- Find out why advertising sales funnel is a fantastic addition to your business.
- Learn exactly what’s involved in a successful sales funnel.
- Find out how you can implement a digital advertising sales funnel in your online business.
You may have heard of the term sales funnel and been a bit baffled by what it means. Well wonder no more! A digital sales funnel is a marketing term for the process of your customers journey from potential customer to a successful sale. There are several steps on this journey and it is great for your business to get to know all the processes your consumer goes through.
Many business owners will be familiar with the sensation of a lost sale and will wonder at what point did the customer lose interest. This is what an online sales funnel will help you with, identifying the point at which your customer lost interest and if it is a pattern. Read on to learn more about how a successful sales funnel can be a fantastic addition to your business.
Why is it important to my online business?
An online sales funnel is important even to an already successful online business as you may have potential customers that have lost interest in your product or service at some point. Your display ads, organic ads or other forms of digital marketing can be tweaked to capture the lost sale and convert it into a successful purchase.
Or you may have to review the demographics you are targeting in your display ad network. By identifying those gaps you may be able to understand your customers on a deeper level. It also gives yourself the chance to see your business through the eyes of your customers.
What are the steps of an online marketing funnel?
Usually there are 4 main steps to a successful online marketing funnel.
Stage 1 - Awareness
This is a crucial aspect for all businesses, big or small. This is how your potential customers become aware of your product or service. Many people become aware of your product due to online display ads for new customers or strangers, social media marketing, blogs, search engines or simply word of mouth.
Your display ads are crucial to the success of your awareness campaign, particularly if it’s a new product or service You must build awareness of your product because how else are customers going to find you?
Stage 2 - Interest
Once your target audience has heard of your product or service, they will evaluate your product and decide whether to proceed. They may decide to do further research before committing to your product. Capturing interest is also due to offering a competitive price and premium product as well as your awareness campaign.
Stage 3 - Decision
Your potential customers will be investigating options on your website or product page. Transparency is crucial in this step. Make sure you let the customer know about your product options. Do you offer a better price to buy in bulk? Also a seamless user experience is another great way to ensure your customer will proceed to the next step. If your website is hard to navigate, you may lose potential customers. However a great retargeting campaign can lure your potential customers back.
Stage 4 - Action
All of your awareness campaigns, market research, and user experience on your website will boil down to this last step. By now your customer will be aware of your product and your competitors’ options. They have chosen yours. If you lose your customers at this step, all is not lost. A great retargeting campaign will remind your customers of your product.
Oftentimes your customer might also be waiting until payday to purchase your product, so a retargeting campaign is a fantastic way to keep your product at the top of their mind. A retargeting campaign is also brilliant if you have a successful sale as your customer may then let their friends know about the fabulous product they just bought.
How can I set up a digital marketing funnel?
Good news, a digital advertising funnel isn’t an overly complicated task. You need some components to create a successful funnel such as:
1. A great display ad that links to a great landing page or website.
A great way to ensure the success of your digital ad is a clean simple direct ad that has a UTM (unique tracking module) that gives your customer a unique id so you can see it your demographic targeting is on point. And give you the opportunity to see where the most traffic is coming from. This is helpful for future display ad campaigns.
This is a crucial aspect to your digital marketing campaign in all steps of the funnel. It will be the first step or ‘top funnel’ on the buying journey for your customers. Your landing page doesn’t need to be state of the art, however clean simple graphics and an easy to navigate page is crucial.
Your page should also communicate who you are as a company and what your values are. The last thing your page should have is some information on what sets your company apart from your competition. This is a great way to secure a sale and a long term customer.
2. Offer something of value to the customer.
This tactic can come in many forms. If you are selling a beauty product, perhaps some online videos on how to use your products both on the website and on social media. Showing exactly how to apply the product is a great way to reassure your customers and make them want to use the product.
You can insert these videos into your display ad campaign as well! Or perhaps you are a marketing firm and it’s a white paper on how to ensure your digital campaign is successful. Your display ad can advertise this white paper with something like ‘5 Marketing Pitfalls to avoid’. This can also reassure potential clients that your company really cares about your success and will be more likely to partner with you.
3. Nurture the interest in your company.
By implementing the first two steps you can be confident that you will have your clients contact details in the form of emails or social media followers. By sending a weekly email or letting them know when a product is on sale you can turn previously lost sales into successful customers.
Remember, not everyone will always purchase your product straight away. This can be due to a lack of funds or time. By nurturing that interest and reminding your potential customers that you are still around is a great way to make the funnel work for you.
4. Upselling.
Upselling can be a crucial part of turning a customer from a potential buyer to a successful customer. It can come in many forms and is not as simple as Would you like fries with that?’.
You can offer bulk discounts when buying more of your product or have a monthly subscription that saves your customers money in the long run. For services you can offer a discounted rate in a month that you are traditionally slow in to lure in undecided customers.
5. Continue communication.
A great sales funnel won’t stop after you have had a successful sale. Keeping the communication going after your sale is also crucial. Remember, you don’t just want one-off sales, you want to have your customers return, time and time again. Email your customers when you are having a sale, want feedback or create a product knowledge EDM with great tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your product. Social media is also a great way to stay in touch with your customers and you can also get some great testimonials as well!
What can I do if I find a 'bottleneck' in my sales funnel?
It can be a great idea to get an outsider’s view on your product and your online presence and sales process. There are many services that can take a look at the sales journey and identify exactly what is stopping customers from completing their transaction. If however you can identify where in the sales journey your customer is leaving, it still may be helpful to get an outsiders opinion.
You might need an external resource such as a marketing company to help retarget potential customers. Or your display ads may not be letting the customer know exactly what your product is. You may want to engage the services of a professional writer to cultivate EDM’s that nurture your potential customers’ connection to your business.
You also may want to look at the end sales process and integrate a payment platform that streamlines your business. The bottom line is when you are cultivating your own business, be it small or mid sized, it can be hard to see objectively.
Can marketing automation software help my digital sales funnel?
As your business grows, marketing automation software can help streamline your follow up and nurturing tactics. You will need to be careful that your follow up emails are personalized and don’t appear automated. However some software can send different emails for different parts of the sales funnel.
If someone has left something in their cart and hasn’t purchased it you can send an automated email with ‘oops you have something left in your cart, would you like to purchase now?’. This software is great for follow up and nurturing. However a strong presence on social media and an easy to use website are still incredibly important. Automation is a great advantage, but not everything.
Now you have learned exactly how to create a successful digital advertising funnel you should:
Evaluate your sales process by making sure your sales strategy has the following elements.
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
After your self evaluation, enlist the help of a marketing expert or firm to have a second opinion. Or alternatively you can send a digital survey to previous customers to find out what their experience was. If you are aware where your bottleneck is, look at ways to solve it. Do you need a better display ad campaign? Are your ads leading to the correct page for the product or service. Is your website a terrible user experience?
Again it’s great to get some outside perspective on your sales process so make use of that in the form of a marketing expert or previous customer. There are many easy solutions that can remove bottlenecks from your sales funnel and nurture more customers immediately and in the future.