What are the Fundamentals of Marketing?

Typing “what are the fundamentals of marketing” into Google brings you a confusing list of results. Some results mention the four Ps of marketing, some the seven Ps and others the seven Cs — so which is it?

All these concepts and frameworks are here to help you understand marketing from a much wider view. Having these fundamentals in place will help you throughout your marketing campaigns by giving you a foundation to work on.

Rather than thinking of marketing as an advert, some social posts or a website, these marketing fundamentals help you see the bigger picture and understand how every part of the business you’re promoting impacts your marketing strategy.

What Is the Marketing Mix?

The marketing mix is used to describe the different elements that influence how you promote your business. The most common elements in the marketing mix include the four Ps of marketing, the seven Ps of marketing or the seven Cs of marketing.

Let’s explore each of these one by one. You may decide to use one over another or use them in combination with each other.

The Seven Ps of Marketing

We’ve mentioned the four Ps and seven Ps of marketing, and it might come as no surprise that they’re the same thing — the seven Ps expand on the 4 Ps.

Why, you ask?

Many marketing frameworks were created before the age of the internet and have needed to grow and change to adapt to all the different marketing channels we have available today. The four Ps are a great foundation, but you really need the extra three factors from the seven Ps to take your campaigns from just okay to wildly successful.

The seven Ps of marketing are:

Product — the products or services you sell
Price — how much your products or services cost
Place — where customers make a purchase — in a store, on your website or a third-party website
Promotion — how you communicate your offering to consumers
People — the people who work in your business
Process — the processes you follow in your business
Physical Evidence — how you present your business in person or online, reviews, testimonials, case studies.

Let’s explore how each of the seven Ps influences your marketing strategy.

Product

Your product is what you’re marketing — so of course, this is the first P. Your product might be physical, digital or a service.

When it comes to how you think of your product in terms of marketing, you need to consider a few different things.

Firstly, who are the customers of your product, and why will they want to buy it? Why will they give you their money over a competitor? What makes you different?

Secondly, what’s the lifecycle of your product? The way you market a one-time purchase will be different to a monthly subscription or a product that needs regular upgrades and add-ons.

Let’s say you’re selling razors. We’ll use the direct-to-consumer brand Estrid as an example.

Estrid’s main product is a metal razor. What are the features of this product?

The blades for the Estrid razor are sold via a subscription service.
The razors include a reusable metal handle and replaceable razor heads.

What about the benefits of the product?

You don’t need to remember to repurchase razors
The reusable handle is good for the environment
They cater to everyone and don’t charge more based on gender.

Estrid’s target customers are Gen Z-ers who shop with the company because of its positioning, which Estrid promote by:

Covering “taboo” topics in the world of shaving
Working with inclusive models
Offering a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional razors
Delivering the products directly to customers on a schedule that suits them.

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We got all that information just by looking at the product. Think about your own product or service — who are you selling it to, and why will they buy the product from you over your competitors?

One factor that might influence your customer’s decision to buy your product is your price.

Price

The price of your product is a key element of your marketing strategy. The way you promote a high-cost product will be different to how you promote a low-cost one.

We’re not talking about how cheap you make your prices or how many discounts you offer to get more customers — quite the opposite.

Your price will influence every corner of your marketing strategy, including your branding, the channels you use, the events you attend and the blog topics you write.

If you’re selling a premium product, your branding and marketing must reflect that. The same goes for if you have a lower price point. This doesn’t mean there’s not some crossover, but you need to take into consideration who can afford your product and where they spend their time.

Are you priced lower with a young target audience? TikTok would be an ideal place to market your product, with ads across other social media platforms, influencer marketing campaigns and potentially a more playful tone of voice and website. You also need to take into consideration how consumers feel about cheaper products. How will you reassure them that just because your product is cheap, that doesn’t mean it’s bad?

Budget airline company Ryanair knows its flights are surprisingly cheap and leans into it on the company’s TikTok account. It’s full of jokes about how the airline makes its money back by charging for bags, extra legroom, airport check-in fees and more. The company isn’t afraid to make light of the complaints it gets regularly from customers expecting a luxury experience from a €9.99 plane ticket.

