Map Your Customer Journey: A Practical Guide to the Marketing Funnel

There’s a good chance you have heard of the mysterious *Marketing Funnel*. It’s shaped like an upside-down volcano, sales teams are often very concerned with how healthy they are, and marketers are prone to raving about the abundance of tofu in their very intricately constructed funnels.

So what exactly is the marketing funnel? What metrics should you be paying attention to? And why is sales always asking about them?

For lean teams, the funnel isn't just a diagram, it's a diagnostic tool. It shows you exactly where potential customers drop off, so you don't waste time on the wrong activities.

The funnel

Previously we reviewed the different kinds of media you can leverage to reach your ideal customer. Owned, earned and paid media includes everything from the website you build and the content you publish, to the ads you place, the PR coverage you receive, how you show up at a conference, to the comments customers or influencers might make about you, among other things.

While it’s helpful to understand a menu of things you can do, the marketing funnel is a tool to understand how you can organize these activities to get results that support your business goals.  

The funnel includes three main parts: 

• Tofu stage. When prospective customers learn that a solution like yours exists.

• Mofu stage. When customers learn how your solution will provide value to them (preferably better than the competition).

• Bofu stage. When final evaluations and assessments occur so that they can officially become a customer.

The funnel has the shape it does because typically not everyone who becomes aware of your product will opt to continue learning about it, and fewer will actually turn into customers. At some point you will want to understand these conversion rates and how you might influence them.

The funnel is an excellent tool for marketing to share how they organize their efforts to drive results. Sales teams, for example, are usually very excited to see the marketing funnel mapped out in great detail. Tofu marketing activities typically result in lots of new ‘leads’. Mofu gets those leads excited about the product, which results in sales having more productive conversations. And effective bofu activities confirm that more new customers are imminent.  

Your Marketing funnel

So what is marketing actually doing in these stages? How do you attract TOFU leads? What do you teach in MOFU? And what happens during that final BOFU evaluation? The answers live in your customer journey map.

The customer journey is a unique experience that your customers go through as they learn about your solution and make the decision to purchase it. Within each of the main stages you’ll want to explore:

1. What marketing and sales activities are happening? 

2. What questions are the prospective customers asking?

3. What content or resources can answer those questions?

4. What metrics show that the prospect is advancing successfully?

Talk to anyone in your organization who touches customers: marketing, sales, support, trial managers, finance, legal, and product. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle.

Integrating Your customer journey

Here is a template for mapping the customer journey:

As you build your own map, consider your higher level business goals. Think about all parts of the customer journey, and be honest about any places where conversion rates are low. This is your opportunity to understand how to have more effective conversations with leads and customers. 

Start small, think big

You don't need to map the entire journey perfectly. Pick one stage (maybe TOFU) and answer just two questions for this week:

1. Where does my ideal customer hang out online during this stage? (e.g., specific subreddit, Slack community, newsletter, AI query)

2. What is one small piece of content I can put there?

Do that, measure the response, and then move to the next stage. That's how you build a funnel that actually works for your team.

So stop worrying about funnel health as a vague metric. Map one stage, answer one real customer question, and put it where they'll actually find it. That's how you earn the right to their attention.

This is one post in a series focused on marketing to developers. Check back soon for more posts that will dive deeper into creating marketing campaigns and managing an editorial calendar, among other things.