In the competitive marketing world, it's no secret that building strong relationships with customers is crucial for success.

While traditional sales funnels focus on converting leads into immediate sales, a relationship-led approach prioritizes cultivating long-term connections and loyalty with customers. This technique, known as the "relationship funnel," has gained traction recently as businesses have shifted their focus toward customer-centric strategies.

In this blog post, we'll take an in-depth look at how implementing a relationship funnel can transform your marketing efforts and help you build lasting connections with your target audience.

So buckle up and get ready to dive into relationship-led marketing!

Understanding the Relationship-Led Marketing Strategy

In an era where consumers are bombarded with ads and promotions, a relationship-led marketing strategy stands out as it focuses on creating meaningful interactions. This approach is rooted in understanding and meeting the needs of customers on a deeper level, rather than just selling a product or service.

The importance of this strategy in today's business landscape can't be overstated; it builds trust, fosters loyalty, and encourages word-of-mouth referrals which are invaluable in the age of social media.

Moreover, it aligns perfectly with the shift towards a more customer-centric business model, where the customer's long-term value is considered over short-term gains. Embracing a relationship-led marketing strategy is a transformative move that puts the human element back into marketing, paving the way for more sustainable business growth.

The Basics of a Relationship Funnel

The essence of a relationship funnel is simple: it's a customer journey framework that nurtures prospects into becoming loyal advocates for the brand. At its core, it's about engaging potential customers at various touchpoints and developing those interactions into a long-term relationship rather than focusing solely on immediate transactions.

The process typically begins with the initial contact or lead generation and gradually moves through stages of engagement, such as providing valuable content, interactive communication, and personalized experiences.

The relationship funnel is circular rather than linear, meaning that after a purchase, the focus shifts to keeping the customer engaged with the brand through excellent service and continued value, thereby creating a feedback loop that sparks repeat business and referrals.

Image Source: SuperOffice

Understanding how to effectively manage each stage of the relationship funnel is key to fostering lasting customer loyalty.

The Distinction Between Relationship Funnels and Sales Funnels

The traditional sales funnel and the contemporary relationship funnel may seem similar at first glance because they both guide potential customers toward making a purchase. However, the philosophy and long-term objectives behind each are distinctively different.

A sales funnel is commonly structured as a linear path with the sole focus on closing a sale. It emphasizes the number of leads entering the top and pushes them through various stages such as awareness, interest, decision, and action with little regard for the post-purchase relationship. Conversely, the relationship funnel adopts a holistic and cyclical approach.

It extends beyond the transaction to nurture an ongoing relationship, ensuring that customers feel valued and remain engaged, often turning into brand advocates. This commitment to the post-sale relationship increases customer lifetime value and generates organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty.

While a sales funnel might prioritize quantity, a relationship funnel revolves around the quality of interactions and the sustainable growth that emanates from strong customer relationships.

Image Source: SuperOffice

Building a Relationship Funnel: A Step-by-Step Guide

Crafting a successful relationship funnel involves a series of strategic steps designed to attract, engage, and maintain relationships with customers. Here's how you can build your relationship funnel, step by step:

1. Identify Your Audience

To begin crafting your relationship funnel, you need to identify who your target customers are with precision. Understanding your audience's demographics, psychographic, and behaviors will empower you to tailor your marketing messages and relationship-building strategies effectively.

You can gather this vital information through market research, surveys, customer feedback, and data analytics. Create detailed buyer personas that go beyond basic age and location to include interests, values, job roles, and challenges. These personas will serve as foundational guides in designing personalized experiences for your customers at every stage of the relationship funnel.

By knowing your target audience intimately, you position your brand to connect with them meaningfully, paving the way for genuine relationships to flourish.

2. Attract Prospects With Tailored Strategies

Once you have a firm grasp of who your audience is, the next move is to attract these prospects through a blend of content marketing, social media engagement, search engine optimization (SEO), and targeted paid advertising.

Create valuable and relevant content that resonates with the interests and needs of your audience, possibly in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, or infographics. Utilize SEO best practices to ensure your content ranks highly in search engine results, making it more accessible to those seeking the solutions you offer.

Engage with potential customers on social media platforms where they are most active, by sharing content, participating in conversations, and using social media advertising to reach a larger audience with precision.

Paid advertising campaigns via Google Ads, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other channels can also effectively drive targeted traffic to your offerings. Combining these strategies will establish the first point of contact with potential customers, setting the stage for a relationship that can develop and strengthen over time.

3. Engage With Value

Once the initial attraction stage has brought prospective customers into the orbit of your brand, it's critical to engage them with valuable information and practical solutions that address their unique problems and needs.

It is where the relationship funnel begins to deepen — through consistent delivery of high-quality content such as detailed guides, how-to articles, webinars, or case studies that both inform and demonstrate your ability to solve their issues.

Employ email marketing campaigns with personalized messaging based on the customer profiles you've developed. This not just draws them closer to your funnel, but also establishes your brand as a thought leader and a trustworthy advisor in your industry.

By providing actionable insights and significant value without immediately pushing for a sale, you nurture a sense of goodwill and build the foundations of a relationship predicated on mutual benefit and respect.

It's through these sustained and meaningful interactions that prospects can start to envision a future where your products or services play a key role in resolving their challenges or augmenting their pursuits.

4. Foster Relationships Through Interactive Communication

Proactive engagement on social media is an integral element of the relationship funnel, turning initial connections into enduring relationships. Interacting with customers on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram allows you to participate in conversations, understand customer sentiments, and respond to their needs in real time.

Use these channels to not only share content but also to celebrate customer achievements, answer queries, and acknowledge feedback. Employ social listening tools to monitor mentions of your brand and industry trends, so you can join relevant discussions and position your company as an active community member.

Personalized responses, rather than automated or standardized replies, demonstrate a genuine interest in building a rapport with your audience. By encouraging dialogue and providing a space for customers to voice their thoughts, you create a sense of community and belonging, which is fundamental to nurturing long-lasting relationships.

5. Convert With Empathy

At this stage in the relationship funnel, your goal is to gently guide your prospects toward making a purchase decision in an empathetic and customer-centric manner. It's crucial to approach this phase with an understanding that trust has been built and a bond formed.

Focus on nurturing this relationship by addressing potential concerns and barriers to purchase with empathy. Techniques such as personalized email workflows that offer solutions to their challenges, retargeting ads that remind them of the value you offer, or providing free trials and demonstrations, allow them to experience your offerings firsthand.

Engage in consultative selling by advising rather than pushing, ensuring that your communication is positive and solution-oriented. Understanding the emotional journey of your customers and showing that you not only recognize but also prioritize their needs, makes for a powerful, empathy-driven push towards the final decision point.

Image Source: Starlight

This careful consideration throughout the process reinforces the relationship and increases the likelihood of conversion.

6. Deliver Exceptional Service

Once a customer has made a purchase, delivering exceptional after-sale service becomes the cornerstone of the relationship funnel. This stage is pivotal in solidifying the trust and loyalty of your clients and cannot be overlooked.

An outstanding customer service experience can be the difference between a one-time buyer and a lifelong brand advocate. Implement follow-up communications to ensure customers are satisfied with their purchase—this can be through personalized emails, satisfaction surveys, or proactive customer support channels.

Offer comprehensive onboarding resources, user guides, or free training sessions to aid in the effective use of your product or service. Promptly and efficiently address any issues or concerns that arise, showing your customers that their satisfaction is your top priority. Create a community for your customers, where they can engage with each other and your brand, offering a space for feedback and shared experiences.

By excelling in customer service, you reaffirm the value proposition of your brand and reassure customers that they have made the right choice, thereby not just maintaining but also enriching the relationship post-purchase.

7. Encourage Loyalty and Advocacy

Maintaining a thriving customer relationship goes beyond the initial sale; it requires continuous nurturing to encourage loyalty and turn customers into brand advocates. One effective way to achieve this is by implementing loyalty programs that reward repeat purchases and brand engagement with special deals or points that can be exchanged for exclusive offers.

