Building a successful marketing funnel, like the one depicted above you need to use several steps to capture the attention of as many people in your target market as possible then a plan to drive them down the funnel toward a purchase, ultimately, becoming a sustained customer who recommends your products to friends and family. The steps listed below are perfect for filling your sales funnel then effectively driving as many as possible to purchase.
Writing, social media channels, and videos
Content is the force driving the sales funnel and a successful marketing funnel uses a variety of content containing the right message for users at each stage in the process. Maybe you start with educational, interesting, or entertaining articles, videos, and social media posts about your products or services. At this early stage, you don’t go in for the kill with heavy-handed promotion, as your goal is to build as much awareness as possible. Creating content worth sharing, or content that spurs other forms of engagement amplifies your message to extend your reach.
A great offer from ClickFunnels helps build your sales funnel as much as possible. Basically, a program like ClickFunnels allows you to enter all the pertinent information about the campaign. The program creates the best sales funnel plan, and it can automatically do some of the work for you.
Emails
Awareness of your brand progresses toward interest when users begin engaging with your brand, looking for more information. To satisfy this interest, post videos that explain how your products or services work, show your products in action (especially by influencers) or post something on Instagram that shows your products in a positive light.
Offer a closer relationship by suggesting visitors take the next step by signing up for your newsletter to learn more, thus driving them closer toward making a purchase. Email marketing is a great way to continue moving consumers toward purchase. Building an email list then sending email containing content that resonates with consumers or answers their questions, helps drive purchase. If nothing else, email marketing keeps your brand top-of-mind so when it comes time to make a purchase, your product is considered. At this point, you’ve progressed to the consideration stage with this user.
The emails you send should not be monotonous and should present valuable information to readers, such as educational articles, links to your social media accounts, videos. Also, respond immediately to any replies you get to your messages.
It’s challenging to get your email messages to users, especially if they use providers like Gmail as these services routinely sequester promotional messages to a separate (often ignored) folder. To avoid this problem, ask prospective customers to add your email address to their contacts when they sign up,
Used properly, you’ll find email marketing is a good place to get to know customers while keeping your company in front of them as much as possible.
Blog posts
People who visit your website need to see blog posts and valuable content that helps them make informed decisions. Ensure logical navigation to help visitors find the information they need to make a decision and use tools to recommend similar content to visitors. Include a CTA (call to action) to ensure a successful marketing funnel leads to purchase.
Doing double duty, you should send an excerpt from the post in an email, putting a “read more” link in every email so that customers can click through to read the entire article.
You can also post on other blogs or websites as a guest. Guest posts are a great way to reach and attract more users, thus starting them on their journey down the marketing funnel, which you develop by asking them to sign up for your email marketing in the call to action in your blog post.
You might also provide links to your videos or social media accounts and use these platforms as an additional tool in constructing successful marketing funnel.
Contests
Contests are a good way to reach new prospective buyers and gain more engagement from those already somewhere along the marketing funnel. Contest work especially well in gaining trial when your product is the award at the end of the contest.
The idea of winning free stuff is enticing and you can host contests through email, on social media, or on your website at any time. Entries to the contest also help build your email list to ensure the sustained contact necessary for a successful marketing funnel.
Contests drive additional awareness when the winners crow about their good luck in winning. A contest winner is likely to remain a loyal customer because you created a shared memory with them. While you do not need to run contests all the time, you can make a big splash with a contest that has a valuable prize. People that have never heard of you might enter, and they can join the sales funnel at this point.
A unique example of this was a contest run by Roto-Rooter several years ago. The prize was a “tricked out John” featuring a small platform to hole your laptop or phone, a TV, a magazine holder, remotes, and a bunch of other stuff that most of us use at some point while seated. The prize was so unusually and absurd, the company gained millions of dollars of media exposure.
Upsell, cross-sell, next-sell
A successful marketing funnel doesn’t stop with the first purchase but strives to turn customers into sustaining members of your customer base.
After a customer makes a purchase, it’s a good time to upsell, cross-sell, and next-sell. You upsell customers by offering additional products related to the purchase or by offering other products that may meet customer needs better. Many companies like Amazon and Best Buy use the upsell process before customers even checkout by suggesting bundles that complete the initial item placed into the shopping cart.
You can cross-sell products that were not part of the initial purchase. “Now that you have purchased X product, you might also like Y product” is a good way to get customers to buy more than one thing from your business. If these customers get used to buying multiple products from you, you double or triple your profit on every sale.
Obviously, you never ignore the potential for next-sell after a customer makes a purchase. Ensure you capture an email address (and maybe a phone number) so you can reach out to the customer in the future. Certain next-sell efforts actually increase the opportunity to make future sales by focusing on building a relationship with your customer. For instance, you might include a little thank-you note to include with the shipment or add a little something extra in the package by way of thanks.
Loyalty rewards
Loyalty rewards programs are a good way for you to pay your customers back for shopping with you, thus taking customers who already purchased and turning them into sustained customer groups. A loyalty program encourages customers to make purchases over time because they know they get something back with every purchase. A loyalty program is also a good way to “tip people over the edge” so that they feel like they are getting more value out of shopping with you than your competition.
Close and refer
Once you closed a sale, you should ask your customers to refer you to anyone who might need your help. Referrals are a good form of marketing that works for all businesses. Let your customers know that you will always have their back. They need to feel like they have “a guy” they can turn to for assistance, and they will tell their referrals that they have “a guy” that can help. Referrals then move to the front of the sales funnel, and you market them just as you would everyone else coming into the funnel.
Set Up A Sales Funnel for Your Company Today
You can set up a sales funnel for your company today, and you should make sure that you use all the steps listed above. You can start with the first contact, inform your customers, interact with them, upsell, and gain referrals. Each step of the process increases profits and your overall customer base.
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