Earning profits by selling products or services is the motive of every business. But to make enough profits for your business’s sustenance and growth, you need to have a well-thought and defined strategy. A digital marketing sales funnel provides you with this strategy.
This funnel guides you on how to attract maximum customers to your website/landing page, turn them into qualified buyers and retain them.
For building a profitable digital marketing sales funnel for your business, you need to focus on these essential things –
Structure
A digital marketing sales funnel’s structure is simple and comprises three core components.
Foundation
The foundation of your marketing funnel provides you with a deep understanding of your target audience, i.e., your potential customers. It gives you a sense of their problems, main characteristics and distinguishing features of their perception. It also throws light on their product searching and buying behavior. If you can identify your customers’ problems, you can come up with the best solution and attract customers to use it. A comprehensive understanding of these aspects of your customers will help you build a highly converting funnel.
Floodgate
A floodgate combines all marketing channels to drive a lead through the funnel, from first acquaintances to generating repeat sales. These include both online as well as offline marketing channels. Online channels include email marketing, content marketing, social media, SEO, and paid advertising. Offline channels include outdoor advertising like billboards, transit posters, print directories, branded events, etc.
These channels help to engage your audience (potential customers) and inspire them to visit the funnel.
The actual sales funnel
The traffic generated from various marketing channels is directed to the sales funnel. Though this funnel can take various forms, it usually involves a lead magnet, an amplifier, and a conversion event. A lead magnet captures the user’s interest, and an amplifier helps position your brand as a superior choice against rival businesses. A conversion event is an event where the user turns into a lead. These core components are the strategic part of the digital marketing funnel.
Let’s now cover the stages which are the practical part of the funnel.
Generally, there are three stages of a marketing funnel.
Let’s now cover the stages which are the practical part of the funnel.
Generally, there are three stages of a marketing funnel.
Top of the funnel
At this stage, you carefully introduce your business to prospective customers. While presenting your business to them, you should avoid intrusiveness and pressure.
Middle of the funnel
Here you propose to continue acquaintance, share your business’s offer, give the user time to think about it and compare it with other options. The user may have two or three options to consider, including yours.
Bottom of the funnel
The user purchases at this stage, but it is not the end of the funnel. Here you will continue to build relationships with them and work towards enhancing customer loyalty.
Let’s now tell you about the purpose of every stage of the digital marketing sales funnel.
The AIDA concept will help you better understand the purposes of the stages of the funnel. This concept was used by marketers earlier for defining the objectives of stages of the marketing funnel.
AIDA means –
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
The majority of the marketing funnel examples were built according to this concept. In such a funnel, you had to tell the user about your business, awaken his interest, provoke his desire and motivate him to take action. Everything is simple and clear in these funnels.
A funnel based on AIDA’s digital marketing funnel does not work well today as it did before. The reason is that users’ behaviour and preferences are changing, becoming more sophisticated and demanding.
So, in today’s time, a slightly modified but much more efficient digital marketing funnel is required like the one given below.
Awareness
It is the first stage in this funnel. Here you make an acquaintance with a user and tell him that your business is here to solve his problem.
Consideration
Here you give some time to the customer to analyze your offer, compare it with your competitors’ offers and take the final decision.
Purchase
It is an essential part of the funnel. At this stage, a customer purchases your product or service, and it means that the two previous stages of the funnel, namely awareness and consideration, are successfully passed.
Post-purchase
This stage is equally important as the purchase stage. Here you focus on developing relations between your business brand and the customer, eventually leading to the customer making repeated purchases in the coming time.
The actual stages in this new funnel are almost similar to those in the AIDA-concept-based funnel. But it has one significant advancement over the AIDA funnel, i.e. the cyclical (recurrent) nature. This new funnel does not end abruptly like the AIDA funnel; businesses focus on building post-purchase relationships with clients and buyers.
For businesses implementing this new funnel, action is not the final goal. Instead, it is only the beginning. Their final goal is to provide a captivating post-purchase experience to customers. So, they get inspired to return to your brand again and again to make the purchase.
In this new funnel, awareness is a part of its top stage. Consideration and purchase lie in the middle stage of the funnel, and post-purchase comes under the bottom stage of the funnel.
Now we will guide you on how to apply this new digital marketing funnel for your business. Here we will tell you about the tasks and tactics you need to perform to complete various stages of this funnel.
Now we will guide you on how to apply this new digital marketing funnel for your business. Here we will tell you about the tasks and tactics you need to perform to complete various stages of this funnel.
These tasks and tactics will attract users to your funnel and move them from top to bottom.
