer remarketing, and so on.

This type of funnel works great in online education and SaaS (software-as-a-service) businesses. Products like online courses, subscriptions, or memberships are rarely straightforward and it takes some effort to present their full value — especially if they sport a higher price tag.

Again, this flow has been created for a B2C business. If you’re in B2B — play with it and split-test different options. You can still make it work.

3. Tripwire Funnel

For whom?

Any B2C business

Probably the most underappreciated and misunderstood one, so let’s dive a bit deeper here.

The term might sound a bit shady, but fear not — it’s a totally ethical approach… although it is a teasing game. This is the moment when that quiet Evergreen spices things up a bit. Still, waters run deep, as they say.

Marketing and advertising pros have been using tripwire campaigns for decades in brick-and-mortar stores. Today, being able to take it online only works to your advantage, as you can stay in touch with your customers more easily.

How does it work? Use a so-called low-ticket product as a tripwire to inspire a high-ticket product purchase. What’s crucial here: a tripwire needs to be top quality and deliver so much value that it doesn’t only defend itself, but also speaks volumes for your brand and convinces people they want more.

It has to feel like an irresistible deal, pretty much a no-brainer with its low risk, low level of entry, and low commitment.

The real hack here is: you want to upsell them immediately — while they’re purchasing the tripwire — with your core products. So focus on split testing and optimizing your cart, upsell, and even checkout pages.

Even better if you have some type of subscription offer at your backend. Whether it’s for a physical or digital product, it would just crown the entire funnel by minimizing the CAC and maximizing your ROI right out of the gate.

Because of that, this funnel works great with paid media campaigns — and last year hasn’t changed it. Speaking from experience. We’ve observed that since the first lockdown, it became increasingly harder to get ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) on social media, especially on Facebook — but Tripwire is definitely still cashing in.

What numbers are we talking about? If you set up everything right, you can aim for 100% ROAS already with the tripwire purchase (the cheap “teaser”)… And further 300%+ ROAS on core product upsells and subscriptions, over the following 90 days after that first tripwire purchase. How about that for a tease? Let’s keep going.

Here are 3 types of tripwire you can use:

Yes, it can be part of your digital campaign! There are quite a few traps to watch out for… like attracting people who love freebies and promos, and who might mess up your conversion rate from the sample to the end product purchase. They might be very willing to jump on the sampling campaign, but they will not purchase the main product. That’s why you want them to pay for something — like shipping and handling, for example.

For example: if your core product is an online course on public speaking, a tripwire could be a (cheap, not free!) micro tutorial on how to prepare a drop-dead-gorgeous Keynote presentation.

Play with this if you’re running a subscription.

An obvious example: the access to an online yoga & fitness studio is $1 for 14 days (with a standard price of $29 per month).

Another one: a home-delivered wine subscription that’s usually $90 per month, as a tripwire could offer the first box for $19. To make it work, these wines would have to be pretty rare, maybe even exclusively made for your brand — definitely not available at your local supermarket.

Yet another one: if you’re running a coaching or consulting business, offer a first consultation call at a ridiculously affordable price, for example, $15 for an hour (if your usual rate is $100+ per hour).

How is a Tripwire Funnel different from a Lead Magnet Funnel?

Unlike in the Lead Magnet Funnel, here you’re not giving them anything completely for free — they have to pay for something, and so you immediately turn them into customers.

How is a Tripwire different from a discount?

The goal of a discounted deal is to boost conversions AND profits. Meaning, you can only offer a nominal discount that does not kill your profit margins.

On the other hand, the goal of a tripwire is to quickly convert as much traffic as possible into customers. Meaning, that when offering a tripwire, you are usually NOT fixated on making a profit.

In fact, you might initially notice a loss because you are offering a high-quality product at a very low cost. That’s why your upselling game needs to be strong, so you can catch up on the profits.

Again: focus your optimization efforts on the CART, UPSELL, and maybe even checkout pages.

In terms of remarketing, you want to target your persona all the way from viewing your Tripwire Sales Page to abandoned checkout to new customer remarketing — and that includes buying the core product. Unless they already bought everything there is from you, including a subscription — then just make sure they stay satisfied with your product and customer service, so they recommend you to their friends. This will improve your ROAS, too. ????