Providing customers with early access to new products, special discounts, or members-only content can make them feel valued and appreciated, which fosters a deeper connection with your brand. Additionally, encourage your customers to share their positive experiences with your products or services through referral programs that reward them for bringing new customers into the fold.

By recognizing and appreciating the contributions of your loyal customers, you create an enthusiastic base of supporters who are more likely to spread the word about your brand, organically amplifying your reach and reputation.

Image Source: Zendesk‍

8. Analyze and Optimize

To ensure the health and efficiency of your relationship funnel, regular analysis and optimization are crucial. It involves monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates, customer satisfaction scores, retention rates, and customer lifetime value. Utilize analytics tools to track the customer journey and identify points of friction or drop-offs.

Gather customer feedback to understand their experiences and expectations better. Conduct A/B testing on various elements of your funnel, from email marketing campaigns to landing pages, to determine what resonates best with your audience. Use this data to refine your strategies, personalize engagement, and create more targeted content that can better meet the needs of your prospects and customers.

Optimization is a continuous process, and evolving your approach based on actionable insights ensures that your relationship funnel remains effective in building and maintaining strong customer relationships.

The funnel builder software by DashClicks is a powerful tool that streamlines and enhances your relationship funnel efforts.

Its intuitive interface and robust features simplify the creation and management of customized funnels tailored to your brand's unique approach. The software aids in precisely identifying and segmenting your audience, enabling targeted messages that resonate with different customer personas.

It automates critical touchpoints, providing consistent value to prospects without manual intervention, while also delivering valuable insights on customer interactions. Additionally, it optimizes the conversion process and offers post-purchase support, fostering long-term advocacy.

By utilizing the funnel building software, businesses can significantly elevate the effectiveness of their relationship funnels, driving sustainable growth through loyalty and advocacy.‍

Nurture Relationships Through Diverse Strategies

Building strong customer relationships is a multi-faceted endeavor that requires the implementation of various strategies. Each strategy can play a unique role in fostering deeper connections and promoting customer retention. Below are some of the key strategies and how they can be executed to nurture customer relationships effectively:

1. Personalized Communication

Personalization is not just about addressing a customer by name. It's an ongoing process that involves tailoring communication and offers to match the individual preferences and behaviors of customers.

Utilize customer data to segment your audience and deliver relevant content through personalized emails, targeted social media messages, and customized web experiences.

By showing customers that you recognize and consider their unique needs and desires, you cultivate a relationship that feels one-to-one, despite the digital distance.

2. Exceptional Customer Service

Customer service excellence should be at the heart of every interaction you have with your customers. It involves not only responding promptly and effectively to inquiries and issues but also proactively reaching out to customers to offer assistance before they even realize they need it.

Use customer support channels such as live chat, social media, and phone support to provide immediate and helpful assistance. By exceeding expectations in this area, you build trust and lay the foundation for a long-lasting relationship.

Further Reading: Tips to Develop and Follow A Great Customer Service Philosophy

3. Regular Feedback Collection

Soliciting and acting upon customer feedback demonstrates that you value their opinions and are committed to continuous improvement. Implement regular surveys, feedback forms, and other listening tools to gather insights directly from your customers.

Engage with them to understand their experiences fully and make it clear that their input is instrumental in shaping your products and services. It not only helps you to refine your offerings but also strengthens the customer relationship by showing them that their voice truly matters.

4. Educational Resources

Providing customers with educational content and resources relevant to your products or services can be a significant value-add. Develop tutorials, FAQs, how-to guides, and webinars that help customers get the most out of what you offer.

By empowering customers with knowledge and skills, you enhance their experience with your brand and position yourself as a helpful and indispensable resource.

5. Community Building

Encourage customers to become part of a larger community centered around your brand. Create forums, social media groups, or events where customers can interact with one another and your team.

By fostering a sense of community, you provide customers with a platform to share experiences, offer support, and build a network. This sense of belonging can enhance their relationship with your brand and encourage loyalty.

6. Regular Updates and Transparency

Keep customers in the loop with updates about your company, such as product launches, changes, or special events. Communicate openly about your business practices, successes, and challenges. Transparency builds trust, and customers will appreciate being treated as part of your brand's journey.

7. Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs reward customers for their repeated business, encouraging them to continue choosing your brand over competitors. Design a program that adds real value for the customer, with rewards that are both attainable and desirable.

Whether it's a points system, exclusive discounts, or membership benefits, a well-crafted loyalty program can be a powerful tool for building and maintaining strong customer relationships.

Image Source: CleverTap

Measuring Relationship Funnel Performance

Assessing the efficacy of your relationship funnel is pivotal to your business's long-term success. To gauge performance, you should closely monitor a series of metrics and indicators that reflect the strength and depth of the customer relationships you're building.

Key metrics include Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Net Promoter Score (NPS), churn rate, and the rate of repeat business. Each provides insights into different facets of the customer experience, from satisfaction and loyalty to the financial impact of your relationship-building efforts.

Analytical tools and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms can offer a wealth of data, allowing you to track these metrics over time and benchmark against industry standards.

By regularly reviewing and interpreting this data, you can make informed adjustments to your relationship funnel strategy, fine-tuning your approach to maximize customer satisfaction and business growth.

In the realm of customer relationship management, the DashClicks platform offers robust applications designed to streamline and enhance your strategies—particularly the white label CRM software and the while label analytics software.

The contact manager software serves as a centralized database where all customer data is organized and easily accessible. It allows for detailed profiling, segmentation, and personalized communication, empowering businesses to engage with customers in a more targeted and meaningful way.

On the other hand, the marketing analytics dashboard provides actionable insights by tracking metrics that matter, thus enabling businesses to measure and analyze the performance of their relationship funnels in real-time. Integration between the two allows for a seamless flow of information, aligning customer data with performance analytics to create a holistic view of your customer engagement and satisfaction levels.

By leveraging these tools, marketers can ensure their strategies are data-driven and optimized for success, fostering stronger customer relationships and driving business growth.

Conclusion: Cultivating Long-Term Customer Connections

In conclusion, building and maintaining robust customer relationships is an intricate process that requires careful attention to each stage of the relationship funnel. From initial engagement to post-purchase care, each interaction must be handled with a deliberate focus on customer satisfaction and retention.

 By implementing a mix of strategies — personalization, exceptional service, continuous feedback, educational support, community involvement, transparency, and loyalty programs — businesses can develop meaningful connections with customers that go beyond transactions.

Measuring the effectiveness of these efforts through actionable metrics is essential to understand their impact and to make necessary improvements. Ultimately, nurturing these relationships is not a one-time task but a continuous commitment to value creation.

By fostering trust, understanding, and a sense of community, companies can not only achieve sustainable growth but also turn their customers into dedicated brand advocates.

Are you looking to take your business’s lead generation game to the next level? Well, look no further! In this blog post, we'll discuss how to set up a successful lead generation funnel, taking into account the best practices for driving traffic and keeping potential customers engaged.

Whether you're just starting in online marketing or more experienced with it, mastering these steps will help ensure that your leads are being converted into paying customers and ultimately increasing company revenue.

So, if you're ready to turbocharge your lead gen efforts and start seeing results quickly, keep reading!

What Is a Lead Generation Funnel?

A lead generation funnel, at its core, is a strategic process designed to attract and convert prospects into customers by guiding them through various stages of the purchasing journey. Imagine a funnel, wide at the top and gradually narrowing down.

Similarly, in a lead generation funnel, a large pool of potential leads enters the top, and as they traverse down the funnel, they are filtered, segmented, and nurtured until they become valuable customers at the bottom.

Why does your business need a lead generation funnel? The answer is simple: to optimize your lead generation efforts and increase profits. A structured funnel helps identify and attract qualified leads and nurtures them through targeted messaging, making them more likely to convert into customers.

