A conversion funnel, sometimes referred to as a sales or marketing funnel, is a term to describe the different stages of a buyer’s journey potential customers have to go through before they convert, whether that be a purchase, donation, or any other action you want them to take. As a marketer, you must guide people through the funnel by leveraging different strategies we will discuss below.
Traditional Conversion Funnel Stages
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU): This stage is all about awareness. A potential customer enters this phase when they begin to engage with your brand, most of the time through a website, advertisement, or social media.
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): This is also called the consideration phase. The prospect knows about your brand and continues to engage with it to learn more about your product and brand. Potential customers may sign up for your newsletter, download guides, or follow you on social media during this stage.
- Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): And finally, the conversion phase. A prospect is right here before they finally purchase, which means you have successfully given them good content and relevant touchpoints. You can push them to convert by making it easy to purchase, sending a discount, or offering a trial.
Content for TOFU/Awareness
Advertisements
Running advertisements is one of the easiest ways to increase traffic to your website. Most businesses focus on two types of ads
- Search Ads: Google Ads, Ads on Bing, etc.
- Social Ads: On platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc.
Using one or a combination of both are great ways to get your brand in front of an audience. In fact, for every $1 spent on Google Ads, a business earns $2 of revenue, according to Google. In addition, social ad spending is on the rise, so if you can figure out who your audience is and what platforms they love, you’re set up for success.
Landing Page
When you are running paid ads, you’re going to send most of the traffic to your landing pages. In order to encourage visitors to move into the consideration phase, your landing page needs to communicate one simple message with enough value to convince your viewers to keep engaging.
Video
For prospects who don’t know anything about your brand or the product you are offering, videos are a great way to communicate who you are during the discovery phase.
Videos also produce higher SEO and engagement, which is essential for a successful awareness stage.
Infographics
Infographics are also a great resource for capturing attention in addition to generating backlinks and social shares. Infographics are an easy and obvious choice if you’re dealing with data that needs to be visualized to attract consumers.
Content for MOFU/Consideration
Blog Posts
Once your leads have seen your landing page and know a little bit more about you, they are ready to learn a bit more before pulling the trigger on a purchase.
Trust is the next important factor in turning a lead into a conversion, and blog posts are one of the best ways to prove your credibility in your industry. By offering free advice and information to users, they will see you as an industry leader and be more inclined to engage with your brand and trust your product.
Social Media
Social media is great for attracting leads but can be equally beneficial for engaging with users you already have the attention of.
Social media provides a great platform to foster a sense of community and encourage engagement. In addition, by regularly updating your content channel on your social platforms, you can provide your prospects with easy access to your thoughts and advice.
Social media also gives potential customers a chance to see what your current customers are saying about your brand and product.
Emails
Email is one of the top ways to keep your leads engaged and moving through the funnel toward the final purchase.
The great thing about email is that it can be automated with detailed targeting to achieve a number of goals. For example, you are able to run a simple welcome sequence to help build your brand image as well as send triggered emails when someone views a page multiple times without purchasing. And don’t forget about abandoned cart emails for those prospects who need that little extra push to complete their purchase.
Content for BOFU/Conversions
As the last stop for potential buyers, this is the phase of the funnel that turns them into customers. It is essential that you remove as much friction as possible and strongly encourage people to take the final steps to convert.
Making sure your product or service pages are seamless and fully built out with engaging descriptions, videos, and photos can help optimize this phase. You want to make it super simple for people to compare product pricing and all product features. Email can be used again in this stage to remind people of their pending conversion.
Your Job Isn’t Done After Conversions
While you may have successfully pushed a customer through your conversion funnel, your work isn’t finished there. You need to then focus on re-engaging them. Customer retention is not just beneficial for growing your business, but it is a whole lot cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire a new one.
Once your customers make it through the funnel, continue to invite them to sign up for webinars, send promotions, market your loyalty program, and encourage them to follow you on social media.