These are our favorite 3 types of Evergreen Funnel. Now, if you need an action plan, here’s how to work on an Evergreen Funnel, ultra simplified:

  1. Choose your funnel and its flow — you can copy or innovate on the flows above.
  2. Remember to combine it with at least one Launch Funnel.
  3. IMPLEMENT IT. Might sound silly — but your idea is only as good as its execution.
  4. Keep measuring it & optimizing it. It’s called “evergreen”, but you don’t want to leave it completely unattended. Focus on: remarketing strategies, conversion rate, purchase value, order frequency, etc.

The Launch Funnel

Okay, it might be more fun, but it’s also more hustle, sometimes even hassle. If you’re only running Launches — no matter how successful they seem — but you’re not leaning on the gentle shoulders of the Evergreen, I can tell you upfront: you’re burning your potential.

A little party never killed anybody… but too much party definitely did!

What is a Launch Funnel and how to use it? It’s another type of sales funnel that you unleash when you want to maximize your revenue in a short period of time — and when you already have a warm audience, usually thanks to the Evergreen Funnel.

As mentioned at the very beginning, there are 3 types of Launch Funnel:

1. Seasonal Promo

For whom?

Any B2C business

Use a Seasonal Promo Launch funnel by emphasizing scarcity and limited availability to boost sales — in terms of time, the quantity of the product, or to whom it is available.

For example:

“Only 10 spots/ packages left”
“Last pieces sale”
“Only 24 hours left”
“A secret sale for the members/subscribers only”
Or “A discount for the first 500 people,” etc.

A little hack for you: create a pre-promo to promote the seasonal promo! **mind blown**
This technique works great especially when you’re offering huge discounts over a super short amount of time — like Black Friday sales that usually happen only over one day. Combine a tease with a countdown for the best effects.

You can play with 3 types of Seasonal Promo Funnel:

Tip: Count both “% less” and “$ off” options, and choose the one that has a significantly higher number. For instance, choose an “$80 off” discount over a “10% discount” for an $800 product. The actual gain remains the same, BUT the perceived benefit of saving $80 will be more attractive for the customer to finalize the purchase.

Like: free gifts, free delivery, BOGO (Buy One Get One), participation in a lottery, etc.

All types of charity donations and awareness campaigns. Watch out though — this one often goes horribly wrong, if the Launch is not aligned with the brand values (or, even worse, the brand is not value-driven), or the cause is not relevant, or the donation % doesn’t feel enough to the audience.

2. Challenge

For whom?

Subscriptions & online education

A Challenge Launch Funnel starts with an exciting online event that lasts anything from a few days up to several months. It can sometimes seem tricky, but it can really help to build a relationship with your audience, as they feel better/ stronger / more skilled/ more empowered by the end of the Challenge.

And because you’re targeting the warm audience, if you play your cards right, you might even get a 10x lower CAC than in the Evergreen funnel (but obviously you’re able to do it mainly thanks to the Evergreen, not in isolation).

Now, there are 3 main approaches to it:

Some crucial elements of the Challenge Launch Funnel:

3. Live Webinar

For whom?

Online education, possibly a subscription

Definitely one of the most popular types of funnels. Simply put a Launch Funnel with a short online event — a live webinar. The webinar is clearly live (not pre-recorded), but replay is available for 24-36 hours only. You sell during the webinar and after it, and the entire campaign can last up to 21-30 days.

Please mind that when it comes to revenue and profit, live webinars work better when selling expensive products. Emphasize a special webinar offer (a juicy discount or irresistible bonus) and follow it up with a discount ladder.

If you want to sell a very cheap product with a low margin on the webinar, you need to have a HUGE crowd of attendees. And you’ll only get that if you combine an almighty Evergreen with a massive affiliate launch. A cheap product also doesn’t leave you much space for a discount ladder. Generally, not the best match.

Although extremely popular, at Tribe47 we’ve noticed that not that many people do it effectively or even correctly. Personally, I’ve been working with this type of funnel for over a decade, and I’ve tested almost every possible configuration under the sun (I say “almost”, because there is always space for innovation).

Now, if you need a general and simplified action plan on how to work with any of these 3 Launch Funnels, follow these:

  1. Choose your funnel and its flow — you can copy or innovate on the flows above.
  2. Give yourself at least 6 months (!) to plan everything ahead.
  3. Launch.
  4. Keep measuring, optimizing, and relaunching.
  5. Have fun.