@ryanair
Bestie how else will I make bank i’m sorry🤧 #ryanair #airline #traveleurope #cabincrew

♬ umm.. yeah – andrew

Let’s say you’re at the other end of the spectrum and selling expensive products to businesses. Your customers may want the ability to meet you in person at events and to view your products and services in person before committing to a purchase.

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Your customers are more likely to expect a more serious, expert tone of voice in your marketing materials. The sales process is likely to need multiple conversations with a member of your sales team, proving your expertise and the quality of your work or products.

On Deko Ocean’s website, the company immediately shares the experience it has creating glass partitions for customers. It reinforces that the company has only gained that experience because of its success in selling high-quality products over the years.

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Let’s look at a couple more examples of how price can impact your marketing strategy.

Toothbrush company Ultasmile sells a unique product for a lower price, with its three-sided toothbrushes priced from $14, and you can tell from the terms used in the website copy that the product is aimed at younger audiences — “meditation for your teeth”, “living in the era of self-care”. Ultasmile also uses a younger model on its homepage.

It’s likely the company saw the product becoming popular with younger audiences, so aimed to make it as cheap as possible. There’s no fancy packaging or add-ons — you get the toothbrush in a plastic sleeve and that’s it.

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Compare this with luxury dental brand Marashi Oral Health, with toothbrushes priced from $275. The branding uses more “luxury” colours — black and gold — and shows off the product and the packaging. Often, when people buy a luxury product, they expect it to be an entire experience — meaning the packaging needs to reflect the price just as much as the product.

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The wording on the website leans more towards luxury, too, with terms such as “pinnacle of oral care, elegance and sophistication.” The brand highlights that it has been featured in the magazine Vogue, known for including high-end brands. The company wants to reinforce that it’s up there with other luxury brands.

Where your product or brand is featured is another key marketing fundamental. How you promote your brand ultimately leads to your success (or failure…)

Promotion

Your product or service and its price influence where you will promote your product.

You can have the best product in the world, but if it’s not reaching the people who want to buy it, then it might as well not exist. Sorry.

If you sell an expensive product, you need to use different channels than if you sell a cheap product.
If your target audience is younger, you’ll choose different marketing channels than if your audience is made up of retirees.
If all your business happens online, your approach will be different to a business with a physical store.

Different types of marketing you can use to promote your product or service include:

Traditional Marketing — marketing that doesn’t take place online, such as TV or radio adverts, printed ads and billboards.
Digital Marketing — marketing that takes place online, such as a company website, social media accounts and appearing in Google search results.
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising — ads run on social media, search engines and websites.
Content Marketing — creating content including blogs, social media posts, videos and more.
Search Engine Optimisation — optimising websites for better visibility on search engines.
Social Media Marketing — marketing that uses social media platforms.
Outbound Marketing — marketing where you start the “conversation” with consumers, via tv ads, direct mail, social media ads and more.
Inbound Marketing — where consumers find your business via a search.
Branding — how you make a company stand out.

Different types of marketing suit different businesses depending on product, price and target audience.

For example, it would be pointless for the design program Figma to run an ad during prime-time TV in the hopes that some designers are watching.

Instead, the company sends branded ice cream vans to design colleges to connect with those training to be designers and allows them to use the Figma design software for free while they’re still in education.

Did you notice all that ice cream talk yesterday?

That’s because… we got a Figma ice cream truck! We’ll be stopping at @nyuniversity, @PrattInstitute, @parsonsdesign, and @Columbia next week.

Come get free ice cream and exclusive Figma merch. All are welcome🍦 #FigmaPopUp pic.twitter.com/lLqPSfOWFr

— Figma (@figma) September 13, 2022

The company knows it needs to connect with designers, so it physically goes to places where designers are. Figma also promotes its software in the digital places designers spend time, such as Instagram.

Place

One part of the marketing mix that can often get forgotten about is the place where you’re selling your products. The way you promote your products will be influenced by where you’re selling them.