It allows you to better understand your customer's journey, enabling you to tailor your marketing efforts according to their needs and preferences. In essence, a lead generation funnel is key to creating a customer-centric marketing strategy that works.

What Are the Different Stages of Funnel Building?

The lead generation funnel can be broken down into four main stages:

1. Awareness

‍This is the top of the funnel where potential leads first come across your business or product. They could find you through search engines, social media, or word of mouth. At this stage, the main goal is to attract as many potential leads as possible through quality content and targeted advertising.

2. Interest

‍Once potential leads are aware of your business, the next stage is to pique their interest. It could mean offering more in-depth information about your product or services, answering common questions, or showcasing customer testimonials. The idea is to provide value to your prospects and show them why your business stands out.

3. Decision

‍At this stage, leads are seriously considering whether to make a purchase. Your job is to convince them that your product or service is the best choice. It could involve offering a free trial, showcasing your product's unique features, or aligning your product with their personal or business needs.

4. Action

‍This is the final stage of the funnel where leads decide to become customers. You should make this process as easy and appealing as possible with a clear call to action, an easy checkout process, and excellent customer service.

Image Source: Zendesk

Remember, the goal at each stage is to push leads down the funnel and build a relationship with them. This way, they're not just one-time customers, but loyal advocates for your brand.

How Do You Build a Lead Generation Funnel?

Building a lead generation funnel involves strategizing and implementing steps to attract, engage, and convert potential customers. Here, we will discuss in detail each step involved in constructing a lead generation funnel:

1. Identify Your Target Audience

In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of spreading your message to as many people as possible. But the truth is, not everyone will be interested or receptive to what you have to say.

That's why identifying your target audience is crucial. Who are the individuals that you want to reach? What message do you want to communicate to them? Understanding your audience and tailoring your message to meet their needs and preferences is the key to creating a truly engaging and impactful lead generation strategy.

Whether you're promoting a product, sharing valuable insights, or building a personal brand, taking the time to identify your target audience is the first step toward success.

2. Establish Your Brand’s Presence

Establishing your brand's presence online is essential in building a successful lead generation funnel. With a myriad of digital platforms at your disposal, you can effectively reach your target audience and make your brand more recognizable.

The primary tool to do this is through a well-designed, user-friendly website that communicates your brand values and offerings. Your website serves as your online hub, where potential leads can learn about your products or services, engage with your content, and make purchases.

In addition to a website, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter can be invaluable for connecting with your audience. Consistent, engaging posts that resonate with your target audience can increase brand visibility and foster customer loyalty.

Another important avenue for brand recognition is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By incorporating relevant keywords into your online content, you can improve your website's ranking on search engines, making it more likely for potential leads to find you.

Finally, consider leveraging email marketing. Regular newsletters or promotional emails can keep your brand top-of-mind for potential customers, while also providing them with valuable content or exclusive offers.

Remember, the goal is not just to create an online presence, but to ensure that your brand's online presence is consistent, engaging, and aligned with your audience's needs and preferences. It will help build trust and rapport with your audience, setting the stage for increased lead generation and conversions.

3. Develop a Lead Nurturing Strategy

A well-structured lead nurturing strategy is essential in guiding prospects through the buyer's journey. It involves delivering relevant and personalized content at each stage of the funnel, thus building deeper relationships and encouraging prospects to move closer to making a purchase.

• Email Drip Campaigns are a powerful lead-nurturing tool. By delivering a series of automated, targeted emails to prospects, you can keep them engaged with your brand over time. It could involve sending educational content, special offers, or company updates, depending on where they are in the buyer's journey.
• Content Marketing also plays a pivotal role in lead nurturing. Providing valuable, informative content that solves a problem or answers a question can help build trust and position your brand as an industry expert. It includes blog posts, e-books, webinars, or how-to guides.
• Personalization is key to successful lead nurturing. By tailoring your communication to the specific interests and needs of each prospect, you increase the chances of engagement and conversion. You can achieve this through dynamic content, segmented lists, and personalized email subject lines.
• Regular Follow-ups ensure that no lead falls through the cracks. Whether it's a simple email check-in or a more personalized phone call, following up shows prospects that you value their interest and are ready to assist them.
• Finally, it's important to regularly measure your lead nurturing efforts. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your success and be prepared to adjust your strategy based on what's working and what's not.

Remember, lead nurturing is not a one-size-fits-all process. It requires understanding your prospects’ needs and providing them with value at each stage of their journey. It will help convert leads into customers and foster long-term relationships that benefit your business in the long run.

4. Create Compelling Content for Each Stage of the Funnel

Creating compelling content tailored for each stage of the lead generation funnel is key for conversion.

• ‍Top of Funnel (TOFU): This is the awareness stage, where potential leads are just getting to know your brand. The goal is to attract as many prospects as possible by offering high-quality, informative content. Your content should focus on providing value and educating your audience. It could be blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and webinars that discuss prevalent industry challenges and solutions. Remember, the focus at this stage is not to sell, but to build credibility and trust.‍
• Middle of Funnel (MOFU): This is the consideration stage. Prospects are evaluating whether your product or service can solve their problem. Here, your content should delve deeper into your offerings, demonstrating the value you provide. This could include case studies, product demonstrations, and customer testimonials that showcase how your product or service has helped others. Offering free trials or consultations can also be beneficial at this stage.‍
• Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): This is the decision stage. Your prospects are ready to make a purchase decision, and your content should help tip the scales in your favor. This content should focus on the specifics of your product or service, showcasing its unique selling proposition. Offer detailed product guides, comparison charts, and FAQs to help them make an informed decision. A compelling call-to-action, like a limited-time discount or bonus, can incentivize prospects to take the plunge.

Remember, the key to successful content creation is understanding your audience's needs and preferences at each stage of the funnel. Tailoring your content to meet these needs can significantly increase conversion rates and foster long-lasting customer relationships.

5. Utilize Automation Tools

Utilizing automation tools can significantly streamline your lead generation efforts, saving you time and ensuring consistent and personalized communication with your leads. Here's how you can leverage email automation, CRM integration, and more:

• ‍Email Automation: Email automation tools allow you to set up automatic email sequences that deliver relevant content to your leads at the right time. These could be welcome emails, follow-up messages, or promotional offers. By automating these emails, you ensure consistent communication with your leads, while freeing up time to focus on other aspects of your business.‍
• CRM Integration: A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system helps you manage interactions with current and potential customers. It collects customer data, tracks their interaction with your business, and analyzes this data to enhance your customer service and nurture leads more effectively. By integrating sales CRM system with other tools like your website, email marketing software, or social media platforms, you can ensure a seamless flow of data and provide a more personalized experience to your leads.

• ‍Automation Tools: Several other automation tools can simplify your lead generation process. For instance, social media automation tools like Buffer or Hootsuite can help you schedule posts in advance, ensuring regular engagement with your audience. Website builder software by DashClicks can automate the process of creating high-converting landing pages. Tools like Google Analytics or SEMrush can provide valuable insights into your lead generation efforts, helping you optimize your strategy over time.

Remember, while automation can significantly enhance efficiency, it's important to maintain a personal touch in your interactions with leads. Balance automated processes with personalized communication to create a lead generation strategy that's both efficient and customer-centric.

6. Monitor Performance & Optimize When Necessary

Monitoring and optimizing your lead generation strategies is crucial for sustained growth and success. Using analytics tools enables you to understand which strategies effectively drive leads and which need improvement. Tools like white label analytics software by DashClicks provide valuable insights into customer behavior, traffic sources, and conversion rates.