However, if you need more support, get in touch.

We’ve already helped hundreds of entrepreneurs from all around the world — from Malaysia to Ireland, to the US — and it would be our pleasure to help you skyrocket and scale your business.

At Tribe47 we always say that there are three things you need to grow your business online:

As you can see, it all starts with a FUNNEL.

So, if you are planning to launch an online business – or you are struggling to grow an existing one – I invite you to explore the subject of digital sales funnels with me now in this article.

Designing and implementing funnels has been my bread and butter for over 10 years and is still my favorite topic to discuss.

What I am about to share with you will clarify exactly what a digital funnel is, and help you to answer that tricky question: “What digital sales funnel do I need to grow my business?”

To give you the fullest possible understanding of this topic, I will be approaching it from a few different perspectives, ending with the one about which I am most passionate – how the most effective funnel model varies depending on the type of online business.

Read on to dicover:

Digital sales funnels are phenomenally powerful tools that can help shoot your business up into the sales stratosphere. But before you take the plunge and build one of your own, it’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to funnels. Get your funnel wrong, and you could miss out on some valuable opportunities.

Find your perfect funnel match by reading on to discover more about how funnels originated and which funnel metrics really matter.

What is a digital sales funnel?

A digital sales funnel is the user’s journey from becoming aware of a brand or product to purchasing it.

A digital sales funnel can represent the entire digital marketing and sales process.

Let’s look at some examples…

Starting with a bad one ????

In this example, an online business is executing a cloud of different marketing activities simultaneously without a clear strategy defining how they should flow from one to another to generate good results for the business owner.

This messy and unstructured approach is common to many businesses, especially at an early stage of the business.

Another digital sales funnel to look at:

Here you can see a simplified funnel model used by Hubspot, which I personally really like:

Hubspot digital funnel model broken into four stages: Attract (Top of Funnel), Convert (Middle of Funnel), Close (Bottom of Funnel), and the often forgotten layer of Customer Delight (especially important nowadays as securing new customers is becoming extremely hard).

The Hubspot funnel model nicely shows in four simple steps the psychological aspect of what should happen with your prospect. You can read more about how Hubspot breaks it down here.

In the following diagram, you can see a slightly more built-up version of the same funnel model broken into eight steps:

Tribe47’s eight-step digital sales funnel model that shows where different digital marketing tactics should be applied to the customer acquisition journey.

We often use this funnel model at Tribe47 to give our clients a clear perspective on where different online tactics can be used for the most significant effect. It’s also helpful when explaining why driving totally “cold” traffic straight to your lead pages is a bad idea… But more on that in a minute…

And finally, here is an actual funnel model drawn by our team for one of our client businesses:

A digital funnel model drawing produced for a real online education business.

Digital Sales Funnel 1.0 – When Copywriters and Direct Response Marketers Ruled The World

My journey with online sales funnels began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at a company called Mindvalley, founded in the early 2000s by Vishen Lakhiani.

In short – Mindvalley business started when Vishen decided to dedicate his life to spreading enlightened ideas to people around the world and simultaneously mastered the Google AdWords platform.

It may seem basic now, but at that time, not many people really knew how to use Google AdWords effectively.

Over the years, Mindvalley transformed from a startup selling meditation CDs online into a leading personal growth brand.

Still, from an online marketing perspective, it really all started with a good and needed product and the ability to advertise on the Google platform.

In these early times, digital sales funnels looked very basic. Online traffic was acquired on Google and driven to sales pages where people could buy the product directly:

Funnel 1.0 model – traffic => sales pages => online purchase.

The key metrics of Funnel 1.0 – to observe and optimize – were also pretty basic:

Funnel 1.0 metrics: CPC & CAC

Crucial skills needed to build these early-stage funnels were:

  1. Marketing and sales psychology
    • At this point, digital marketing was really an extension of direct response marketing – a digital version of direct mail.
    • Smart usage of behavioral psychology triggers, the construction of an interesting Unique Selling Point, a message directed to the right end user (Persona), and good differentiation from competitors formed the basis of a good online campaign.
    • Details like aesthetics, page interactivity, and the usage of multiple media formats, didn’t matter as much because the industry as a whole was very unsophisticated.
  2. Performance copywriting
    • Since the text was the key element on what were very often visually unappealing pages, direct response copywriters like Dan S. Kennedy, Gary Bencivenga, Joseph Sugerman, and others were cashing big checks.