Awareness
To effectively spread awareness about your business among users, you need to do the following:-
Design a landing page for every product or service your business offers.
Optimize your website content for SEO to get more organic traffic from search engines.
Offer website visitors a lead magnet like a lead generation form. It will provide them with something useful and valuable like an eBook when they exchange their email or phone number.
Run an advertising campaign on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking platforms.
Send the first chain of welcome letters to the email addresses you have collected from leads.
Optimize your website content for SEO to get more organic traffic from search engines.
Offer website visitors a lead magnet like a lead generation form. It will provide them with something useful and valuable like an eBook when they exchange their email or phone number.
Run an advertising campaign on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking platforms.
Send the first chain of welcome letters to the email addresses you have collected from leads.
Consideration
Here, you will propose the users to consider your offer and explain what is unique about it.
For this, you will have to perform these activities.
Continue doing targeted email marketing and send highly personalized offers to users.
Monitor the metrics. Also, analyze the behavior of your leads in terms of the products they are interested in and how much time they spend on your website. Also, you need to analyze their responses, comments, questions and other aspects of their behavior.
Ask leads to follow your business brand on social media and communicate with you through messengers.
Invite users to go through the white papers that present the research undertaken exclusively by your business.
Organize some online or offline events.
Create an innovative and professional video about your product and post it on YouTube. Educating potential customers about your product and engaging them will help generate sales.
Continue doing targeted email marketing and send highly personalized offers to users.
Monitor the metrics. Also, analyze the behavior of your leads in terms of the products they are interested in and how much time they spend on your website. Also, you need to analyze their responses, comments, questions and other aspects of their behavior.
Ask leads to follow your business brand on social media and communicate with you through messengers.
Invite users to go through the white papers that present the research undertaken exclusively by your business.
Organize some online or offline events.
Create an innovative and professional video about your product and post it on YouTube. Educating potential customers about your product and engaging them will help generate sales.
Purchase
It is the most critical time when you are trying to motivate users to make a purchase.
Prove your product/service’s quality and efficacy by sharing testimonials from real clients.
Share your company’s case studies where you have described how your product helped to solve some business issue for a client.
Share other incredible content in the form of blogs, brochures, etc., that talk about the features and benefits of your product in more detail.
Explain to users how your product is better than those of your competitors
Please do not push your product to them as this may chase them away.
Allow users to have a free trial of your product for a certain period to test it.
Share your company’s case studies where you have described how your product helped to solve some business issue for a client.
Share other incredible content in the form of blogs, brochures, etc., that talk about the features and benefits of your product in more detail.
Explain to users how your product is better than those of your competitors
Please do not push your product to them as this may chase them away.
Allow users to have a free trial of your product for a certain period to test it.
Also, try these little tricks
After sending your personalized offer to users, give them some time to assess the offer and compare it with your competitors.
If users don’t take the desired action, analyze customer behavior and try to find the mistake.
If you find no mistake, send them a reminder with a countdown timer.
If users don’t take the desired action, analyze customer behavior and try to find the mistake.
If you find no mistake, send them a reminder with a countdown timer.
Post-purchase
Once a user purchases your product, this is not the end of his customer journey; rather, it is the beginning. Here you will focus on strengthening your relationships with first-time and existing customers. You can perform the following activities to build stronger relationships with them.
Send exclusive offers to them.
Give them top-quality customer service, a great shopping experience and all-star treatment.
Maintain communication with them through social media and messengers.
Enhance customer engagement levels with giveaways and social media contests.
Send special thank you notes and gifts to them.
Invite them to take part in your loyalty and referral programs.
Send them branded merchandise.
Give them top-quality customer service, a great shopping experience and all-star treatment.
Maintain communication with them through social media and messengers.
Enhance customer engagement levels with giveaways and social media contests.
Send special thank you notes and gifts to them.
Invite them to take part in your loyalty and referral programs.
Send them branded merchandise.
These activities will make your customers feel valued, cared for and happy. Consequently, this will help cultivate their loyalty and trust in your brand. Also, they will become loyal brand advocates of your business. Not only will they visit your business again and again for repeat purchases, but they will also send more new customers to your business.
Conclusion
This new digital marketing funnel with a cyclical nature provides your business with a scalable and comprehensive marketing strategy. You can effectively use this strategy to attract and engage users, turn them into buyers, retain them and build long-term relationships with them. This funnel will eventually help your business gain more traffic, customers, sales, profits, and ROI.
If you need help building and implementing such a profitable digital marketing sales funnel, approach a specialist digital marketing company in Delaware. Its seasoned digital marketers will help to build a highly converting and business-booming digital marketing sales funnel for your business.
