Funnel marketing is often seen as the be-all-end-all promotional strategy for growing a business. However, many have started to question this notion. 

While it is true that there's no replacement for an optimised marketing funnel, it shouldn't be your sole focus. Instead, you ought to branch out your efforts and try to establish your brand's online presence as well. 

In today's article, I'll discuss the declining relevance of marketing funnels, the importance of brand marketing, and the relation between the two. On top of that, I'll show you how to step up your branding game to grow your business.

What are marketing funnels, and do you still need one?

A marketing funnel represents a process through which a customer goes from their first contact with a brand until their first purchase. The funnel has traditionally been divided into four stages:

• Awareness - Seeing a company's ad

• Interest - Thinking that this product/service can solve their problem

• Evaluation - Researching the product/service

• Action - Making a purchase

There are various types of funnels, and each serves a different kind of business. For example, there are lead magnet funnels, webinar funnels, email funnels, social media funnels; the list goes on.

Now, to answer the central question: 

Do you need a funnel to run a successful online promotional campaign?

Yes, you do. Having some funnel marketing strategy will be necessary. There are plenty of online resources on how to do this so I won't be getting into it now. 

And now, the significant part:

If your existing marketing funnel doesn't produce great results, you don't need to invest in another!

It is a grave mistake that many make. Many digital marketers start funnel after funnel after funnel and spend more money without making significant progress. A better approach would be to leave your funnels as they are and focus on branding and brand marketing. 

I'll explain why in the following section.

Funnel Marketing vs. Brand Marketing

Funnel marketing perceives people as individual buyers and aims to convert as many as possible. Brand marketing reaches out to people as members of communities, and its goal is to turn those people into brand advocates. 

OK, why is the latter important?

Buyers these days rely on word-of-mouth much more than on individual research. Let me explain this with an example:

Let's say that you've developed an interest in photography and want to purchase a solid camera for a beginner. What will you do? Google and compare cameras for hours, call up your photographer friend, and ask him for a recommendation? Sure, you might do both, but the friend's advice will ultimately have a more substantial impact on your purchasing decision.

The scenario mentioned above is true for most products and services.

The word-of-mouth approach enables us to skip the first two phases of the marketing funnel (awareness and interest), rendering much of this model useless. It is for this reason you need to have a solid online brand presence. 

Again, brand marketing is all about acquiring advocates who will promote your business on their own accord.

Continue reading the following paragraphs to learn more about this strategy:

Building An Online Brand Presence

1. Branding

First and foremost, your business needs to have a professional and distinct visual representation. It all starts with a logo. 

Hire a designer, or, if you're on a tight budget, use an online logo maker to create yourself a professional logo. It has to be memorable, somewhat similar to other logos in your niche, but still different from the rest.

Your brand's identity is what your potential customers will see first, so you have to leave a good first impression. The latter is crucial for both funnel and brand marketing.

A well-designed logo has the power to grab people's attention (awareness stage) and spark their interest in your product.

2. Content

Brand marketing is all about niches and subcultures/communities around them. Forget the "anyone is a potential buyer" approach - it simply won't work here. 

With that being said, you'll need to take a deep dive into your target communities and learn what makes them tick. Then, you ought to create visual content that will resonate with them, be it images or videos. 

The content must be entertaining and informative and NOT blatantly promotional. 

The goal here is to get people to share it on their social media profiles, which can be seen as the digital form of word-of-mouth. Their friends will then pick up on this and hopefully check out what you have to offer.

3. Distribution

In connection with the previous point, you need to distribute the content you have created. As you may have guessed, social media platforms are going to be your channels for this. 

The great thing about Facebook or YouTube ads is that you can precisely target your preferred niches. It increases the chances that the people who see the content will engage with it.