Digital Sales Funnel 2.0 – How Lead Generation Helped Marketers To Regain Trust

A major turning point in digital marketing came around the year 2007.

As an increasing number of people set up digital ads on Google AdWords, the ads became more intense, and scammers swooped in to prey on online users.

Confronted with a marketplace that had become saturated with high-pressure ads and scams, people lost trust in digital ads and made fewer purchases.

As a result, advertising costs climbed so high that advertising online no longer made financial sense…

Fortunately, this only boosted marketers’ creativity, inspiring them to dig deeper into behavioral psychology to discover the next BIG thing – online lead campaigns.

Lead campaigns work by leveraging two persuasion triggers described very well by Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence:

A lead campaign invites people to leave personal details like their email address or phone number in return for a valuable gift that is given to them FREE of charge.

These gifts are usually digital goods such as ebooks, webinars, reports, and discount coupons but can also be physical goods like hard copies of books and product samples.

So, instead of driving everyone straight to the sales page, marketers started to collect leads first and use them to build relationships with users via the sending of emails. This caused a funnel to evolve:

A Generic Model of Digital Sales Funnel 2.0: traffic from multiple platforms, Lead Pages >> relationship building via content, emails, and conversations >> Sales Page >> Sales.

With this new element came new metrics and Lead Acquisition Cost or Cost Per Lead (CPL) swiftly became the holy grail of digital marketing.

Key KPIs of the Digital Sales Funnel 2.0

New skills needed to execute funnel 2.0:

1. Lead Generation

The key to business growth was stable and controlled lead acquisition which was best achieved via evergreen funnel models that relied on different “evergreen” lead magnets such as ebooks, special reports, checklists, etc.

The size of your lead base was usually proportional to the size and revenue of your business.

To maximize sales, marketers used real-time lead campaigns like webinars and launch sequences. These campaigns were often directed at acquired leads in need of reactivation, offering them a new chance for meaningful engagement.

2. Marketing Automation

With the rise of a variety of systems came the challenge of selecting the right software to automate your lead acquisition and lead nurturing processes.

Automation sped up the process of building pages for lead acquisition and made it easier to run campaigns smoothly.

3. Website UX and UI

Around 2010, ugly pages that relied heavily on text gave way to visually appealing pages with elegant elements, resulting in a > 20% improvement in page conversions.

4. Multichannel traffic campaigns

Online traffic acquisition became more complex, with an increasing number of channels coming into play, many of which functioned in a different way from Google AdWords.

Digital Sales Funnel 3.0 – All the Digital Marketing Mojo You Need to Grow Your Online Business

For me, the magic started happening around 2015 when I was working as a consultant, advising different companies on how to build digital funnel strategies.

What happened next is actually a little sad and cringeworthy but I want to share it with you to illustrate just how much you can learn from making a mistake. In the end, I am very grateful for what this lesson taught me.

At the time, I was working on a digital platform for practitioners of a very popular sport. Thanks to the enthusiasm and boldness of the founder, we were able to execute a perfect version of the funnel 2.0.

We had the most creative lead magnets, the best UX and design, and an amazing team of copywriters too. I had never built such a masterpiece before and I was so proud of it.

Unfortunately, despite all our efforts and a carefully constructed funnel, our cost of acquisition was skyrocketing and we couldn’t work out why.

It was deeply frustrating for the whole team. We would spend long nights at the office, experimenting and optimizing like never before, but nothing seemed to work…

Finally, a random testing experiment brought something good up.

And this “something” helped us cut the acquisition costs of new clients by almost 30%!

We were so happy! Sadly our discovery came too late to save the business, yet the learning was priceless.

What was that secret something that took us so long to figure out?

Quite simply, we started driving all traffic (not only SEO) to engaging content pieces in multiple formats instead of sending them straight to our beautiful lead pages.

We then used the retargeting mechanisms available on different advertising platforms to direct ONLY the content consumers to our lead pages.

With this method, we were able to drop the customer acquisition cost and still scale the campaign.

We gave this new approach the title “Content First”

Once Content First was up and running, I soon realized that the marketers whom I most admired were already using this approach. I was determined to learn more about it by listening to Perpetual Traffic Podcast by Digital Marketer. It wasn’t long before I came across Ezra Firestone’s conversion model in which he uses content first ALWAYS on all channels when marketing his eCommerce business Boom By Cindy Joseph.