The place you sell your products could be:

In a physical store
On your website
Through a third party in a physical store (for example, a supermarket)
Through a third-party website (for example, a large retailer like Amazon).

How does the place you sell your products affect your marketing?

Let’s take local business Doughnotts, for example. The doughnut company only has stores in Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln and Beeston. It could promote doughnuts across the entire UK, but that would cause two issues:

The advertising budget would be wasted reaching people across the UK who can’t visit a Doughnotts store in person.
People may become frustrated that they’re being advertised a product they can’t get and build a negative opinion towards the brand that could impact them if they decide to expand to more locations.

However, Doughnotts does offer UK-wide delivery. This means it will need two different marketing strategies to promote the two “places” you can purchase its doughnuts — in-person and online. Doughnotts will also need smaller strategies to promote individual in-person stores around the UK.

Here’s an example of how Doughnotts nail local marketing. Doughnotts decided to sponsor a match at Nottingham’s City ground between Nottingham Forest Women’s Football Club and Derby County FC Women. Doughnotts ran a giveaway on Instagram to promote this sponsorship and spread the word, as seen in the post below.

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The brand also had a stand at the match selling doughnuts as part of the sponsorship, further promoting the company to anyone attending who is likely to be local to the area, therefore raising awareness of the local Doughnotts stores.

Of course, Doughnotts also does other types of marketing — it has a strong presence on social media and has previously handed out flyers around the cities where Doughtnotts stores are — but the brand has taken it to another level by connecting with local people at local events.

Doughnotts have also been featured in local publications, such as The Nottingham Post, to get more eyes on the business.

In a previous example, we highlighted how Marashi Oral Health was featured in Vogue — a huge magazine reaching people across the USA (and around the world). That’s perfect for Marashi Oral Health as its “place” is an online store selling nationally.

That same Vogue feature wouldn’t make sense for Doughnotts, whose “place” is in the East Midlands, so The Nottingham Post is the ideal choice for them.

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You might have already realised that many of these elements are out of your hands as a marketer (unless you’re a one-person business owner, designer and marketer).

You don’t decide the product or service you sell, how much it is or where it is sold. That’s where the next P comes in — people.

People

You may have expected this P to refer to the people you are selling to, but that’s not the focus here. The focus is the people in your business: the sales team, customer support team, product designers, manufacturers, IT team — the list goes on.

All the people involved in the business you are marketing will be able to offer insight to help you market your product and business to its fullest potential.

Want to know which questions consumers ask when close to purchasing that you could answer in blog content? Speak to the sales team.

Want to learn more about a specific product feature? Speak to the product team.

Struggling to explain what goes into the service you sell? Speak to the people in the business who carry out said service.

Building a relationship with these people throughout your business and helping them understand how crucial they are to the marketing team will help your marketing strategy immensely.

Speaking to others in the business will also help you understand the processes that happen throughout the business, which are likely to influence the processes you follow in your marketing strategy.

Processes

“Processes” refers to two different types of processes in the business you are marketing: the processes you follow as a marketer and the processes everyone else follows in their job roles.

Here’s an example of the product development process. How could your marketing strategy fit around this?

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You may have a specific process in mind for marketing a business but then find it isn’t compatible with the other business processes.

For example, you plan for the launch campaign to offer some teaser content in the run-up to the product’s release. You’ve arranged for a photographer to take some product photos in a couple of weeks’ time.

You have some product specifications which you can include in your marketing campaign. You’ve planned to demo the product in a live stream on launch day.

The campaign begins, and you find out the photographer was sent away as the product was nowhere near ready. The audience doesn’t understand the significance of the product specifications.

You try to demo the product but can’t present it to its full potential. People are asking questions you don’t know the answer to. Whoops.

Let’s retry this while aligning with the other processes in the company.

You visit the product team, ask what their timeline is for product development and decide a time between you that fits in with their process. You book your photographer based on this timeline and attend the shoot to make sure the photos are just right.

You receive the product specifications but don’t know how to make them sound exciting to your audience. You visit the sales team and ask them how they present it.

