Why Chick-fil-A’s Marketing Funnel Makes Customers Keep Coming Back

In this episode of Full Fat Marketing, Leonora breaks down how Chick-fil-A has built one of the most effective customer funnels in food by making every stage of the journey feel simple, natural, and repeatable.

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And if you’re building a food, drink or hospitality brand and want help applying these strategies to your business, feel free to reach out at leonora@lrbcreative.com

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Disclaimer: Insights shared are based on Leonora’s experience with food and hospitality brands and are for educational purposes only. Results may vary.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The minute I say the term marketing funnel, in any business situation, I almost see this trickle of sweat pour down someone's forehead, and it actually cracks me up because I notice them immediately picturing something deeply, deeply tragic. The main reason most people hate marketing funnels is because they're usually explained in a way that sounds completely detached from real life. And not only that, it sort of mentions all this weird scientific jargon that really doesn't need to be there. Customers don't walk around thinking, I'm now entering the awareness phase. They're just hungry, they're busy, they're tired, they're indecisive, and they're trying not to accidentally spend$30 on lunch again. Now, the smartest funnels do not actually feel like funnels. They feel like, okay, like that was really easy. And one of the best examples of that in food is Chick-fil-A. Now, if you live under a rock, Chick-fil-A is a fast food chain originally from the US, best known for things like chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and very efficient service. Whether or not you personally eat there from a strategy and marketing point of view, Chick-fil-A is incredibly good at moving people down the customer journey, like down through that funnel. From the awareness phase to first order to repeat order to habit and to loyalty, they do it in a way that feels really, really natural. And that's what makes it really smart. Now, the exact funnel can look slightly different depending on the brand, but in most cases it usually comes down to really five core stages. Once you actually understand how that works, it completely changes how you think about growth. The key question here is how do we make people more likely to come back? And honestly, this is where the real money usually is. I'm Leonora and this is the Full Fat Marketing Podcast, where you'll hear the uncomfortable strategy truths for FMB brands that most people will tell you, but I will. Now you're probably thinking, what on earth is a funnel? And thank you so much for listening to my intro, where you probably thought, I haven't a clue what's going on here. But let me start here because I think it gets overcomplicated very, very quickly. Imagine the shape of an actual funnel, and within that funnel is various stages. I will get into those. Basically, what a funnel is is the journey a customer takes from not really knowing you to become someone who buys from you regularly. Your job as the brand is to guide the customer down that funnel into from stage one, which is awareness, all the way down to the bottom, which is retention. So basically keeps that customer coming back. That's it. It's as simple as that. And the reason funnels matter so much is because a lot of brands are obsessed with the very top of it, the awareness stage. In other words, reach views and followers. And they spend almost no time thinking about what happens after someone notices them. When I have client meetings, so many customers don't actually realize that acquiring a new customer actually costs them five to seven times more than retaining an existing one. Yet most of these brands pour about 90% of their marketing budget into acquisition and almost nothing at all into retention. It's just not considered the important thing to do. 90% of those budgets should be spent on retention instead of being spent on awareness. So proper funnels should actually answer why would someone notice you? Why would they try you? Why would they come back? And why would they choose you over alternatives, especially in the long run? So this is why Chick-fil-A is so easy to understand. As I said, the first stage of the funnel is awareness. And people hear that and think, okay, cool. So ads. No, not ads. Awareness is really about this. How quickly does someone understand who you are and what to expect from you? And a lot of food brands are actually not struggling with lack of exposure. They struggle with being things like forgettable, vague, visually inconsistent, way too broad. And Chick-fil-A is really good at not doing that. You know exactly what you're getting. You know the kind of food, you know the speed, you know the vibe. There's almost zero confusion here for the consumer. And clarity is one of the most underrated growth tools in business. If people can process you quickly, they're much more likely to remember you and choose your brand later. And so many founders underestimate this and almost make things overly complicated because they think it's better and it's really, really not. Just try to keep things as simple as possible. They also think, but our food is amazing. Okay, great. But if the brand itself is not easy to understand, the customer's already working too hard, trying to figure that out themselves. In food, people are usually not making deeply rational decisions. They're making really quick decisions or lazy decisions, routine decisions, default decisions, or sometimes a combination of all of these. So if your brand is not mentally easy to sort of understand from the get-go, you're already losing out. That's stage one. So straight from awareness, you've got conversion. And this is where someone goes from, okay, yeah, I know that brand to okay, I'm actually going to order from them. In other words, what I call panic mode, where businesses start overthinking things like clunky websites, overwhelming menus, slow service, way too many options, a confusing customer experience. Basically, the customer was interested and then the brand made it really hard for them. Chick-fil-A does the opposite of that. They are very good at reducing that decision of fatigue for the consumer. Most customers don't want a beautifully considered purchase, right? They want to make a quick one. So when a brand's like familiar, easier to order from, operationally efficient, and low stress, it massively increases the chance of that first conversion happening as well. If people know you exist but they're not buying, please don't think that suddenly you need to pump all these ads on social media or create