What’s the job of a marketing funnel? In the English language, a funnel is used to pour any fluid into a desired pot or container. It's wider at the top and gradually narrows down to a small opening at the bottom. But why do you need to know this? As a marketer or someone running a business of their own, to understand the concept of digital marketing sales funnels, you need to understand the concept of the term “funnel.”
In digital marketing terms, a digital marketing sales funnel is a set of methods used to generate traffic to your digital platform and convert the leads into loyal customers who then go on to vouch for your business.
Marketing is the most crucial factor in generating sales. Many successful companies have upgraded themselves from traditional to digital marketing methods. Traditional marketing included television adverts, advertising on billboards, word of mouth marketing, etc. The potential of growth was very limited. The arrival of the internet and social media has taken the concept of digital marketing to new horizons. One of the most remarkable techniques that marketers have come up with is to use a digital marketing sales funnel to get the audience to buy their promoted products.
Digital marketing sales funnels are vital for businesses to grow and generate huge sales. In this article, you will learn the following.
- What is digital marketing sales funnel, and how does it work?
- Why do you need a marketing sales funnel for your business?
- How to develop an effective sales funnel?
What is Digital Marketing Sales Funnel and How Does it Work?
Let’s try understanding digital marketing sales funnel with the help of an example.
Let’s say you want to buy a product online. The first thing you might do is search on the internet. You might use a search engine and type the specific word there, or you can even directly access the product’s website if you are already familiar with the brand. Once you are on the website, you will scroll through the interface to find your desired product. You’ll select the product and add it to your shopping cart. Finally, you will make a transaction and pay for the purchase through your digital wallet or debit/credit card.
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If you liked the product, you might repurchase it. You might also recommend it to your family and friends. If the online store you bought it from allows you to post a review, you might choose to write a positive product review since you are satisfied with it.
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All these steps you go through to purchase your desired product are involved in the digital marketing sales funnel. Thus, a sales funnel is what transforms a stranger into a devoted customer who tells their friends and family about your brand.
Importance of Digital Marketing Sales Funnel for Your Business?
The importance of digital marketing sales funnel can be understood through the leads to conversion ratio. The better the conversion rate, the more effective the funnel is. Ideally, all the leads should be converted into customers. But that’s practically impossible. The central concept of a sales funnel is to increase the number of leads that convert into customers.
The number of people actually buying your product will always be much less than the number of people showing up on the website. All you need to do is develop better methods and ideas to create a digital marketing sales funnel that can maximize the number of conversions.
In short, digital marketing sales funnels are vital because they provide benefits to your business in the following ways.
- They increase your sales and customers’ brand loyalty.
- They help you provide value to your store’s visitors, leading to natural conversions.
- The higher level of sales generated through an effective digital marketing sales funnel amounts to higher revenue for your business.
How to Develop an Effective Sales Funnel?
You need to develop a sales funnel that can convert visitors into buyers. The funnel structure should be organized so that the user has a sense of value addition at every stage. The funnel then tracks the behavior of the visitors and categorizes them to have a better understanding of how your structure is working. Different businesses require different sales funnel structures according to their product and business model. Here’s our guide to digital marketing sales funnel development and the basic steps involved.
1. Create an Online Platform or Landing Page - a Website or Mobile App
Visitors arrive on your website or landing page through different mediums like social media, email newsletters, or sponsored ads. Once they have arrived at your platform, it’s your job to provide them with a great user-friendly experience. Your landing page should be able to effectively persuade the visitor into buying the advertised product. This is a critical step that determines the effectiveness of your digital marketing sales funnel. The whole idea is to convert as many visitors into potential customers as possible. Thus, a user-friendly interface that makes the whole buying process easy and fun are essential.
If you want to build a professional website or landing page for your business, check out the tools and templates available on Strikingly. The website templates we provide are ready to use, and adding content to them does not require you to write any code. Many of our users can successfully get their website on Strikingly up and running in just a few hours.
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2. Get the Contact Information
How will you get the visitors to come back again and again even if they did not purchase for the first time? The best way is to get their contact information, a crucial aspect of a digital marketing sales funnel. Because you don’t want to lose a lead whom you can convert with your constant persuasion through your marketing strategies. So, once a visitor lands on your website, get the contact information to let them never miss an update about your business. Find a way to get the emails, phone numbers, and social media information that can eventually help you track their shopping habits.
If you create your website on Strikingly, you can easily add a subscription form to it to invite your site visitors to drop their email addresses in return for an exciting incentive, such as a free giveaway.
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3. Add Value to the Experience
When a visitor lands on your landing page that means they have shown interest in whatever you are providing there. This is your opportunity to impress and convince them further. Brand your product in such a way that adds value to what the visitor is looking for. When you hit the visitor's pain point, there is a big chance of them converting into potential customers. Tapping on the audience's pain points at every stage is one of the main functions of a good digital marketing sales funnel.
Good marketing allows you to create a fantastic user experience for your website visitors. When your visitors are happy with the content they find on your site, they will spend more time browsing through it and like to revisit it later. This dramatically increases the chances of them making a purchase. If they find a product on your online store but cannot afford to buy it today, they will definitely come back to your site another day when they have the money to pay for it.
4. Seal the Deal
Once you have added value to the user, now it’s time for the call to action. You have already convinced the visitor, making an irresistible offer for them. The best way to do that is to provide a free trial, free demo, etc. Giving the assurance of safe investment like “Money-back Guarantee” is another excellent way of persuasion. Provide discounts and coupon codes for loyal customers to enhance your relationship with your audience.
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5. Repeat and Update
Keeping in touch with your audience is essential for you to grow your business. This is the last part of the digital marketing sales funnel where you keep your audience engaged and improve the funnel structure. Track the trends of users in the different funnel stages, find the shortcomings, review the performance, and then update your funneling structure to enhance sales as much as possible. Effective digital marketing sales funnels, once developed, can really help your business grow with little effort.
Now that you know how to create a digital marketing sales funnel and why you need to have one to effectively promote your products, you can take the first step and visit Strikingly to build your free, professional brand website today. You cannot do successful digital marketing without having a website that's easy for you to update, manage and maintain. Strikingly's tools are developed so that you don’t need to hire a web developer to make any minor changes to your site’s content or layout. You can manage everything on your own with ease, and if faced with difficulty, get in touch with our customer support team through live chat.