• ‍Monitoring Performance: Regularly reviewing your key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, bounce rate, page views, click-through rates, and conversion rates can help you gauge the effectiveness of your strategies. For email marketing, monitor open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates. For social media, track follower growth, engagement, and shareability of your content.‍
• Optimizing Strategy: Based on your data, optimize your lead generation strategies. For instance, if you notice that a particular type of content is driving more engagement, consider producing more of that content. If a certain landing page has a low conversion rate, you might need to tweak its design or call to action.‍
• A/B Testing: This involves creating two versions of a page, email, or other content with one key difference, to see which performs better. It is a powerful way to improve your website, landing pages, or emails by testing different headlines, colors, images, or CTAs.‍
• User Feedback: Don’t forget the value of listening to your audience. Surveys, feedback forms, and direct communication can provide actionable insights.

Remember, lead generation is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and optimization. It's all about measuring, learning, and iterating. Continue refining your strategies based on data and customer feedback to maximize your lead generation outcomes.

Tips to Optimize Your Lead Generation Funnel

Here are some tips to optimize your lead generation funnel:

• ‍Understand Your Customer: Understand who your ideal customer is, what they want, and how your product or service fits into their lives. Creating buyer personas can be a helpful step in this process.‍
• Optimize Your Landing Pages: Make sure your landing pages are clear, concise, and compelling. They should quickly convey the value of your offer and encourage visitors to take action.‍
• Segment Your Audience: Not all leads are the same. Segment your audience based on their characteristics and behaviors, and tailor your messaging to these different segments.‍
• Nurture Your Leads: Don’t just generate leads and forget about them. Implement a lead nurturing strategy to guide them through the buyer’s journey and build stronger relationships.‍
• Test, Evaluate, and Adjust: Constantly test different aspects of your lead generation process, evaluate the results, and make adjustments based on these findings.‍
• Leverage Automation: Use automation tools to streamline and enhance your lead generation process. This includes email automation, CRM integration, and social media scheduling tools.‍
• Provide Value at Every Stage: From the top of the funnel to the bottom, make sure you’re providing value to your leads. This can be through informative content, helpful resources, or personalized communication.‍
• Track Your Results: Use analytics tools to track your results and gain insights into your lead generation process. Look at metrics like conversion rates, time spent on the page, and bounce rates.‍
• Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: It’s not just about generating a large number of leads, but about generating high-quality leads that are likely to convert. Focus on attracting leads that fit your buyer personas and are likely to become customers.‍
• Keep Learning: Lead generation is constantly evolving, so it’s important to keep learning and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.

Remember, optimizing your lead generation funnel is an ongoing process. By continuously refining your strategies and adapting to your audience’s needs, you can improve your conversion rates and achieve better results.

The funnel building software by DashClicks can significantly streamline your lead generation and nurturing processes. It provides a comprehensive and automated solution that assists businesses in engaging with potential customers, nurturing them, and eventually, converting them into brand loyalists.

• Build and Customize Funnels: With the software, you can create and customize your funnels to cater to your unique business needs. The platform offers a wide range of templates that are both user-friendly and conversion-optimized.
• Automate Email Campaigns: The software incorporates advanced email automation capabilities allowing you to send targeted emails to your leads at optimal times. It ensures leads receive personalized communication, increasing engagement rates.
• CRM Integration: The software seamlessly integrates with your CRM system, facilitating a streamlined flow of data. It helps you manage interactions with your leads effectively and provides insights to tailor your strategies.
• Performance Monitoring: The software offers robust analytics features. It helps you monitor the performance of your funnels, providing valuable insights that help you optimize your strategies based on real-time data.
• Quality Lead Generation: The software focuses on generating high-quality leads that are more likely to convert. It ensures you're investing resources in leads that have a high potential for becoming paying customers.

Remember, tools like funnel builder are designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your lead generation efforts. They form an integral part of a successful, data-driven lead generation strategy.‍

Wrapping Up!

Now that you are armed with the strategies and resources needed to create an effective marketing funnel, it’s time to get started! Identify your target audience, establish your brand’s presence, develop a lead nurturing strategy, create compelling content for each stage of the funnel, utilize automation tools, and monitor performance.

Once you’ve done that, go above and beyond and continuously optimize your marketing efforts! Whether it’s A/B testing emails or optimizing page copy or images - be creative and don’t be afraid to try new strategies until you find what works best for your audience.

Keep in mind that effective campaigns take time to develop, so remember to be patient and evaluate your campaigns regularly so you can make strategic course corrections when necessary.

In no time, you will have a comprehensive marketing funnel that is sure to promote growth for your company's bottom line. So don't wait any longer - put the knowledge from this blog post into practice today!

If you work in marketing or digital sales, you need to utilize marketing funnels. It is an entirely automated process that effectively functions as an around-the-clock sales device for your agency or business. The funnel provides carefully curated content that nurtures your prospects as opposed to cold selling.

Because the sales funnel is now such a staple, experts provide us with numerous options to more efficiently create, test, and manage our funnels. Here's a list of 9 AI marketing funnel tools that will revolutionize the way you market your brand online.

1. DashClicks

DashClicks is a SaaS (software as a service) platform that promises a complete package of solutions for digital marketing agencies. Included in this is a complete CRM for tracking your leads, deals, and existing customers. You can also use software applications included in every subscription to quickly build websites and landing pages with their drag-and-drop web builder.

A huge benefit that DashClicks offers over other platforms is its Inbound software application that offers integration with other marketing platforms including:

• ClickFunnels
• Instapage
• Facebook
• Google Ads
• Kartra
• CallRail
• PhoneSites
• ManyChat

Even if you prefer to utilize one of these other platforms for your initial funnel build, DashClicks allows you to instantly integrate your campaigns from any of these platforms. After integrating your sales funnel, you'll be able to automatically create new contacts from leads, create new deals from every interaction, and create automated actions such as email follow-ups depending on where the contact lies within your sales pipeline.

DashClicks offers three tiers of paid plans, but you can access the basics you need for your new funnel campaign with the free plan. This includes 500 contact records with a data import utility, one Inbound campaign with built-in reporting and lead freshness tracking, analytics tools, a customized dashboard with a white-labeled domain, and much more. Their paid plans range from $97/month for their Pro plan to $597/month for their highest-tier plan.

Image Source: DashClicks Leads CRM Dashboard

The major benefit of this platform is your ability to get all of the automated tools you need to enhance your funnel performance all within one account under one subscription. In addition to these marketing funnel tools, you'll get everything an agency could ever need including a form builder, 50-250GB of file storage, reputation management tools, dedicated support, and much more. They even provide a dedicated fulfillment store including website page creation and content marketing at additional costs, so that you can rely on a team of experts to build your new sales funnel for you.

2. SendPulse

SendPulse is a multi-channel marketing automation platform that optimizes communication with customers through email, SMS, web push, and messenger bots. SendPulse combines these channels to improve customer reach and engagement. Pricing starts at $6.40/month for a subscription plan. Also, you can pay for each email separately at a rate of $32 per 10,000 emails on a pay-as-you-go plan. There’s also a full featured 7-day free trial.

The free plan of SendPulse offers an opportunity for smaller businesses to start with their marketing and automation or to test out the platform’s basic functionalities before subscribing. Features include:

• Sending 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers each month.
• Basic automation with 5 flows and 1 event.
• 3 chatbots with 10,000 messages per month.
• CRM with 5 users, 2 sales pipelines and 2 boards.
• Intuitive visual builders for emails, websites, forms and workflows.
• 1 website or bio link page.
• Pop-ups.
• Unlimited web-push notifications for 10,000 subscribers.
• Sending 12,000 transactional emails per month.
• Template libraries for emails, websites, forms and workflows.
• Detailed statistics reports and analytics.

However, even if SendPulse's free plan generously allows for a good number of emails, bots and subscriber count, users are limited in their ability to add more without upgrading their plan. Additionally, many advanced premium features are not included which may limit marketing strategies.

SendPulse’s paid platform offers far more extensive features and capabilities. Paying users can enjoy the advantages of multi-channel marketing with unlimited numbers of emails and higher subscriber limits. The platform also provides access to advanced marketing automation, where users can automate marketing campaigns across multiple channels based on user behavior. Additionally, there’s the opportunity to use advanced segmentation, behavioral variables and event tracking for improved personalization of marketing efforts. This robust nature of the SendPulse paid platform makes it a reliable tool for growing businesses and marketing teams to communicate and engage with their customers more effectively.

3. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is one of the most popular sales funnel management tools among marketers and for great reason. This is a sales platform dedicated exclusively to building beautiful landing pages, collecting and tracking new signups, and seamlessly integrating payment solutions for immediate transactions.

Within the ClickFunnels platform, someone with zero HTML or CSS knowledge can quickly create multi-step sales marketing funnels that automatically walk prospects through the sales process. You can begin building from a variety of pre-existing templates or start from a completely blank page for full personalization. It also provides the option to create pop-ups with varying triggers, built-in timers, email marketing followup, and even SMS messaging with an additional integration.

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The basic ClickFunnels plan begins at $97/month and includes an unlimited contact book with the ability to create up to twenty unique marketing funnels. They offer two additional plans at $297/month and $2,497/month that offer unlimited campaigns, unlimited website pages, and email. The most expensive plan will also get you access to twenty-seven unique payment integrations, and the ability to use up to twenty-seven custom domains.

ClickFunnels also offers the powerful benefit of including built-in A/B testing tools, which allow you to test out new content and features within the same sales funnel. You can automatically pivot traffic to the best-performing pages and make optimizations as you go.

Finally, the platform offers all users access to support options and training tools. You can quickly access a library of resources for any particular issue you're facing with your sales funnel. Alternatively, you can quickly connect to a live chat and speak with an agent that will walk you through the solution for your sales funnel issues.

4. Systeme.io

Systeme.io is a powerful choice for marketing funnels due to the number of features being offered for no cost. Their free plan grants you the ability to create three sales funnels with up to ten total steps, a blog, a membership site, and much more. You'll gain the ability to send unlimited emails, unlimited file storage space, and the ability to add up to 2,000 contacts.

Systeme's free plan also grants you the following features, but limits them to just 1 per item:

• Automation Rules
• Workflows
• Tags
• Email Campaigns
• 1-Click Upsells
• A/B Tests
• Order Bumps
• Custom Domains

If you're looking to explore different options for your marketing funnels, Systeme.io offers all of the essentials to get started and then some. If you require a larger contact list or wish to create even more marketing funnels with these AI tools, you can upgrade to a paid plan which ranges from $27/month to $97/month. The most expensive plan grants you 15,000 contacts total as well as unlimited access to all other features.

In addition to the no limits offered with the highest-tier plan, you can migrate existing sales funnels into the Systeme.io platform. Finally, a team representative will meet with you one-on-one to coach you through all of the features and tools available to ensure that your marketing funnels are a success.

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While that covers the core features offered for marketing funnels, Systeme offers more with your membership plan including a drag-and-drop website builder that requires no coding knowledge. Rather than pay for additional memberships from other platforms, you can quickly create a beautiful website for your business or agency in addition to your next sales funnel. Within this membership site, you can create online courses for your members and easily regulate webpage access by membership tier.

5. HubSpot's Marketing Hub

HubSpot is one of the largest platforms available for marketing, sales, and customer service. It offers a vast number of free tools for anyone that signs up and furthers those benefits for subscribers. Rather than simply scaling membership fees behind certain limits, HubSpot tailors each of its plans to better suit the size and scope of a business with its Starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans. These range from $45/month to $3,200/month for large-scale operations.

Before we look at the paid plans, we'll go over the vast offerings you can get access to at no cost at all. Simply sign up for a free membership and gain access to the following:

• Create up to 20 landing pages
• 2,000 email sends per month
• Simple website audiences for any 2 supported integrations
• Create standalone, pop-up, embedded, and collected forms
• Segment submissions into 5 active lists or 1,000 static lists
• 1 automated form follow-up email
• 10 custom properties
• Basic live chat and chatbot
• Ad retargeting
• Ability to work through the HubSpot mobile app

This free membership grants marketers access to several new tools generally not offered by platforms without a monthly subscription. The caveat is that nearly all of these features will come with HubSpot branding. You cannot customize your branding or place your landing pages on a custom domain. Nevertheless, it's great for your basic needs and allows you to test out the platform with zero investment.

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If you're ready to upgrade and take ownership of your marketing funnels, you can do so with their Starter plan. You'll gain five times the number of contacts, access to more lists, reporting dashboard, email reply tracking, three automated emails, and 1,000 custom properties.

The biggest selling point for HubSpot is the ability to not only create and manage sales funnels, but to manage all other aspects of your business including sales, operations, and customer service all from one platform. The company takes the approach of offering each Hub as a separate membership so that business owners can select only the services they need to get the job done.

Its Sales Hub also starts at $45/month and can take the leads gained from your landing pages and begin the process of auto-creating contacts from submissions and assigning them to a sales representative and their own respective deal in a sales pipeline. Additional subscriptions will also grant you the ability to create and automate tasks, integrate payments, create custom goals, host videos and documents, and much more. While the vast array of tools available is impressive, some platforms offer similar tools for less of a cost overall.

6. Wishpond

Wishpond is an increasingly popular platform that focuses primarily on digital advertising, landing pages, and marketing funnel creation. While it does offer some basic features through its free version, those members will be limited to just 200 leads total, which doesn't amount to very much even for a smaller-sized business.

Its paid memberships range from $44/month to $199/month with the ability to expand your total lead contact list to one million upon request. That paid membership will grant you access to all of the essential tools you need to get the job done. This includes a drag-and-drop web builder for landing page creation, an online form builder for easy lead collection, email marketing, automated follow-ups, payment integration, and appointment scheduling.

Wishpond is also built for integration with Shopify stores, making it an excellent solution for eCommerce businesses. Its built-in reporting software not only tracks the quality of leads but provides day-to-day breakdowns of order activity. You'll also be able to set up additional email and SMS triggers based upon rules set by you and your team when actions are taken on your landing pages or website.

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While Wishpond offers the core features you need for marketing funnels and presents them well, its main drawback is that other platforms offer these same features for less. Platforms asking for more generally offer more core features to support your campaigns. In addition to this, there is currently no way to manage or post from social accounts directly from the platform.

If those issues aren't a dealbreaker, then Wishpond is a platform we can recommend due to its clean user interface and intuitive marketing funnel tools.

7. Instapage

Instapage is one that we would consider a direct competitor to ClickFunnels as both platforms are fully dedicated to the marketing funnel. However, while ClickFunnels provides a variety of solutions for different aspects of the sales process, Instapage promises a more in-depth landing page builder that might be more attractive to certain businesses.

For many business owners and marketers, the basics are all that's needed to get the job done. This is in no small part because your average business person will not know anything at all, or at least beyond the basics, of HTML or CSS coding and formatting. However, these simple web builders generally only feature very basic templates and lock their additional template library behind the most expensive plans.

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Instapage provides users with the best of both worlds by granting them the same ease of use as other building platforms, but without sacrificing the vast number of options. This includes hundreds of templates and layouts to work from, thousands of fonts, color schemes, and a built-in stock photo library. For those more technically inclined, Instapage still also supports third-party HTML, CSS, and Java.

Like ClickFunnels, you'll be able to conveniently A/B test various aspects of your funnel in real-time to get the most conversions possible. You'll be able to view reports of activity-based upon your content and make the necessary changes to improve underperforming areas.

If a dynamic builder is a high priority, then we highly recommend Instapage over other competitors. The downside is that you will still need to make use of other tools to manage other aspects of the marketing funnel and sales process. Instapage's primary concern is to help you deliver beautiful landing pages that perform and not much else.

8. Exceed.ai

Exceed.ai is a virtual sales assistant that can assist in qualifying the leads that you funnel through your landing pages. In the past, your team would need to contact every lead to determine which were worth pursuing. Now with the help of automated AI, you can eliminate that tedious work by having your leads speak with this sales assistant first.

