Marketing Funnel Strategies to Boost Sales
Your marketing funnel is a snapshot of your customer's journey, from the first impression of your brand to becoming a customer. Your marketing funnel is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. It should be unique to match the individual needs of your buyers.
A well-thought-out marketing funnel should not only convert new customers but focus on retaining them without driving up marketing costs.
What’s amazing about your marketing funnel is that there are many opportunities to boost sales at each stage, and here are the strategies you can begin ASAP.
How does the marketing funnel work?
The marketing funnel is a model used by marketers to illustrate the stages a potential customer goes through before marking a purchase. The marketing funnel typically includes 3 main stages:
- Awareness - First discovery moments from prospects with either your brand and/or products.
- Consideration - They’re interested but not ready to buy now – perhaps comparing you against the competition or waiting for a special offer.
- Purchase - Prospects are interested, ready to buy, and actively evaluating your products/service vs your competitors.
Capture leads at every stage of the funnel.
Capturing leads at every stage of the marketing funnel is important because it helps build and maintain a healthy pipeline of potential customers that can ultimately result in increased sales and revenue.
Each customer has unique needs, preferences, and behaviors that can affect their journey through the funnel. They will each go through multiple stages of the funnel, but the path is not always the same.
Tracking each step of the customer’s journey can be a challenge, but thankfully there are tools to help with this! Tracking tools like Hubspot Lead Management or PlusThis can help measure campaign success, allocate resources, identify the most profitable customers, and keep your business competitive.
Marketing funnel strategies to boost sales.
AWARENESS
At the top of the funnel, a potential buyer becomes aware of your brand. At this stage, marketing strategies should focus on creating awareness and building trust with customers.
Awareness questions to answer:
- What are the buyer’s goals and current challenges/obstacles?
- For the buyer, what is the impact of doing nothing?
- What are the key pain points and challenges faced by potential customers in your industry?
- How can your products/services help solve those challenges?
- Who are the key decision-makers in the organizations you're targeting?
Awareness strategies and campaign examples to drive brand awareness, website traffic and mainly net new leads into marketing database:
- Thought Leadership and/or Content Marketing campaign - Create valuable and informative blog posts, videos, or infographics that address the pain points of your target audience, with the goal of increasing website traffic and engagement. KPIs could include the number of unique visitors, time spent on site, and bounce rates.
- SEO Campaigns - Optimizing your website and content for search engines can help potential customers find your service when they are searching for solutions. For these campaigns, your team should optimize website content, structure, and technical aspects to improve search engine visibility. Cheap and great SEO tool to use Ahrefs or SEMrush or Moz. Typical KPIs to measure include organic search traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, time on page, backlinks, domain authority, conversion rate, revenue generated.
- Paid and/or organic social campaigns - If you have some budget then paid social campaigns are a powerful way to reach a large audience and generate interest in your product if you post consistently! Try creating targeted ads that highlight the key benefits of your product or service and encourage potential customers to take action. LinkedIn Sponsored Content campaign - Create a sponsored content campaign on LinkedIn targeted at your ideal B2B audience, with metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC) as KPIs. Google Ads campaign - Develop a Google Ads campaign to drive traffic to your website or landing page, with metrics such as cost per lead (CPL) and conversion rate (CVR) as KPIs.
CONSIDERATION
At this stage of the funnel, potential buyers have taken an interest in your product. Marketing strategies should focus on building credibility and trust so that potential buyers consider your product as a solution to solve their problem vs a competitor.
Consideration questions to answer:
- How does your product/service compare to competitors in the market?
- What are the unique features and benefits of your product/service that sets it apart?
- What is the pricing structure of your product/service?
Consideration strategies to boost sales:
- Case Studies campaigns - Focus on case case studies and customer testimonials as part of content campaigns at this funnel stage to showcase how your product or service has helped other businesses similar to your target audience. This is a powerful way to build credibility, create trust, and demonstrate value. Typical KPIs would include website traffic, leads generated, and pipeline generation.
- Product demo and/or consultation campaigns - Offering live or recorded product demos showcase the key features and benefits of your service and help potential customers understand how it solves their problem. Leverage inbound chat on your website to quickly qualify leads and schedule consultations, and consider hosting webinars or local events to provide more personalized consultations and/or demos to a wider audience. Typical KPIs would include consultation requests, consultation conversion rate, and revenue generated from consultations.
- Email campaigns (acquisition and/or nurture) - Email campaigns are both effective and affordable, especially for high-growth tech startups that are constantly optimizing company metrics to get to the next round of growth. Build deeper credibility by promoting content such as customer reviews and customer testimonials in email campaigns. Typical KPIs could include email open rate, click-through rate (CTR), number of meeting scheduled and pipeline attribution.
PURCHASE
After considering all available options, potential buyers reach a point where they have to make their final decision on whether or not to purchase something. Marketing strategies during this stage should focus on making the buying process as easy and seamless as possible for the customer. It’s essential to remove any barriers that prevent them from completing the purchase.
Purchase questions to answer:
- What do buyers need to prepare to make the purchase?
- What is the buying process for potential customers in your industry?
- How can you make it easy and convenient for customers to purchase your product/service?
- What are the different pricing options and packages that you can offer to potential customers?
Purchase strategies to boost sales:
- Offer free trials - Who doesn’t love a free trial? Offering a free trial can give buyers the opportunity to try the product before committing to a purchase. Free trials reduce the customer’s risk and ultimately convert more customers.
- Simplify the final purchase process - Make the checkout process as easy as possible with a clear and concise website, easy navigation, and personalized experience.
- Use live chats or phone calls - A live chat, or better yet, phone call allows buyers to get immediate help and support with any questions or concerns they may have. This can help to eliminate any doubts or confusion.
- Proposal Follow-up campaign - Typical KPIs would include proposal acceptance rate, deal size, and deal velocity. Channel recommendations include marketing automation, personalized video content, and sales follow-up calls.
Maximizing leads and conversions at every stage of a B2B marketing funnel is essential for driving sales growth. A well-structured marketing funnel provides a roadmap for guiding potential customers through the buying journey, from initial awareness to making a purchase.
In order to maximize leads and conversions at each stage of the funnel, companies should focus on developing targeted messaging, providing relevant content and resources, and optimizing the user experience. By continuously monitoring and analyzing performance metrics, businesses can identify areas for improvement and adjust their strategies to improve performance.
Overall, developing effective marketing funnel strategies will generate more leads, increase pipeline volume and pipeline velocity and is crucial for driving sales growth.
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