Inspired by what we had learned, we started to use content religiously to engage with the user, making sure it was the first thing that people saw before being driven further into the funnel.

Here you can see a content piece we used for one of our clients as part of a strategy to optimize their customer acquisition cost and scale their business:

The content piece used on Facebook (promoted via organic and paid campaigns) to warm up traffic before the webinar campaign for one of our clients.

By using content at the Top of the Funnel stage and sending all the traffic to the content piece first (even the traffic from paid campaigns!), we were able to drop the customer acquisition cost and simultaneously scale the revenue twice.

This is what such a funnel model looks like:

Funnel 3.0 model where users are being driven to content first before they even see invitations to opt-in for free material or buy the product.

KPIs in the Funnel 3.0 – A new KPI that came into the picture is the Content Consumption Cost (which can take several forms – one of them can be the video view cost)

Every time we present this approach to our clients for the first time we hear something like: “What? Are we supposed to drive traffic to content instead of lead pages? It makes no sense. This will never work. We’ll just blow our money…”

Content First campaigns are slow burners, usually taking a while to kick in, so the first weeks are a nail-biting patience test for everyone.

But finally, when we calculate the results, even though a lot of money has been spent on content distribution, it has enabled us to build massive audiences that can be converted more efficiently into leads and later into sales.

New skills needed to execute an effective Digital Sales Funnel 3.0:

1. Building Ungated Content Campaigns

“Ungated content” is content that does not require any signup or payment to be consumed. I think the term was coined by the Digital Marketer.

It is exactly this type of content that can be used at the beginning of the funnel to engage and attract new audiences whom you can remarket to when they have journeyed further into the model.

To construct this type of content well, you need to think strategically from the very start about how you can present it in a way that will warm people up for the upcoming lead and sales campaigns.

2. Video Production

Video allows you to build a wider audience as it distributes easier than any other content. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow you to build remarketing audiences consisting of people who consume your video content.

The trick lies in being able to produce an irresistible video that gets noticed and consumed in the online space.

3. Project Management

With the advent of Funnel 3.0, this skill went from important to absolutely essential because this model relies on the successful interplay of many linear processes.

We have content, lead campaigns, and sales campaigns happening at the same time. On top of that, there are remarketing processes, multiple sources of traffic, and different specialists which all have to work together. To manage this entire interlinking ecosystem you must become a true project management master.

4. Multichannel Traffic Campaigns

Traffic campaigns are more complex, entailing the management of multiple channels, and of various remarketing audiences who are being targeted via different channels simultaneously.

5. Data Reporting and Analysis

Funnel architects need to understand how much each of the funnel sections contributes to the final goal of attracting the customer. The game may be longer but it’s still about end customer acquisition.

Here, as a summary, you can see an infographic showing the evolution of the digital sales funnel:

Different businesses – same digital sales funnel?

So far we have covered how a Multi-channel, Content First funnel model with lots of Remarketing works and we looked in detail at what skills you need to have in your time to build it.

The big question now is: How should you adjust this generic funnel flow to fit your particular business?

Over the last 15 years I have worked with many different types of online businesses, building funnel frameworks I am proud to share.

Experience has taught me that while there is no “one size fits all” digital sales funnel, there are certain funnels that work well with particular business types.

Below I’ve outlined the four groups into which most online businesses fall together with details of their best-fitting digital sales funnel model:

1. Subscription Business (B2C)

I am referring to all the membership platforms and apps like fitness TVs, diet apps, meditation apps, etc. These businesses are characterized by a small monthly recurring fee and low attachment to the product (unless worked on).

The most effective funnel for this type of business will display the following characteristics:

2. Subscription Business (B2B)

The funnel for this type of business is similar to that used for a B2C subscription business with the following differences:

3. Online Education Products (tickets over $100)

For this type of business, a digital sales and marketing funnel should:

Model of an online education business sales funnel.

4. Mono-brand e-commerce business (selling fast-moving consumer goods online)

My new favorite type of funnel is characterized by:

Model of a simple ecommerce sales funnel.

Model of an ecommerce sales funnel with the sample trial campaign.

The key points to take away

1. A digital sales funnel is a process you must establish in your business if you want it to grow. Without it, you will find it challenging to take firm control of your digital marketing and sales activities.

