All consumers go through similar thought processes before deciding to buy. It’s up to you to nurture consumers along the way so that their behavior eventually leads to a sale. Making a marketing funnel is a process you’ll need to do on an ongoing basis in order to succeed.
The following article will discuss how this can be done in a few steps.
What Is Market Funneling?
A marketing funnel performs a similar action which guides lead pool customers through a series of steps, from the awareness to the consideration stage to the ready-to-buy stage.
The majority of consumers who browse your site will do so out of curiosity or at least with some interest in your product or service without ever making a purchase.
Who Uses a Marketing Funnel?
Market funneling can be used by anyone looking to increase more sales from their lead pool, namely:
- Entrepreneurs;
- Business executives.
Specific questions should be considered to create an effective marketing funnel such as:
- What type of information do I need to provide to help prospective buyers move from one stage to the next?
- When they do move from one stage to another, how will I know?
How Can Marketing Funneling Help Your Business?
Creating an effective marketing funnel can help you increase your consumer loyalty base. Customers are highly likely to continue to buy from you when they grasp how your service or product benefits them for the short and long term, especially when they continually save money by doing so.
Consumers who receive prior education about your business minimizes their confusion and disappointment of what to expect. Taking this simple action results in better leads. You’ll learn which leads to quickly pursue and those to place as follow-ups based on certain lead criteria such as:
- Consumers who view a combination of specific pages;
- Browser interaction with certain fill-in forms or surveys;
- Prospects who open a certain volume of e-mail messages;
- Direct requests for demonstrations or samples.
Learn How Well Your Funnel Works
You can use the following core Google Analytics metrics to learn just how well your marketing funnel works:
- Entry Sources: Monitors the sources from which people enter your funnel. It can help create ideas for widening your marketing campaigns.
- Time In and Exit From Stage: Tracks the time prospects stay within or fall out of your funnel stages. This may indicate a need to add more information so that questions about your site can have an answer.
- Content Piece Engagement Rate: Shows which calls to action (CTAs) are delivering the most consumer conversions through your marketing efforts to repeat your success rates with future campaigns.
- Opportunity Arrival Rate: Tracks how changes to your marketing strategy are impacted by the number of sales opportunities present in your funnel.
- Sales Rate: Tracks the ratio of sales opportunities that convert into sales. If your sales rate falls way below your expectations, you can review some of your other metrics to pinpoint the problem. Then, increase your marketing funnel sales rate.
- Abandonment Rate: It may also be beneficial to track abandonment rates if you use an e-cart to see exactly why visitors aren’t completing the checkout stage. This issue might easily be resolved by sending a follow-up email or phone call.
6 Ways to Create An Effective Marketing Funnel
1. Creating a Simple Home Page Is Essential for an Effective Marketing Funnel
The technique of less is more is shown to work better to convert sales than publishing a Home Page that’s glutted with information.
One of the easiest ways to draw prospects into a buying funnel is to offer free information. These can be:
- Webinars;
- Digital downloads;
- Free trials.
2. Establish Yourself as an Industry Leader by Publishing a White Paper
On the downside, white papers are less personable and typically longer to read. Landing pages and keyword-driven unbiased guest blogs, and social media posts tend to be more engaging/conversational, easier to scan, and less technical.
You can also post an onsite 50-second video demo, chat option or a contact phone number to help consumers get familiarized with your business.
3. Describe the Perks of Using Your Service or Product
Do it so that viewers will include these factors when they search for alternative businesses in the future. You could also post a sign-up form that asks for a free online demonstration via paid advertising on Google AdWords.
4. Create a Product Comparison Chart That Showcases Your Product’s Uniqueness
Provide case studies or testimonials of how you solved various problems or needs in the past.
5. Create a Few Blog Posts
Focus on what happens after your consumers complete a purchase to help them feel comfortable with their investment decision.
6. Create a Marketing Funnel That Gives Consumers a Virtual Tour of Your Business
Whether you’re selling a new type of product that meets an unrealized need or you’re established and want to increase your sales, market funneling teaches you to focus a large amount of your energy educating consumers about your business.
People like like be told a good story, and what better way to do this than to take consumers on a virtual tour? Independent research studies show that the likelihood of online viewers buying from a business increases by 115 percent when a product or service is integrated with a virtual tour or video as opposed to using still images.
Final Thoughts
A marketing funnel is designed to convert a visitor from a casual browser into a paying customer. Although its creation and execution is a long, complex process, many of the details can be accomplished with good preparation.
No matter what single or combined method is used, site content should be produced that’s interesting and pleasurable, doesn’t waste consumers’ time, and offers practical solutions to solve specific problems. Do you have experience creating a great marketing funnel? Post your insights on Facebook now.
The images are from depositphotos.com.