They share some of the terminology they use with customers and the type of questions customers often ask around new product launches, too.

You’d like to share the product in a live stream on launch day. You find out that the sales team has a training day with the product team every time a new product is launched, and you attend.

You ask a member of the sales team to present the live stream with you and ask a member of the product team to be on hand in case any unexpected questions arise.

The product launch is a great success!

By learning the processes other teams follow, you can fit your marketing campaigns and processes around these things rather than creating a whole new process that doesn’t align.

Once you’ve created your own process based on other processes in the business, you can share this with the relevant teams, so they know what you expect from them and when.

Understanding processes throughout the business will also help you in other areas, such as submitting invoices or ordering marketing materials.

If you’re in a new role, spend the time to learn about each department in the business and how they impact the products or services. Ask for their processes and use them to influence your marketing strategy.

Information from other departments will also help you prove to potential customers why they should buy from you in the form of physical evidence.

Physical Evidence

When you think about the reasons a customer will make a purchase from you, its likely reviews come to mind. We all want to know that a product we’ve seen online will look the same in person or that the plumber we’ve hired will fix a leak rather than flooding the house.

Reviews are one way to prove to consumers that you’re a trustworthy business, but they’re not the only way.

Think about all the different ways you can prove to your target audience that they should buy from you.

Sharing before and after photos to show the difference your service makes.
Conducting interviews with customers to share testimonials that offer more than a review.
Sharing the qualifications your team has that are relevant to your business, and how much experience you have in the industry.
Adding high-profile clients to your website
Getting featured in relevant magazines and on websites can also help build your credibility while getting your business in front of more potential customers.

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The 7 Ps of Marketing

Let’s recap. The 7 Ps of marketing are:

Product
Price
Place
Promotion
People
Process
Physical Evidence.

If there’s anything you should take away from our marketing fundamentals guide it’s this: there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to promoting a business. Thinking about these 7 Ps each time you start a new marketing campaign will help you create campaigns that are set up for success.

If you feel like you want to take your campaigns further, you can combine the 7 Ps with the 7 Cs of marketing. The 7 Ps make you think about your product, whereas the 7 Cs are more consumer-focused.

The Seven Cs of Marketing

The 7 Cs of the marketing compass model refers to another framework you can use to guide your marketing strategy. Created by Professor Koichi Shimizu, this model is intended to focus more on customers, while the 7 Ps have more focus on the product.

The 7 Cs of marketing are:

Commodity — the product you are selling
Cost — the cost to the consumer and the time and energy cost
Channel — where the product is purchased
Communication — how you promote your product
Circumstance — external factors that may impact how consumers behave
Consumer — those buying the product
Corporation — you, your competitors and collaborators.

These points may seem very similar to the 7 Ps, but they have a more consumer-heavy focus. The intent here is that you think more about your customers and their journey to purchasing.

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Commodity

Product becomes commodity. Commodity means “a useful or valuable thing”, rather than just a product you’re selling. Your customers are buying from you because you offer a useful or valuable product or service, not just because you’re the only option or the cheapest option. This mindset will help you focus on creating the best product for your target audience.

Cost

Price becomes cost. You need to think about more than just the money your customers spend on your product or service. Cost includes production cost, selling cost and purchasing cost.

Surely selling and purchasing costs are the same thing? Not quite.

If you sell a product for £500, that’s how much you’re selling it for. Your customer may have more costs involved.

The time cost of researching the product or speaking to your sales team.
The cost of travel to purchase your product or the cost of postage.
The cost of needing to stay at home to wait for the parcel to arrive.
The cost of buying from other brands that disappointed them.

The same goes for anyone offering a service.

Thinking about the cost in this way helps you see your target audience as layered beings rather than just someone who buys from you. By understanding this, you can better frame your marketing efforts.

Maybe you decide to promote a free shipping offer or improve the conversion rate on your website by making the buyer process more simple.

Channel

Place becomes channel. This refers to both the way consumers purchase your product or service and the marketing channels you use to promote it.