2. As digital sales funnels have evolved, they have become increasingly complex – mostly in response to the growing sophistication of online users. Nowadays, no matter what channel you advertise, you need to give value first in the form of ungated content (content that you distribute and share freely with no signup required).

3. The skills required to build funnels have evolved too. To run an effective funnel nowadays, you and your team need to have mastery over the following skills:

4. Across industries, funnels differ in length, in the number of lead acquisition layers, and in the use of integrated tactics like direct sales.

Experienced digital marketing strategists should be able to adjust the general funnel flow to the specific type best suited to a particular industry. And the cherry on top is being able to tweak it further to make it as effective as possible for a specific client persona or market trend. For assistance with this – you can always call us.

With the right digital sales funnel to support your business, you’ll be steps ahead of your competitors in securing and retaining loyal customers. Your perfect funnel match will help you build a community around your products and grow your business for years to come.

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, customer retention is a critical metric for sustainable growth. Marketing automation can ally with companies that want to increase their loyal customer base and make their businesses thrive. From personalized communication to strategic loyalty programs, we share insights and real-world examples that will empower brands to boost their customer satisfaction and make them come back to buy again.

A Few Facts About Customer Retention

Before we begin, it’s important to establish some crucial facts. The first one is that 80% of e-commerce customers never return to make more purchases. This number seems to be quite high and can be a source of anxiety. To determine how to change this situation, we have to find out the reasons for not coming back. These are:
One-time need
Negative price/value perception
Low customer satisfaction
Lack of engagement
Understanding that client retention is not just about selling more but creating long-term relations with the customer is essential to maintaining profitability and sustainability.
Acquisition can cost five times more than retention – keeping an existing customer is cheaper than getting a new one. Businesses should pay attention to their customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer acquisition cost (CAC) ratio to find out if their profit is higher than spending.

Client Retention through Automation

Now, let’s take a closer look at the actual client retention techniques that can help e-commerce stores walk their customers through the sales funnel. The classic client retention through the automation process begins when a person becomes a lead, leaving a lot of data (e.g. their email address) to the seller. Then, they’re converted into their first purchase. After that, it’s time to build engagement and gain a loyal customer base.

In our case, that behavior is going from the top of the funnel to the bottom. The customer lifecycle is long, and various strategies can be applied to keep them interested. A media mix can include email campaigns, text messages, paid ads, landing pages, and more. Testing is imperative to determine what provides the desired results.

Segmentation: The Foundation of Personalization

Understanding the audience is key to effective communication. Smart segmentation means e.g. that a heavy metal fan will never receive an invitation to a Taylor Swift concert 🙂 Grouping customers means they are divided by demographics (age, gender, location), psychographics (interests, values, lifestyle), behaviors, and their purchasing history (recency, frequency, spending = RFM), which guarantees that even with a big list of recipients, messages can be personalized.

The next step is to answer questions that will help craft the best client retention strategies. Some of them can include determining the high- and low-value customers. Others will help the organization to find out when the customer is considered loyal and when they are not engaged.

All that will lead to better deliverability, decreased unsubscribe rates, higher open rates, more clicks, increased conversions, and improved brand image in general.

Post-Purchase Communication: Nurturing Customer Excitement

Many consumers suffer from the WISMO (“Where is my order?”) syndrome. 

Post-purchase emails, including transaction information messages, have the highest open rates of all campaigns and automations. This is the moment to shine. Fun, engaging, meaningful communication keeps the anticipation alive.

It’s a chance to build trust, educate customers, enhance their experience, and generate additional revenue in the future. Such emails often encourage clients to visit a website, re-order products, and increase their overall lifetime value.

Some flows that can be used, also based on segmentation, include:
– Distinguishing first-timers from repeating buyers
– Nurturing VIPs and encouraging newbies to sign up for loyalty programs
– Educating how to use the product
– Conquering any post-purchase doubts with exciting content
– Providing the necessary information about the order
– Asking for a review or feedback (getting user-generated content by offering rewards in return)


Repeat Purchase Flow: Anticipating Customer Needs

Predictive analytics is perfect for providing special offers at the right time. Repeat purchase flow leverages historical data and machine learning to forecast customer behavior. By sending timely, personalized messages, businesses can encourage the next transactions and surprise customers with special deals.

