Mapping out a sales funnel is crucial for customer engagement. It provides valuable insights into your customers’ behaviors, needs, and challenges at each stage of their buying journey. And it helps you tailor your strategies to effectively reach, engage, and convert your target audience.
Understanding your sales funnel helps you create relevant content, provide effective solutions, and use appropriate channels for a seamless and personalized customer experience. In today’s article, we’ll show you our best funnel building strategies to make sure you get it right.
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Understanding the stages of the sales funnel
The sales funnel — also known as the customer journey — is a model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward purchasing a product or service. It’s often depicted as an inverted pyramid, consisting of five stages:
- Awareness — A potential customer becomes aware of your brand or product.
- Interest — They show interest in your brand or product by actively seeking more information.
- Desire — They’ve decided your product is one of the most feasible for them, but they’re still considering their options.
- Action — They commit to buying your product or service (or they’re ready to).
- Retention — Ideally, they continue to buy your products, recommend them to others, and become an advocate for your brand.
Funnel-building strategies for each sales funnel stage
Each stage requires a different approach and strategy to engage the customer effectively. So let’s dive into our top funnel-building strategies for each stage.
Awareness Stage
At the awareness stage, you’ll want to focus on demand generation tactics. Compared to lead generation, demand generation is about creating brand awareness and generating interest in your products or services.
This stage is all about capturing attention and getting people to notice you. You want to cast a wide net, so you’ll use the following channels to capture a broad audience:
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing (blog posts, videos, infographics)
- Influencer marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- PPC advertising
- Connected TV advertising
- Display advertising
Your goal isn’t to convert those who see your brand at this stage. Instead, you want to build trust and establish credibility by providing valuable information and showcasing your expertise. This is your way to get your foot in the door with them.
Interest Stage
Out of all the people who see your awareness-stage marketing collateral, some of them will want to look into your brand further. This might be right away (e.g., if they see an online ad). Or, it could be months after they first saw your brand on TV. Either way, you’ll need to continue capturing their interest.
This is the stage where lead generation comes into play. At this point, potential customers are keen on learning more about your brand or product and considering it as an option.
To engage those interested leads, use the following tactics:
- Use gated content (eBooks, webinars) to capture contact information
- Create personalized email campaigns
- Conduct webinars or live events
- Run interactive social media campaigns (polls, quizzes)
- Create informative content like product demos and how-tos your potential customers can use to solve their problems.
At this stage, customers probably aren’t ready to talk to someone from your sales team just yet. They’re still gathering information and considering their options. So use your content to educate, entertain and engage them.
Desire Stage
Once you’ve captured the interest of potential customers, it’s time to move them towards the decision-making phase. At this stage, they know about your brand and are interested in what you offer. Now, you need to convince them that your product or service is better than the alternatives.
To cover your marketing strategy at this stage, here are some ideas:
- Use case studies and customer testimonials
- Offer free trials or demos
- Publish user-generated content on your website and social media channels
- Create urgency with limited-time offers
- Provide personalized recommendations based on their interests and needs
- Remind buyers of the cost of holding off on their decision
Remember, they’re still considering their options at this stage, so don’t push too hard. Instead, focus on building trust and showcasing your product’s value.
Action Stage
This is the final stage of the funnel, where potential customers turn into paying customers. Your goal at this point is to make the buying process as easy and seamless as possible.
Here are some strategies you can use:
- Simplify the checkout process
- Remove unnecessary friction from the buying process (for deals with multiple decision-makers)
- Allow multiple payment options
- Provide excellent customer service
- Drive home your product’s benefits with comparison pages and personalized product demos
Make sure to keep your communication with customers open and transparent so they feel confident in their purchase.
Retention Stage
The retention stage is arguably your most important because it directly impacts customer lifetime value. If CLV is tied to one-off purchases, you’ll always be on the hamster wheel, continually needing new customers. With repeat purchases from loyal customers, you’ll have a much more stable business model.
To retain customers, you need to continue providing value and nurturing your relationship with them. Here are some strategies for keeping your customers engaged and coming back:
- Offer loyalty programs or rewards
- Provide personalized upsells and cross-sells
- Send personalized emails with exclusive offers or content
- Create a referral program for satisfied customers to recommend your brand to others
Remember, retention is all about building long-term relationships and keeping your customers happy and engaged.
Final thoughts
Building an effective sales funnel requires understanding the stages of the customer journey and implementing specific strategies for each stage. By using these tactics, you can maximize customer engagement and increase your chances of converting potential customers into loyal advocates for your brand. So keep these strategies in mind and (most importantly) analyze and adjust your funnel to find what works best for your business.
