Without this sales funnel, 73 percent of customers won’t be ready to buy
I know you’re sick of hearing it. But it’s true.
Developing a strong digital marketing funnel with a compelling customer experience is a fool-proof method to secure conversions. But it’s not as simple as sharing a few posts on social media, publishing a couple of blogs, and hoping for engagement.
It’s a deeply researched, coordinated multi-channel effort to establish relationships with your target audience. Nurturing these connections will build the trust you need to see a sale through to the end.
Here are two key strategies you can use to extend the reach of your digital marketing sales funnel for better conversion rates and customer retention.
Strong digital marketing sales funnels can bring in countless leads. | Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
Digital marketing strategy for lead nurturing
Here’s the hard truth: 73 percent of prospective customers aren’t ready to buy anything from you.
In ‘How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-By-Step System For More Sales, to More Customers, More Often,’ Ray Edwards writes,
“Prospects never read anything at first; they never believe anything at first; and they never buy anything at first.”
But you can overcome this. Reaching your target market can increase your qualified leads by as much as 450 percent… if you do it right. And how’s that exactly? By doing your research, and implementing their genuine challenges and values into the sales funnel.
That’s precisely why Phoebe Smith, PR Executive at The Pearl Lemon Group, suggests developing an in-depth understanding of your target audience’s perspective before constructing your sales funnel. She believes that the best, most effective technique for sales funnel optimization is to get familiar with their potential customers’ thought processes.
“It’s essential to match the main decision points from your customers’ point of view with the sales stages within your company…. The key here is to gain an understanding of the thought process of your leads and how they are moving into the next phase, helping you determine which calls-to-action to use.” Once you’ve got this down, Smith advises that you consult an industry peer and revise regularly to ensure the sharpest accuracy and top performance.
An example of a high-performing sales funnel
You’ve probably seen countless graphics illustrating the general ideal structure for a high-performing sales funnel. But here’s one with a little more detail that you can use right away:
This digital marketing funnel setup will guide your visitor through a carefully curated brand experience that will inevitably lead them to buy from you. You’ll attract new customers and maintain a thriving consumer community by utilizing the property marketing channels and techniques like those below.
Email marketing for lead generation
Using your website alone won’t always be enough. That’s why Kim Herrington, SEO and SEM Consultant at kimberlyherrington.com says, “Don’t be dependent on a single channel for acquiring new customers….Make sure you have at least 2-3 strong channels for acquiring new customers so you’re on more solid footing if platforms or regulations change.”
When done right, adding email to your lead generation channels can be highly beneficial for traffic and conversions for your business. Here’s why.
Compelling Content Yields Conversions
Email content is not restricted to one type of communication. Most people associate email marketing campaigns with repetitive information that lacks real substance. You know, the ones that bombard customers with "Ongoing Sale!" and "Buy Now!" There are many different types of information you can distribute with an email list. All of it should be geared toward making each paying customer feel personally connected to your brand. This connection will increase the likelihood that they will continue buying from your company.
Powerful email marketing campaigns typically include these examples, as explained by expert copywriter, Ray Edwards:
Live: A series of emails geared toward a single promotional purpose. This trait might lead some to call these sequences “commercial.” “Live” means you’re writing them as you go, potentially including references to current events to demonstrate their freshness.
Automated: As you might’ve guessed, these are automated sequences that you might schedule for newsletter subscribers. You’ll often see these as “on-boarding” campaigns that introduce new site visitors to your philosophy or as post-sale messages, emails that customers receive after buying a specific product.
Broadcast: These are standalone emails that are designed for a specific purpose (e.g., promotion, information, customer retention, etc.). They are not a part of a larger sequence.
Additional Traits of Powerful Email Marketing Campaigns
One of the primary purposes of your email content should be to make your customers feel as if they are active members of your company. One of the only ways to express genuine care for your customers is to maintain open lines of communication via email lists.
Still, how do you ensure that your customers will actually engage with the content you’re sending? By integrating the following elements into your emails, you can ensure that your audience will view the information upon receipt:
Clear, intriguing subject lines
User-generated content
Personalized greetings
Engaging message preview text
Mobile optimization
A persuasive call to action
Keep your customers up to speed on all happenings in your business with reliable email lists that will work both in your customers’ and your favor.
Social media marketing for lead generation
Social media marketing, or SMM, is the use of social media platforms to market and distribute an organization's products or services. Social media websites share a massive network of people - 3.96 billion to be specific - who are eager to seek and share information, and of course, buy things from trustworthy businesses.
In fact, Bernadette Butler, Founder and CEO of the patented video story platform, StoryTap, says, “The easiest way to turn shoppers into buyers is to build fast consumer trust by leveraging your real customers to tell a variety of different stories on video for things like video reviews for your website, TikTok videos, Video SEO, and more.”
In other words, strategic social media campaigns that engage your target audience are critical to boosting your brand awareness, leads, and conversions. StoryTap’s recent study showed that almost 89 percent of consumers trust real customer reviews over influencers’. Only about one-third of people are moderately likely to buy anything endorsed by an influencer.