As the way your customers buy from you and the way you promote your product are interlinked, it makes sense to combine them into this one word.

As we covered earlier in the 7 Ps of marketing, you’ll need different marketing strategies depending on whether your customers purchase from you at a physical location, online, or through a third party.

If you have a physical store, you’ll need to find local marketing channels, such as flyering, ads in local newspapers or magazines, targeted ads based on location, local SEO and more.

If you’re selling online, then you will want to take advantage of other channels, including social media platforms, SEO, physical advertising in national newspapers and magazines and TV adverts.

Communication

Promotion becomes communication.

Ok, isn’t that the same as channel then?

Nope. Communication is the way you communicate with your target audience.

If Instagram is the channel, then Instagram Reels could be the communication method.
If SEO is the channel, then creating blog content could be the communication method.
If flyers are the channel, then what you decide to include on them is the communication method.

If you choose the right marketing channel, there’s still the chance that you won’t communicate in the right way to connect with your audience. Different products and services need different types of communication.

If you’re unsure what type of content your target audience responds to best, you should start by analysing your competitor’s content. This will give you a great insight into what is working for your competitors and how you might take inspiration from them to create something better.

Circumstances

Circumstances is a new element that isn’t included in the 7 Ps. Circumstances refers to the different external factors that might impact consumers and the way they interact with your business.

This is where the “compass” part of the Compass Model comes in.

N: National and International Environment (political, legal, ethical)
E: Economic
S: Social and Cultural
W: Weather.

National refers to any impact the government may have, for example, the sugar tax in the UK. Many brands saw a drop in people purchasing their sugary products once the sugar tax was introduced, especially soft drink brands, so they needed to rework their marketing efforts to promote sugar-free products instead.

Economic refers to how different parts of the economy can impact businesses. Many parts of the world are experiencing a cost of living crisis during the colder months. Energy prices have increased, and consumers don’t want to use their heating as much. Some businesses have begun promoting their products as an alternative to turning on your heating, such as buying blankets or warmer clothes. Although there is the chance that consumers will purchase these products instead of turning their heating on, there is also the chance that they will not do either.

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Social refers to changing consumer opinions. As people move towards more eco-friendly options, they may not want to purchase from single-use brands or brands that package their products in a lot of plastic. Consumers can also be impacted by CEO or staff behaviour. If they see members of the company acting in a way they like or dislike, this could influence their buying habits.

Weather refers to, well, the weather. You won’t have much luck advertising your swimsuit range during the winter months unless you’re smart about it (think winter sales, cashing in on those looking for some winter sun). You may want to stock different products or promote different services depending on the time of year.

If you have a physical, outdoor location, then weather may also impact your sales. Finding ways to market your location, no matter the weather, could set you apart from competitors.

Consumer

Consumer — arguably the most important part of the 7 Cs and one marketing fundamental you must keep in mind at all times. Consumers are the reason your business exists. Without them, your business won’t be around for long.

The consumer part of the 7 Cs also uses the compass model:

N: Needs
E: Education
S: Security
W: Wants.

Let’s break each of these down using a B2B example.

As an example, let’s say you sell product management software. Your target customer is eCommerce businesses.

You might start by seeing your customer’s N, E, S, and W like this:

Need: The business needs to find a better way to manage their inventory
Education: The business knows a lot about managing products
Security: The business wants software that won’t let them down
Want: The business wants to save money they’re wasting on manual product management.

But you can take it further and give yourself a more detailed idea of what your customers want, helping you build a much better marketing strategy.

Need: The business needs to stop losing inventory and wasting time doing things manually. It’s costing them a lot of money and time, and if they don’t figure out a way to manage inventory better, they’ll need to start making redundancies.

Education: They’ve always done inventory management manually, and they have no idea that software could fix their issues. They might be searching for things like “manual inventory alternative”, or “how to reduce inventory losses”.

Security: The business is scared to make any changes to the current system. Multiple members of staff have kicked up a fuss about changing the system, worrying anything new will be too complicated and cause more issues.

Want: They really want to fix their inventory problem. It’s causing sleepless nights, fights in the office, a blame culture and all-around bad vibes.

