The Sales Funnel Every Small Business Needs
Businesses are no longer competing with the local competitor a few miles away, they are now competing with the roughly 7.1 million ecommerce businesses in the world—not to mention the roughly 1.8 million right here in the U.S.
Global competition has proven to be challenging for many large companies and corporations, however it’s nothing in comparison to what small businesses have to endure given their much smaller budgets. Yet, 35% of small business owners feel that their business is too small for a website—a gross misconception.
The main way for small businesses to attempt to level the playing field is to embrace digital culture and the plethora of content marketing opportunities it affords.
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
— Content Marketing Institute
For a sales & marketing strategy to be considered strong, you need an efficient and effective sales funnel.
Enter the ultimate sales funnel, the AIDA Model.
AIDA is an acronym for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action, which are the 4 stages of a prospective customer’s digital journey.
Awareness
Marketing is impossible without great content. The content shared in this early stage of the consumer’s journey is used to build brand awareness and brand identity. Branding is used to build consumer trust and in turn is a driver for repeat customers, in addition to providing valuable information that drives purchasing decisions.
The awareness stage is where the first point of contact is made with your brand. This introduction can look like a Facebook Ad, shared post on social media, sponsored ad on YouTube, or a trending blog article for the keywords searched on the first page of the Google Search Results. The common thread between all of these pieces of digital content is content marketing, which is a tool used to generate interest in a company’s products or services. It also serves a channel to drive people to your website, where they can ultimately take action.
Pro Tip: Determine your Unique Selling Proposition (what separates your brand from the competition?).
Interest
Content is used to generate interest and positively impact a prospective customer’s purchasing decision. The goal is to convert a cold lead into a warm lead.
“Craft content that solves your audience’s problems.”
Be creative—get your message out in a way that gets noticed. When developing content, remember to remain authentic and true to your brand story. Be sure to show your brand’s personality—the intersection between your brand voice, style, and place.
The key to standing out from the digital noise is to share information that speaks directly to the consumer—share valuable and relevant information through personal anecdotes, stories, and experiences. When engaging with your content, the consumer should be able to say to themselves, “They’re talking to/about me.”
Pro Tip: Include a Email Sign Up form with a lead magnet on your homepage header (HERO) or sidebar. When creating your lead magnet, ask yourself “what does my target audience need help with?” The sign up form will add the consumer to a nurture email campaign sequence for warm leads, where you can hard sell later on in the funnel cycle.
Desire
The desire stage is where the act of moving the consumer from liking what you offer to actually wanting to buy it occurs. Emotional marketing is the driving force of this stage—you need to create a personal and emotional connection with your audience. How do you do this? Relate to them. Here are some questions to get you closer to knowing your audience:
What are the pain points that these customers are feeling?
What is most important to these customers?
What makes them tick?
Use the answers to these questions to develop content that speaks directly to your ideal customer.
Pro Tip: Use “Customer Insights” on any of your marketing tools like Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, etc to get a better understanding of your audience’s behaviors. What compels them to make a purchase?
Action
The action stage is where the consumer takes a specific step towards becoming a new customer. This can look like signing up for your email list, registering for a class or webinar, scheduling a consultation, or purchasing a product/service.
Pro Tip: Make sure that the copy of your website includes a call-to-action (CTA) and easy instructions on how to complete that action.
After doing all of that work to convert a curious consumer into a customer by bringing them through the funnel, your next priority becomes to keep them!
The Extra letter “R” for RETENTION
It costs upwards of 5-6x as much to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, so this is an important piece of the sales funnel. Also, contrary to popular belief, loyal customers are worth up to 10x as much after they make their first purchase. So, how do you continue to serve your customers post-purchase—through exclusive content in the form of email campaigns with customer-only discounts/access or digital content like YouTube tutorial series.
Pro Tip: Make sure to leverage segmentation/tagging functionality when sending out email campaigns to a customer-base, so that you are sending relevant information and creating a personalized experience for your customer. i.e) Don’t send a promotional email about [XYZ Service/Product] to a customer that is already enrolled in/purchased that service/product.
What’s Your Brand’s Digital Footprint?
Having a consistent, recognizable brand via a digital footprint is crucial. Content marketing gets 3x the leads per dollar spent when compared to paid search efforts. It also generates 3x as many leads as outbound marketing, but costs 62% less.
The marketing sweet spot is where exceptional content meets a strategic plan. I offer strategy-based, 3-month content marketing calendars that include campaign initiatives, daily content posts, deliverable task lists, and content KPIs for multi-channel distribution.
If you are interested in taking control of your content marketing engine and getting your time back, please feel free to schedule a free consultation here.
By Joanne Augustin