The platform currently does not list public plans but instead shifts its pricing to the size and scope of your business. The AI is used for both marketing and sales and will communicate with all of your visitors as though it were a real person operating on your team.

This AI tool utilizes information provided by your company to assist in answering general questions from leads, gathering CRM data from your existing prospects, and providing a determination to the individual as to whether or not they qualify for the offer listed by your marketing funnel. For example, if the lead must meet a certain income quota to qualify for your offer, the AI chatbot will inform users that they do not qualify and eliminate the task from your plate entirely.

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Likewise, the AI assistant can continue the marketing and sales process by performing basic tasks such as scheduling appointments on your calendar. All of this collected data then appears in your CRM. If you are utilizing automation tools in conjunction, those leads and appointments will automatically be assigned to your sales representatives.

9. Akkio

Last, but not least, in our list of AI tools for successful marketing funnels is Akio - an automated conversion prediction software that converts your existing conversion data into an accurate prediction model.

Similar to Exceed's virtual assistant, Akkio provides what they call augmented lead scoring that compiles your historical marketing and deals data into a spreadsheet, and utilizes AI processing to predict future results. As with all predictive models, the tool becomes increasingly accurate as you feed it with more data to analyze. As a result, Akkio promises to combat the issue of customer churn, so that you can focus your resources on the leads that are most likely to convert.

Rather than dedicating staff to manually read spreadsheet after spreadsheet of lead data, experiment with Akkio at only $50/month to determine if this AI tool works for your marketing funnel needs. They also offer a free trial and a 20% discount for those who elect to pay in a lump sum annually.

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Utilize AI Tools for Successful Marketing Funnels

Artificial intelligence has forever changed the way we handle marketing and continues to improve with each passing day. The internet is filled with a variety of software and platforms that can assist businesses and marketing agencies with every aspect of funnel marketing from landing page construction, to lead qualification, and to appointment scheduling.

Each platform listed provides you with high-quality features you can use to get started with building your next marketing funnel. Depending on your needs and the tools currently used by your team, these recommendations can serve either all-in-one solutions or specific tools for hyper-focused purposes. Additional tools such as Facebook Ads, Exceed, and Akkio serve to augment the qualifying and nurturing aspects of your marketing funnel so that you can maximize your conversions and ROI.

Regardless of which tools your business chooses, it's important to note the power of the marketing funnel and how it can boost your profits. Investing in these tools will grant you a foundation for success that will serve you well into the future as AI continues to advance and change the way we advertise.

How to persuade someone to trust you enough to purchase your product? A long time ago, a marketer called Elias St. Elmo Lewis provided an excellent answer to this question. He talked about a “funnel” –  a number of steps that the customer follows, with each step bringing them closer to buying your product. With this funnel, a stranger can potentially become a raving customer of your business.

As per Lewis, people follow these 4 steps before they are ready to make a purchase:

• Awareness: You have to make people aware that your service or product exists.
• Interest: People must be strongly interested in visiting your website or reading your ad.
• Desire: You are required to get people to express curiosity about your product.
• Action: Whether adding a product to their cart or placing a call to your sales team, your audience needs to decide to take the next step.

Even though this concept first arose in 1898, professional copywriters still use it. Nowadays, companies have some kind of a funnel in marketing, with stages’ names modified according to the company/industry. For instance, you will see an ‘evaluation stage’ in B2B marketing. In this stage, a person puts in a lot of consideration before making the purchase.

Creating Your Social Media Sales Funnel

To build your social media sales funnel, we will take the concept discussed above and apply it to social media. We will expand it a bit more with these two additions:

1. The Evaluation Stage (as nowadays, it has become convenient to research and compare products online)
2. The Advocacy Stage (because the biggest power of social media is helping customers attract even more customers)

Whenever you create a social media strategy, make sure that your tactics cover every stage in the sales funnel. As mentioned below, every step has a particular question your marketing strategy must provide an answer for:

• Awareness: How will potential customers find you via social media?
• Evaluation: How will they use social media to compare similar products? How will they use it for comparison between you and your competitors?
• Acquisition: How will you get them to purchase or convert today?
• Engagement: How will you utilize social channels for staying in touch with your customers (to sell more things in the future)?
• Advocacy: What will you do to get them to suggest your product to their friends on social channels?

A mistake that many amateur marketers often commit is to invest in only some stages of the funnel. For instance, a small business has a great website with product videos, sales content, and case studies. However, they don’t have a strategy to bring people on their website. For instance, Facebook videos or Instagram influencer accounts.

Now, a quick note before we start..

Your social media sales funnel must answer the five questions that we have mentioned above. If you don’t consider a particular stage of the funnel, you will weaken your marketing. For every stage of the funnel, choose two tactics at the most. And when you master these tactics, you can go ahead and add new ones.

1. Awareness: How will potential customers find you?

There are many ways to capture the attention of your potential customers. Select one from this list:

I. Organic tactics

A. Social media contests

Let’s save you some time when it comes to planning social media contests. Here are the top two contests that we recommend:

• Comment or/and like to win

The “comment or/and like to win” contest is held on almost all social platforms to create engagement. For launching this contest, create a post with an informative caption, an entry deadline, and guidelines. While writing your post, do mention something like this – “like and comment for a chance to win…”

To let more people know about the contest, use Instagram or Facebook stories. Using hashtags will also increase the contest’s reach.

• Photo caption contest

An exciting way to encourage followers to comment on your picture and engage with your business is a “caption this” post.

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B. Use Youtube and SEO to gain new subscribers

If you have a YouTube channel for your business, here are some ways to promote it:

• Strike a balance between trending content and evergreen videos

Upload a few videos which will always hold relevance. When you do this, your subscribers keep returning to you again and again. Famous evergreen content includes tools and resources lists, how-to guides, tip roundups, and more. This kind of timeless content can rank well for years to come, boosting both traffic and SEO. Use social media plugins to share content and build connections with your audience.

• Stay active in the community

Subscribe to channels that have a similar audience as yours. Like and share their content and mention them in your videos or thoughtfully comment on their channels. Doing so helps you know your competitors and gain new viewers.

II. Paid tactics

A. Instagram Ads: Some of the advertising formats on Instagram include:

• Image ads: Image ads help businesses advertise their products and services using a single image. They can add text to the image as well.

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• Video ads: These ads allow businesses to give a closer look at their products and services. Although in-feed video ads can be a maximum of 60 minutes, shorter videos prove more impactful.

B. Facebook Ads: If you don't want to go with Instagram ads, you can opt for Facebook ads. The types of Facebook ads include:

• Image ads: You can create an image ad with a few clicks. All you need to do is boost one of your existing posts with an image taken from your Facebook page.
• Poll ads: A poll ad is a mobile-only Facebook ad format. For creating a poll ad, you can incorporate a two-option poll to a video/image ad. You can then add separate links for the two poll choices.

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2. Evaluation: How will they make a comparison with your competitors or similar products?

Getting attention will alone not suffice. You need to ensure you have the required reviews, credible information, and case studies to convince customers.

I. Organic tactics

1. Show glimpses into your business via Instagram.
2. Gain positive reviews on your Facebook page.
3. Make video testimonials from your customers and post them on your Facebook page.
4. Create YouTube videos that have your products’ demo.
5. Have a support team that answers questions on Twitter.
6. Put catalogs and product shots on Pinterest and Instagram.

3. Acquisition: How will you get them to purchase or convert today?

Sometimes you need to nudge your potential customer to buy. The tactics that we mention below help in this regard:

I. Organic tactics

Social traffic is the traffic coming to your mobile site or your website from social media platforms and social channels. Use this traffic for email sign-ups. Then, send offers as a next step.

Note: A mobile and SEO-friendly website is crucial for the growth of your business. Creating a professional niche-based website that is both mobile- and SEO-friendly can take several days. But, if you use DashClicks' agency website tool, you can create a custom branded agency website (which is both mobile- and SEO-friendly) in just a few seconds. A fantastic way of impressing your prospects, isn't it?