Examples? Reminding about replenishments or cross-selling items. Being aware of customer’s moves (for instance, if they are keeping something in their cart at the moment) is the best way to engage with them again.

Rewarding Customer Behaviors: Loyalty and Referral Programs

Well-designed rewards drive both existing and potential customers. Referral systems are easily implementable and come in two forms – direct or tiered.

Loyalty programs boost annual revenue from customers by 15-25%. However, it’s crucial to decide wisely what type of program to offer. Point based ones are the most popular, but programs that offer certain value (e.g. support for social causes) are increasing in popularity.

McKinsey’s survey on loyalty programs proves that customers are more likely to purchase regularly, choose a brand over competitors, and spend more on a brand when they are a part of loyalty programs. What’s important is that every step of a loyalty system can be automated, ensuring a higher success rate.

VIP Treatment: Appreciating “Whale” Customers

Monitoring customer behaviors allows e-commerce shops to detect VIP consumers and segment them based on their performance. They get the best rewards like early access to new products, early access to discounts, exclusive product drops, and unique promo codes. Knowing more about “whales” means businesses can create “look-alike” campaigns on social media to attract similar customers.

Re-Engaging Resistant Customers: Win-Back Flows

Recovering customers is not always worth it; brands shouldn’t give up on resistant leads. Win-back campaigns get 29% open rates, and 45% of subscribers will continue to open emails from a brand after a win-back email.

Such flows should consist of multiple emails and time-sensitive offers, re-engaging customers who might have lapsed. Once more, leveraging data and employing strategic communication is crucial. Up to five emails should be enough to achieve the goal without risking reputation.

Remembering that the acquisition of these leads already consumed some budget is the best way to not give up on them. Usually, when they open at least one email, they’re back in the game.

Conclusion: Implementing and Automating Retention Techniques

The six steps we’ve provided in this article can be used for effective customer retention through automation. Knowing your audience, communicating with them in the right way, anticipating their needs, rewarding the active ones, and not giving up on the resistant ones is the way to summarize our recommendations. Plan automations to reduce costs, maximize profit, and free up resources for other tasks.

We invite you to embrace this journey towards enhanced customer satisfaction and long-term success in the competitive e-commerce realm. You might be surprised by the results that can be achieved with the right strategy and thought-through execution.

In today’s hyper-competitive market, well-designed and executed brand awareness strategies are essential for successful marketing efforts. Most companies can’t afford big LED billboards in Times Square, but they don’t want to be just another name in their crowded sectors either. Standing out means building trust, increasing profits, and showcasing reliability among consumers.

At tribe47, we understand how significant brand awareness campaigns can be for recognition. We are also aware that how such campaigns are performed depends on various factors, including the size of the company, available resources, and the location of the business. In this article, we explore strategies dedicated to big brands, mid-size companies, and local or niche businesses.

The Essence of Brand Awareness

Brand awareness goes beyond simple recognition. It’s about fostering deep connections with the target audience. During the E-Commerce Growth Meetup event, Liliana Chepil mentioned an interesting point of view: she asked the audience to imagine a person who forgets names. We usually know at least one friend who needs to meet someone multiple times before they remember them. Brands have to consider such customers daily – in times of informational chaos, it’s easy to forget about companies, too.

Brand Awareness Campaigns

So how can brands sign their names across their audience’s consciousness? Through repetition. The first impression is important, but without appearing several times in front of the consumer’s eyes, it’s impossible to be remembered long-term. Becoming a top-of-mind brand when thinking about certain products (soda – Coca-Cola, sneakers – Adidas, fries – McDonald’s) is the ultimate goal of brand awareness efforts. However, it’s not necessary to achieve success.

Why Do Brands Need Awareness?

The reason why brands should invest in awareness campaigns solely comes from their size and current market situation.

While Coca-Cola estimates that their logo is recognized by 94% of the global population, smaller companies don’t need such fame because they have concrete business goals focused on smaller markets. It’s easier for them to build awareness within one country, region, or city than to promote their services everywhere.

How Do Different Companies Advertise?

The analysis of various companies’ advertising approaches is crucial to understanding their capabilities and goals better. It can also be used as a source of inspiration and lessons learned when designing new campaigns.