We bet you can practically picture the customer in your head now. Not just a business but a specific person who is trying to fix an issue. It’s much easier to market to that person than to a faceless business.

Corporation

People becomes corporation, which refers to your business as a whole — especially the people who are making the decisions. As a marketer, you can’t always influence the big decisions, such as which products and services are going to be promoted at which times, so sometimes you just need to work with what you have.

Corporation also includes your competitors. You need to look at the marketing your competitors are doing and figure out what is working for them and what isn’t. You may even find opportunities to create content or target a niche audience that they aren’t.

Finally, corporation includes any other organisations you may be collaborating with, such as suppliers. If your supplier runs into issues and certain products or services are delayed because of it, you will need to adjust your marketing strategy to account for this.

The 7 Cs of Marketing

If you want to figure out how your business aligns with consumers and how you can best market to those consumers, the 7 Cs of marketing are a great way to identify that.

As a recap, the 7 Cs of marketing (also known as the 7 Cs marketing compass model) are:

Commodity — the product you are selling
Cost — the cost to the consumer and the time and energy cost
Channel — where the product is purchased
Communication — how you promote your product
Circumstance — external factors that may impact how consumers behave
Consumer — those buying the product
Corporation — you, your competitors and collaborators.

Check out more examples of the 7 Cs in action.

Before moving on to the next section, try applying the 7 Ps and 7 Cs to your business.

If you don’t feel quite ready for that, keep reading and come back to this exercise later — next, we’ll explore your target audience and sales funnel, which can help give you more direction for the Ps and Cs.

What Is a Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel is another crucial marketing fundamental. To create the right marketing content for your target audience, you need to understand the journey they take to make a purchase from you so that you can be there every step of the way.

It’s called a funnel, as the way that customers behave is sort of in a funnel shape. There are many people at the start of the process, but by the end, only a few become customers.

The most well-known marketing funnel focuses on three types of customers — those at the top of the funnel, those in the middle of the funnel and those at the bottom of the funnel.

Let’s take a look at how those consumers behave.

Top-of-Funnel (TOFU)

The top of the funnel is where most consumers are. They might have seen an ad for your product at the train station, watched an Instagram Reel about it, or been recommended your company by a friend. Basically, at the top-of-funnel stage, they’re brand new to your business.

The content you create for these consumers is all about raising awareness.

Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU)

Consumers in the middle of the funnel are a bit more familiar with your business. They might have visited your website and signed up for a mailing list, compared a few products similar to yours, read some of your blogs and more.

Consumers at the middle-of-funnel stage are evaluating their options.

Bottom-of-Funnel (BOFU)

Consumers at the bottom of the funnel are nearly ready to convert.

Any content you create at the BOFU stage is there to encourage conversion. You may want to offer a demo of your software, share customer testimonials, create comparison sheets between you and competitors — anything that will help consumers make that purchase.

What about the Sales Funnel?

The marketing funnel and sales funnel are very similar. Realistically, the sales funnel might begin mid-way through the marketing funnel as it’s marketing’s job to get consumers to the point where a sale becomes likely.

It’s important that you understand the sales funnel so that you can build your marketing funnel around it. Speak to your sales team to find out how their sales funnel works and how your marketing efforts can help them.

The “TOFU, MOFU, BOFU” funnel isn’t the only type of marketing funnel. Another popular funnel is the AIDA model.

The AIDA model is more clear about how customers are feeling about and interacting with your brand. It’s popular with marketers as it helps us decide which marketing channels and content types to use depending on a customer’s affinity to the brand.

The AIDA Model

The AIDA model is made up of four different funnel stages:

Awareness — the consumer learns about your business
Interest — the consumer wants to learn more about your business
Desire — the consumer wants to buy from you
Action — the consumer makes a purchase.

At Thinkplus, we like to add another part to this funnel.

Retention — keep consumers coming back.

It’s still a funnel shape as there might be many people who are aware of the brand, but not all of them will move to the interest stage, then to the desire stage and so on.