II. Paid tactics

• Facebook Messenger ads: Let's start with some social media statistics Facebook ranks 3rd in the list of most-visited sites in the world. Hence, you must use it to persuade your potential customers to buy from your business. Facebook Messenger ads enable you to reach more customers in no time. They are known to increase conversion rates.

A type of Facebook Messenger ad is a Facebook Click-to-Messenger ad that helps you reach new audiences. These ads are engaging and mobile-friendly. With the help of these ads, you get the contact info of the interested person and can message them on Facebook Messenger. A great way to increase conversions, isn't it?

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• Facebook offers ads: These are mobile-only, customizable ads that attract your audience to make a purchase.

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4. Engagement: How will you stay in touch with a customer?

We all know that a lot of work goes into finding customers. Staying in touch with them opens up more sales opportunities in the future.

I. Organic tactics

A. Host regular Twitter Chats: A type of public conversation, a Twitter chat is organized around a particular topic.

Tip: Here are some tips to help you host a successful Twitter chat:

• A hashtag creates a digital space where people can connect. Use a hashtag that is memorable, different, and relevant.
• Pick an engaging, valuable, and relevant topic (it can be broad or super-niche).
• Set a date and time and remind your followers about the schedule in advance.
• Assign a moderator who will keep things moving during the chat by asking questions and monitoring the chat.
• As there will be plenty of participants in your Twitter chat, organize questions in the form of Q1, Q2, and so on. Encourage the participants to answer the same way (A1, A2, and so on).

B. Reply to questions from customers in a weekly Facebook live series.

II. Paid tactics

1. Make a private Facebook Group for your customers so that they can connect and discuss your products.

5. Advocacy: How will you get them to suggest your product to their friends?

Provide an easy way to your customers to talk about their experience so far. Provide them an outlet where they share their love for your products. This builds your credibility and attracts fresh prospects.

I. Organic tactics

1. Create a private Facebook Groups for existing customers
2. Create customer communities on Instagram. For instance, create a hashtag that attracts posts from customers. This way, you not only engage existing customers but showcase the amazing features of your products to new prospects.

Wrapping it up

The ultimate goal of a social media sales funnel is to get your customer to buy your products and services and recommend them to others. So, it is necessary to build one and focus on every stage.

Ensure that your marketing strategy provides an answer to the above-mentioned questions, and you are all set! Once you achieve success with the tactics you use for every stage, you can go ahead and add new ones.

Sale is a process that starts from the point when a visitor visits a website or comes across a brand to the final stage of making a purchase decision. Businesses have been using the concept of a sales funnel to manage their sales processes efficiently and swiftly.

However, the process of lead nurturing and sales is not as simple as it sounds, and that might be the reason why businesses are moving away from the concept of a sales funnel. Do you also think that a sales funnel sounds too mechanical and mathematical?

What is a Marketing Funnel?

Moving from the awareness stage to the purchase stage is a long journey, and it is dotted with several unexpected events and gaps. It is never a swift journey, and the simplistic concept of a funnel can't describe it. Yet, it offers an excellent visual description of the entire process and helps you to understand and implement a marketing strategy in a better manner.

This article will try to describe the funnel concept and how it can be successfully employed to increase conversion and sales.

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Making the buying decision isn't the end of the funnel. Often it goes beyond the purchase stage to post-sales follow-ups, cross-sales, and retention.

The process begins with attracting visitors to your website, and to make this possible, you should work on your website SEO, content, offline promotion, and backlinks.

However, as the lead progresses and moves forward in the funnel, it needs a more personalized outreach. You may directly make a phone call or arrange a product demo, to begin with.

What Works and What Doesn't?

We will discuss two examples to explain the difference between a successful sales process and an unsuccessful one. Jeff runs a gift shop. He is not a savvy businessman, so he bought a list of toy buyers from the market and handed it over to his outbound sales team. The team had a tough time closing sales from the list as most of the buyers were either not interested or not fit for the products. He had to shut down their outbound sales operations as the conversion rate was less than 1%.

On the other hand, Robert runs a digital marketing agency. He created a website first and worked very hard on its SEO, local SEO, and content marketing. The right kind of optimization led to massive traffic from search engines.

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He created a sales funnel and developed content according to the various stages in the funnel. His content marketing team developed useful, attention-grabbing, and engaging content for the users and attached it to his landing pages to feed the funnel. These were white papers, user guides, templates, eBooks, articles, and tutorial videos.

They created the content to inform and educate the readers about his company's digital marketing services. It also answered various questions.

He successfully created a community through social accounts and shared his content on social media channels. He developed an opt-in system on his website to collect leads. His sales team didn't have to work hard for sales as conversions started raining. It had an apparent reason, and these were the high-quality leads obtained through opt-in forms. The customers were engaged by informative blogs, videos, and infographics.

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The leads were further nurtured by email marketing, product demos, and question-answer sessions. So, the rejection rate was pretty low, and the sales team didn't have to put in too much effort to convert.

This example best sums up the narrative of the sales funnel.

Why Do You Need a Marketing Funnel?

Every marketer needs the buyer's journey completely mapped into an actionable plan to create the right kind of content and implement the right strategy at each stage of this journey, which can best be done with the help of a sales funnel.

It helps you to make the efforts in the right direction and achieve the best possible results. It also enables you to identify the right tactics to implement at the right stage of a buyer's journey.

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Marketing funnels may sound too scientific and mechanical, but they can help you save the time, effort, and money required for conversion. Using funnels is the best-known way to increase your marketing ROI.

Using sales funnels is also one of the most effective tactics to divert leads in bulk into the sales process and nurture them to achieve maximum conversion. It reduces manual effort, uncertainty, and cost involved.

How to Create a Powerful Marketing Funnel?

Here are the steps to create a marketing funnel that will work for you and help you achieve your business goals.

1. Understand Your Audience and Behavior Patterns

A sales funnel that is built for conversion will work best if you know your audience.

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It should be built in a way that you can quickly achieve your business objectives. You can use numerous methods to understand your target audience. Some of these methods are as follows:

1. Taking feedback from your existing customers
2. Social listening
3. Surveys
4. Web analytics

Apart from understanding your audience, you should also know their online behavior. It includes how the visitors interact with your website and the content in it. Knowing your audience's online behavior will help you design your funnel and add or remove various stages.

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For example, if you have an engaging blog section on your website that attracts massive traffic, you could make it your top-of-the-funnel tactic. That means you should try to divert more and more visitors to your blog section through paid advertising, SEO, backlinks, and social media. It would help redirect visitors to your specific product pages for conversion rate optimization from the blog section.

So, to make a practical buyer journey map or funnel, you should try to understand your audience's online behavior first.

2. Determine the Number of Stages in Your Funnel

Understanding your audience and their online behavior will help you in identifying your buyer's journey. Journey mapping is an essential step that enables you to build your funnel and determine its various stages.

According to each stage, you can create your content strategy and employ other marketing tactics to move your audience in the desired direction. Thus, building a funnel and deciding its various stages becomes a crucial step that improves your sales process, minimizing time and money.

Various Stages in a Sales Funnel

Let's delve deeper into how to decide the different stages in your sales funnel through the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action) model. You can also club the "interest" and "desire" stages as the consideration stage.

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A. Awareness Stage

It is the first stage of a buyer's journey because a buyer needs to be aware of your brand before even considering your product. The purpose of this stage in the sales funnel is to attract more and more people and make them aware of your products and services. In this stage, your prospect first hears about your product or the brand and gets to know what it is all about and how it can be helpful for him. It is important to note that not all people in the awareness stage are supposed to go to the last stage of the funnel, i.e., the purchase stage, and the number of people will continue to decrease as we move down the funnel.

