Internet Marketing Digital_marketing_for_dummies | Page 86

The path from stranger to buyer is often conveyed using the metaphor of a funnel. Ice-cold
prospects enter the wide top of the funnel and some, you hope, exit through the much
narrower bottom of the funnel as customers. Content can, and should, assist the prospect in
graduating from one stage of the marketing funnel to the next.
A basic marketing funnel has three stages that take a prospect from stranger to buyer:
Awareness: The prospect must first become aware that he has a problem and that you
or your organization can provide a solution.
Raising problem and solution awareness is where your blog will shine. Use
your blog to educate, inspire, or entertain prospects and existing customers.
Evaluation: Those who move through the awareness stage must now evaluate the
various choices available to them, including your competitor ’s solutions and, of
course, taking no action to solve the problem at all. People can, after all, decide to live
with the problem and not purchase the product or service that could solve that problem.
Conversion: Those who move through the evaluation stage are at the moment of truth
— purchase. The goal at this stage is to convert leads into frequent and high-ticket
buyers.
These three stages of awareness, evaluation, and conversion form what is known
as a marketing funnel. Figure 4-2 conceptualizes the marketing funnel.