Cut & Paste into your own notes

Watch for adverts over the next day or two (most people will see many in their daily life, especially if  you watch TV or go anywhere in a city). Try to spot: which part of the funnel they are aimed at?
Pick some of those ads... if you were their marketing manager, what ads would you make for the rest of their funnel?
Do you have a favourite ad? (we're guessing it's a top-of-funnel one). What do you think the goals were that the marketers had in mind when they made it?
Think of something you know well (gaming, fashion, sports, literature, anything at all, no matter how niche). If you were going to do content marketing to build an audience (targeting primarily people who are interested in this thing - even if there are only a few of them), what would you do? Would it be a web page with advice? Social media posts? Try to be as vivid as you can

The Marketing Funnel & Comms Goals

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  • Ads have different purposes, which informs what goes into them, where they appear, their budget, etc.
    • Brand-building ads aim to create a brand awareness and associations in consumer’s minds
    • Sales-building ads aim to trigger people who might be interested in buying into showing up and making purchases
  • Highly overlapping term: The marketing funnel.
    • Top-of-funnel (TOF) communications are aimed at as broad a possible audience of potential buyers, and are usually brand-buidling
    • Bottom-of-funnel (BOF) communications are usually aimed at people who might be ready to buy, and trying to bring them in to make sales
  • Generally firms with big marketing budgets will run both kinds. For FMCG’s the optimal ratio seems to be about 60% TOF, and 40% BOF.
    • The theory is that TOF communications makes subsequent BOF comms more credible and appealing to consumers, and so it makes it more effective
  • When planning comms there are many things to consider
    • Goals: Are you just boosting your brand image, launching a new product, etc?
    • Stage of funnel: Where are your consumers? TOF? MOF? BOF? Target ads to match these stages
    • Your means: Do you have a big budget to hire an agency to coordinate everything, do you have to do it yourself, or somewhere in between? The more budget you have, the more you can have a differentiated TOF/BOF campaign.
    • Choose media: They all have different pros and cons (posters are cheap and local, TV is expensive but builds credibility, etc). Big campaigns will usually do a mix, so as to get the different advantages from many
    • How long: Ads work better when they are seen several times, but spaced out over time. If they run too long the copy ‘burns out’ with consumers, and you’ll need to refresh it with new creative executions / messages
  • Content marketing is a non-advertising way of building audiences
    • You put out ‘content’ for free (usually advice that is given on web pages, social media, email lists, etc), and if you do it well your target consumers will read/watch it because it is relevant and helpful for them. This helps establish TOF awareness and credibility with your audience (and perhaps provides a venue for BOF appeals to be pushed to them too)