Creating high-performing social media content
SMM is one of the best ways to drive traffic to a company's website to generate revenue and build rapport with potential customers. To do this, you'll want to make content that is specifically tailored to your target audience.
When you create content, especially with your target audience in mind, it increases the likelihood that they'll first see your content, to begin with.
Some of the best ways you can ensure your target audience sees and engages with your social media activity are:
Adding relevant hashtags to your posts
Sharing informative web content (ideally linking back to your business platform)
Incorporating attention-grabbing media like pictures and videos
Another reason why SMM is so powerful is that it allows your customers and readers to interact with you directly. This helps to form a more personal connection between your business and the public. Social media interactions also provide your prospective clients with a functional, intimate knowledge of your business's values and goals, helping to build a strong customer relationship.
Successful social media marketing for small businesses also depends on posting your content at the site's most active times. These periods differ between platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, so you'll need to do some background research before getting started.
To help you in your SMM journey, here's a guide filled with everything you need to know to develop your marketing strategy for social media.
How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Marketing
Marketing strategist Adam Erhart points out one of the most common mistakes new business owners make when beginning in SMM:
“One of the most common pieces of advice - and by far, one of the biggest myths in marketing is that you need to do everything and be everywhere. And this is absolute garbage.”
While you certainly want to build your online presence, the real key to meaningful business growth is knowing how to select the most strategic platform to meet your customers where they are.
Also, think about it this way: It doesn't make much sense for your marketing presence to be everywhere, all the time, because your customers aren't everywhere, all the time. It's much more likely that you will find your target audience in only a handful of specific platforms and channels, so you'll want to do some market research to find those communities.
Here are a few tips to help you home in on the appropriate social media channels:
Is your product a want or need? If you're selling casual, leisure products, you're more likely to have success on a social media platform like Instagram's shopping page. Necessities are best left for marketing through organic search or paid ads.
Which platform is best for your brand? Different social media websites are geared toward particular content types. For instance, Instagram and Snapchat are heavily centered on sharing photos, while Twitter and Facebook are more text-based. Think about what type of content makes the most sense for your business and establish your presence on that platform.
Where’s your audience? These crucial data points will help you identify the best channels for content marketing:
Women are more likely to use Facebook than men (77 vs. 61 percent)
Women are more likely to use Instagram than men (44 vs. 36 percent)
Men are more likely to use LinkedIn than women (31 vs. 26 percent)
70 percent of people who have a Facebook profile earn more than $75K yearly
People who live in rural areas are more likely to have a Facebook profile than LinkedIn or Instagram (67 percent Facebook, 15 percent LinkedIn, 25 percent Instagram)
More of Facebook's users have graduated college (73 percent vs. 49 percent Instagram and 51 percent LinkedIn)
A customer journey through the conversion funnel. | Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash
Does your digital marketing funnel work? Make sure with a strong CTA
The CTA is critical to any marketing campaign. Don’t fall into the trap of most entrepreneurs: The thought that your products will “sell themselves.” They absolutely won’t, especially if your sales funnel is weak.
Plus, how do you expect a customer to make a purchase or take advantage of special offers if you haven't told them how? That’s the purpose of a CTA.
Position the call at a pivotal, deciding moment of the customer experience. This will boost the likelihood that the lead will follow through with the desired action.
“You have to ask for the sale in order to get it. I guarantee you’ll lose 100 percent of the sales that you don’t ask for.”
For instance, imagine that you sell pet products. Your sales funnel would probably take customers on an emotional and enlightening journey, reminding buyers of how much they love their animal companions, amplifying their frustrations with their pets’ current food, toys, etc., and how your product can eliminate this frustration and change their precious pets’ lives for the better.
They’ll feel hesitant. It’s your job to make the rollercoaster you’ve taken them on mean something.
(I mean, people don’t always want to buy things. That’s why you need to work so hard to convince them to part with their hard-earned money.)
So, here’s how you do it. Add that “extra degree” you need to get the customer from 211 to 212 degrees, or in other words, from hot to boiling.
Edwards points out that this difference of a single degree makes all the difference in water’s power. When it’s hot, it can make you some tasty tea. When it’s boiling, the steam literally moves ships and trains. Getting your customer to “boil” means you’re turning potential into action.
That extra degree should be something that adds value to the main offer, such as a free offering.
The added value will push them over the edge, or get them “boiling” to the point that they can’t refuse your offer. At that point, you whip out that compelling CTA with something so specific that there’s no chance you or the customer can screw it up.
Try something like, “Click here to order now” or “Fill out this form to sign up” will tell your customer exactly where they need to go and what they need to do to act on your offer and reap the proposed benefits.
Now, my friend, your lead has become a customer.
These are only two of the many ways in which a strong sales funnel will boost your site’s conversion rates. Integrate it wisely, and you’ll reap the benefits for your online business!
P.S. Don’t know where to start? I can help with that. Content marketing is one of the most effective tools you can use to build the top of the sales funnel. Click here to get a 30-Day Content Strategy Plan to start generating leads and building brand authority.