Big Brands

With enormous budgets at their disposal, large businesses can design highly creative, sometimes extravagant campaigns that leave a lasting impression. They can invest in Super Bowl commercials, orchestrate viral content for social media, and organize events with top celebrities and influencers. Their mediums of choice include radio, TV, outdoors, and digital space. They also can curate PR stunts and quickly react to worldwide events or crises.

What’s crucial about these corporations is that they often focus on the ad’s form, not placement (or play with placements as it was the form as well). They want to showcase original ideas and provide a one-of-a-kind experience. That’s why they often use storytelling to inspire, showcase brand values, discuss important matters, or present something atypical. 

Examples of campaigns by Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Spotify.

Instead of using direct CTAs, they prepare dedicated, memorable campaign taglines. It’s all about creating a cultural phenomenon that transcends mere marketing.

Mid-size Brands

Thanks to dedicated advertising budgets, they can run elaborate campaigns. Nonetheless, they focus mostly on the digital space and sometimes invest in additional TV, radio, or outdoor ads, especially if they operate in a seasonal model. Marketing is focused on various types of activities – from organic content to paid promotion and collaborations with influencers.

The main objectives behind all of their activities are to spark an interest in their brand and explain how it can change the lives of their ideal customers. Thus, their campaigns often connect awareness and sales efforts – either simultaneously or by dividing efforts into parts. Due to competition, they often have to make fast and smart decisions to convince their audience that they should buy their product or service.

Scenario A: The campaign uses a blend of awareness and sales campaigns. The ad presents a creative idea with a sales element.
Scenario B: The first part of the campaign is awareness-focused and lasts for 1-2 weeks, it’s followed by the second part, where discounts on advertised products come into play.

Local and Niche Brands

Small businesses usually have limited budgets, so they rely on less expensive methods of gaining social proof and spreading the word about their products or services. Besides digital activities, especially organic ones, they encourage customers to recommend them to their peers. Additionally, they often participate in collaborations with third-party entities, appear as guests on blogs and podcasts, offer free samples, and look for sponsorships.

Building credibility should be the main focus at that stage of business; that’s why sales usually happen thanks to testimonials, reviews, referrals, and value-driven content. Posting native, organic posts boosted by ads is considered the best strategy to increase visibility, reach the target audience, and promote the offer.

Integrating Brand Awareness into the Media Mix

Navigating the labyrinth of media channels requires a strategic approach tailored according to unique business objectives. Big brands can cast a wide net and catch a lot of attention by saturating every available platform with their message. Mid-size companies adopt a more focused approach, allocating resources to channels that promise the highest return on investment. Niche and local brands, on the other hand, embrace tactics highly specific to their area of expertise and operation, leveraging community events, partnerships, and word-of-mouth marketing to mark their presence.

Where to Advertise for Brand Awareness?

Social media and Google prove to be useful for brands of all sizes when it comes to raising brand awareness. What types of campaigns are worth trying for this specific goal.

These types of ads will increase the number of potential customers to get in touch with the brand and drive traffic to its website. However, for organizations of different sizes, it will work slightly differently.

Large players will experience more sales in brick-and-mortar stores due to their growing popularity. Their campaigns are usually dedicated to the consumer’s consideration stage. The higher the frequency of the ads, the more they are imprinted in people’s minds, which changes the decision-making processes.

For mid-size brands and smaller businesses, digital marketing might at first result in app installation, social media following, or more website visitors. They increase the warm group of leads and thanks to remarketing, this audience can be converted into buyers. It’s worth noting here that for these organizations, awareness campaigns should last longer than a month to produce satisfying results.

Measuring the Impact of Brand Awareness Campaigns

Quantifying the success of brand awareness campaigns is not easy – yet, it’s essential for refining strategies and optimizing future efforts. Furthermore, metrics that should be taken into consideration are different from the ones monitored for sales ads. Which methodologies and tools can be useful in this case?

Being aware of how brand awareness is growing at all times enables brands of all sizes to tweak their activities and find out which ones bring the best possible results.

So, does the size of the company matter when preparing and executing brand awareness campaigns? Definitely. The goals are similar, but the differences in budgets and other factors influence how businesses can get more eyes on them. It’s important to remember that strategic awareness building can lead to growth and higher revenue. This unlocks the potential for increasing the knowledge about your brand even more. At tribe47, we can help your organization thrive within your industry and area of choice – reach out to us, and we will help you with marketing campaigns dedicated to this goal.