a cooler Instagram wheel. It's because something in the actual path to purchase, so something within that funnel, feels harder than it should. And Chick-fil-A has clearly spent a lot of time making sure that that moment feels smooth. Smooth and ease converts always. Please remember that. Now here is where things get really interesting. A funnel is not strong just because it gets people through the door once. It's strong when it leaves them thinking, okay, like I'd buy that again. And Chick-fil-A is very good at delivering an experience that feels just like that. People repeat what feels safe, especially in food. They love novelty in theory, but in practice, they often come back to the thing that feels familiar, reliable, and easy to trust. And this is where so many food brands get it wrong. They spend all their energy trying to look really exciting. And although having an engaging brand is super important, please know that. What actually drives repeat behavior is often dependability. If your first customer experience is chaotic or inconsistent or underwhelming, the funnel breaks at that point. It does not matter how good your top-of-the-funnel marketing was. You got them in and then you lost them. And that is an expensive loss, even if it doesn't feel like it. So the question of the conversion stage becomes what happens after someone buys from you for the first time? And then it moves you steadily on to the next stage of it, which matters the most in food, habit. The smartest food brands are trying to become part of someone's life. And I mention this again and again, and I've said it so many times on the podcast. Chick-fil-A works well as a funnel because it fits naturally into repeat moments like easy dinner, comfort food, road trips. You know, when you when you want to get a meal and you just think I can't be bothered to think that's the sort of thing that you'd get. Once your brand starts attaching itself to a repeated life moment, you stop being an occasional option and start becoming a default choice. That is the dream. Most brands are so busy trying to go viral that they never stop to ask what role do we actually play in the customer's week? Such an important question because routines are commercially powerful, and this repeated behavior is where serious growth starts as well. And moving on to the final piece of the funnel, and my personal favorite, loyalty. Now, a lot of loyalty programs are honestly a bit tragic. They feel a bit like buy nine mediocre coffees and eventually we'll acknowledge your existence. And I mean, it's just a bit crap, isn't it? Like we've all been there, we just feel like we're just not valued as consumers. Some people care and some people don't. Me as a consumer, I care. I want to be all up in your grill about your loyalty program. And I know that a lot of people feel the same. If I am invested enough in a brand, I will even buy your merch. Like I will, I will do anything for you, you know, and I become so invested. And this is what so many people lose out on because they don't try and nurture this feeling that their consumers can build this sort of die hard love for certain brands. And the reason Chick-fil-A's loyalty layer works better is because it actually supports behavior that already exists, right? So their app is built around their loyalty program called Chick-fil-A One. And on paper, yes, it is a point system, but there's so much more to it. You earn points when you order, you unlock rewards, you move up tiers the more you spend. It's pretty standard, but the clever bit is that it's not just rewarding people for buying, it's making buying again and reordering again feel even easier. So you can save on the app your usual order, you can order ahead, you can reorder quickly, you can almost customize things, you can remove things if you want to. It basically removes all that faff from the entire experience. So the app's doing two jobs at once. It's rewarding repeat behavior and it makes repeat behavior more likely. It's really clever. A lot of brands actually build loyalty programs that are trying to force this attachment, but the best loyalty programs are not trying to create this loyalty from scratch. They're trying to make existing repeat behavior easier, more rewarding, and way more seamless. And their app helps do exactly that. Almost as if they've asked the question, how do we support and strengthen the behavior we already want more of? The key thing with loyalty is to reinforce it. Now, here's the bit so many people overlook completely. A funnel is not just operational, it's really emotional too. Beyond the convenience and the consistency of, say, Chick-fil-A, there is also a feeling attached to the experience. Their service style creates a real sense of warmth, ease, and care. People repeat what feels good. What keeps them coming back is not just the product itself, it's how the entire brand makes the experience feel as well. So if your customer journey feels really cold, forgettable, or almost like a bit flat, it's much harder to create that preference too. And that preference is what gives you like that pricing power, repeat business and loyalty as well. A funnel has moving parts, but it also has a whole mood attached to it too. And the best brands understand both. So the real lesson is not go and be more like Chick-fil-A. Obviously, not everyone is trying to build a drive-thru chicken empire, but the real takeaway is this the strongest customer funnels are the ones that actually make coming back feel incredibly natural. So ask yourself this: how do we make it easier for people to keep choosing us? That is where the real money is, and that is where retention is, and that is where growth actually starts getting cheaper as well. So if you're a founder, operator, or marketing manager listening to this, here's a practical takeaway from this episode. Take a proper look at your business and ask yourself, are we easy to understand? Are we easy to choose? Are we easy to buy from? Are we easy to come back to? And are we actually building habit or just hoping people return? Because I hope in a prayer is just not going to cut it anymore. Because if you can't answer those clearly, there's a good chance your funnel's weaker than you think. And that's the full fat version. Now tomorrow I'm talking about how Nespresso went from revolutionary to boring to cool again. And honestly, it's one of the most useful brand lessons out there. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you can listen to Full Fat Marketing Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. With new bite size episodes released daily from Monday to Friday, you can thank me later for that. Oh, and if you're enjoying the podcast, I'd really love it if you left a review. It really helps more people find it. See you tomorrow.