Awareness

At the awareness stage, consumers are new to your business. You need to be using marketing channels that your target audience will see and use them to get a clear message across to them about what you offer. You also need to create content that helps to educate them about your product or service or that helps them with a problem you can solve.

For example, a consumer searches for “how to treat acne”. Your blog about common causes of acne appears at the top of Google’s search results. They read your guide, and like the look of some of the tips, so they follow your company on Instagram….

Marketing activities at the awareness stage include:

Social media posts
PPC campaigns focused on awareness
Blog content
Video content
Digital PR
TV or radio advertising
Magazine advertising
Magazine features
Flyering locally
Attending events.

Interest

At the interest stage, consumers want to learn more about your business and products or services. They want to know if your product is right for them, how much it costs and how it compares with competitor products.

Let’s go back to our skincare example. The consumer saw some improvement in their acne after reading your blog and wants to build a skincare routine, but they don’t know where to start.

They remember seeing a story on your Instagram account promoting your skincare quiz, so they visit your website and complete the quiz. To get the results, they enter their email address. Before making a purchase, they get a phone call and get distracted, forgetting that they took the quiz…

Marketing activities at the interest stage include:

Blog content
Downloadable content
Automated email campaigns
Social media posts
Video content (for example, YouTube)
Targeted PPC (for example, browse abandonment)
On-site quiz or tool.

Desire

Consumers at the desire stage are nearly ready to convert but haven’t taken that final step.
Maybe they’ve added products to their basket and are waiting for payday or are waiting for sign-off from upper management before they can pay for your software.

There are many different reasons someone may get stuck at the desire stage of the funnel, but you can use marketing to give them that final push towards conversion.

Let’s check in with our skincare customer. They check their emails and see that you’ve emailed them about their quiz results and included the products recommended for them in the email.

The email reminds them they were going to make a purchase and puts all the products conveniently in front of them, along with some great customer testimonials. They add the products to their basket and then decide to check their bank balance. Whoops. Maybe not this time…

Marketing activities at the desire stage include:

Downloadable content
Free shipping over a certain spend
Reviews and testimonials
Automated email campaigns
Discount codes
Giveaways and competitions
Targeted PPC (for example, basket abandonment)
Reviews and testimonials.

Action

The action stage is where your customers finally do the thing you’ve been hoping for all along — they make a purchase. You want to make this step as easy as possible for them. Have you made it clear where they can make a purchase (online or in-person?) Is online checkout easy to complete? Can they easily find your store on Google Maps?

They’re back again — our skincare customer who is easily distracted. The next day they open their email to see that you’ve kept their basket and offered them a 10% discount code, but it will run out in 24 hours.

They think, “Oh, go on then!” and make a purchase — the testimonials from the last email were pretty impressive, so it will be worth it. They take advantage of the additional 10% discount they get by purchasing the skincare on a monthly subscription, too.

Marketing activities at the action stage include:

Automated email campaigns
Discount codes
Streamlined checkout
Suggesting related products
Discount on recurring subscriptions

Retention

Often neglected, the retention stage is an important part of any sales and marketing funnel. It’s often cheaper to keep existing customers coming back than it is to bring in new customers, so you need to find the balance between marketing to existing and new customers.

Let’s check back in with our customer. They’re enjoying the products, and the subscription has made their life easier. You’ve created a Facebook group for fans of your brand and invited everyone on your mailing list to join.

Your customer joins and sees a question from someone who hasn’t made a purchase yet, asking if the product will help with their skin problems — the same problems our easily distracted customer had. They offer advice and promote your products in the process.

Marketing activities at the retention stage include:

Automated email campaigns
Discount on recurring subscriptions
Community spaces (for example, Slack, Facebook Groups, Discord).

Remember that some customers may move back and forth between different stages of the AIDA funnel.

They might reach the desire stage but not convert for reasons outside your control and forget about your business before bumping into you again in the form of a social media post or via a Google search and moving back into the interest stage.

Now we’ve covered the marketing funnel, you should have a good idea of all the marketing fundamentals you need to know and put in place before you launch any marketing campaigns.