B. Interest Stage

It is the stage when the customer is already aware of your product but not too interested. So, marketers should focus on generating interest and curiosity by creating engaging content. To generate enthusiasm about your products and services, you can try paid advertising and social media. It can also be explained as a stage in a buyer's journey when a customer at a retail store looks at some product with interest and enthusiasm. In the meantime, the sales assistant comes and asks, "May I help you?"

C. Desire Stage

In this stage, the customer is already exposed to paid search and social media content about your brand. He has also gone through compelling ads that generate desire. So, it falls under the consideration stage. Most customers would like to do comparisons online.

People tend to know the best option available in the market in that specific product category. So, at this stage, most of your marketing efforts should be directed toward creating content that helps people understand the value your product offers and why your product is better than the alternatives available in the market. The content created for this stage should be so compelling that it creates a buying intent and directs the customer to the next step of the purchase. If your content fails to do that, the customer would leave the funnel and go to your competition.

D. Action Stage (Bottom of the Funnel)

The action stage is the final stage of your sales cycle where your customer already has the purchase intent, and your job is to help them close the deal. So, at this stage, all your efforts should be directed to get the sales closed. You should help them find the right product with the right attributes the user needs and a smooth checkout process. It also includes allowing them to use their preferred payment mode to avoid any problem in this last and crucial stage.

Tip: The other valuable action stage tactics can be newsletter signup, webinar signup, signup for a demo, etc.

3. Add Marketing Tactics to Each Stage

Your funnel can be long or short, depending on your needs and target customers' online behavior. So, once you determine the various stages in your funnel, it's time to think of the best tactics you can apply at each stage.

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Here are some tactics that you can try according to the stage in your buyer's journey:

A. Top of the Funnel (ToFu)

At this stage, you can try various strategies directed at increasing awareness among the masses. Indeed, very few people know about your brand at this stage because it is comparatively new, and people need to learn more about it and its features.

i.Ā  Social Media Marketing

Increasing traffic on your website should be a prime concern at this stage. So, invest in social media marketing to increase traffic from social media, which might be the low-hanging fruit for you.

ii.Ā  Influencer marketing

You can also try influencer marketing which has become a trend these days. However, you should identify the reach of the influencers you want to rope in and verify whether their audience falls in your niche. You should also check engagement levels on their posts.

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iii.Ā  Paid advertising campaigns

Running paid advertising campaigns is extremely important in the initial stages because many users won't reach using the organic methods. This method is fast and precise when you are desperately looking for customers in the initial stages.

iv.Ā  Blog Posts and Other Types Of High-quality Content

Organic search traffic is essential these days, and you can get it by creating quality content like blog posts and videos. According to a study conducted by Content Marketing Institute, blog posts, podcasts, videos, and eBooks are the most effective content types in the early stages of a buyer's journey.

73% of the respondents believed that blog posts and articles were the most effective content types, whereas 57% favored podcasts against 54% who thought it was video content. An impressive 56% of the participants believed that eBooks were the most effective.

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v. Search Engine Optimization

An SEO technique is also quite effective in pulling organic and referral traffic to your website, so you can't ignore this proven evergreen technique.

vi.Ā  Videos and Podcasts

As evident from the above study, marketers should also experiment with videos and podcasts, which are the most famous content formats people love to consume these days.

vii. Giveaways, Contests, Promotions, Early-Bird Discounts

Hosting giveaways and contests is also a prevalent and proven technique to attract organic traffic from engaged audiences.

Middle-of-the-Funnel

While the general tactics at the top of the funnel include creating informative content in different formats, have you ever wondered what should be your tactic during the middle of the funnel?

Content marketing is an effective tactic here as well, but at this stage, you will need different content to engage your customers so that they don't leave the funnel, or else all the efforts you made in the first stage will go to waste.

i. Create Unboxing and Trial Videos (By Influencers and YouTubers)Ā Ā

Have you seen those unboxing or trial videos people watch before they buy the actual product?

People at this stage want to get the touch and feel of the product. They trust influencers, so it would be an added advantage if an influencer does it. Furthermore, they also trust the "honest" review of an influencer.

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So, you may easily guess how important such content can be for a buyer in the consideration stage, where people are more likely to compare your products with other products before they make a final buying decision. Positive input from an influencer can change the game at this stage.

ii. Product Reviews

Product reviews are also critical at the final stage of a funnel. These reviews decide whether we are going to purchase a particular product or not. You might have experienced it on online shopping sites such as Amazon that even a single negative review that genuinely highlights a problem in the product or seller's services might change your purchase decision at the last minute. And vice versa is also true.

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Therefore, product reviews are also a powerful form of content that can help you build trust in the middle of the funnel.

iii. Case Studies

Case studies also serve as a compelling form of content, which is quite effective in the consideration stage, especially in B2B businesses. People love to know how your products and services have benefited people and their businesses. They might also be interested in getting more profound insights into how you work so that they can make informed decisions.

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iv. User-Generated Content

User-generated content about a particular brand or product is also a powerful form of content as it acts as social proof and helps you build trust in your brand.

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v. eBooks

eBooks are also among the most effective types of content formats. eBooks and white papers are not only engaging but highly informative and educational.

These content types provide in-depth information about your products and services, how they work and how they can benefit you.

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You should also invest in content marketing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) of your website.

It will engage your visitors and hook them for a long time. With CRO, you can divert the website traffic to the desired product or service pages from blog posts and home pages.

C. Bottom-of-the-Funnel

You can identify the last stage with very high purchase intent, where a slight push in the right direction may lead to a purchase.

Here are some of the marketing tactics that can help you in the final stage of the sales funnel:

i. Limited Period Discounts and Offers

Since this is a stage when customers are ready to buy the product, they might be looking for a slight push regarding limited-time offers and discounts. Such tactics work wonders while closing sales.

ii. Remarketing

Remarketing is highly effective in converting the customers who have visited your website once or interacted with your brand in any manner whatsoever but left without buying anything. Remarketing has a high conversion rate.

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iii. Free Trials and Free Demos

Ā Offering free trials and demos can also be an excellent step to get the customers to use your products and services and then decide for themselves whether they need it or not.

Free trials have a great advantage. When people start using your product, it becomes easy to convince them to buy it or recommend it to others.

iv. Use Deadlines

Fear of missing out (or FOMO) is also a prevalent tactic that marketers employ to close the sale. You can use the deadlines in your ads to prompt your customers for instant purchases.Ā  In the example below, fashion brand ASOS uses FOMO and announces 20% off for ā€�24 hours only.ā€¯

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The Final Stage - Beyond ConversionsĀ Ā

Most marketers have this wrong notion that the utility of a sales funnel finishes when a lead is converted into a paying customer. It's a big marketing fallacy, and we shouldn't fall into it. For a salesperson, who has been in the industry for a long time, this can be an entirely wrong notion.

Conclusion

Customer retention is more important than customer acquisition because, in the long term, repeat customers are much more profitable for a business than fresh customers. So, the most effective sales funnels don't end with a purchase. You should also have a post-purchase relationship with your customers.

Ā So, you can add one or more post-purchase stages in your funnel for customer retention. The chief objective of adding these stages into your funnel is to retain the customers and keep them happy and delighted rather than making the sales a lousy and one-time activity.

A website, a landing page, and a sales funnel are three different terms, but they can be used together to create a winning marketing strategy.

A landing page is a web page where marketers send users upon clicking on an ad on social media, a website, or an email. It is your website's first touch point for users. Meanwhile, a sales funnel encompasses a buyer's entire journey, involving many such landing pages with different calls to action (CTAs), directing and educating the user along the way with the ultimate objective of closing the sale.

The primary aim of both a sales funnel and a landing page is to generate leads and close sales, but they vary significantly in implementation and use. Here, we will explain both these terms, how you can use them to run successful ads, and highlight their significant differences.

What is a Landing Page?

It is a single webpage with a predefined objective. Its design is usually minimalistic to propel the visitor to take the desired action. It looks like the website's homepage, but it lacks many website elements to keep visitors scrolling down without any distractions until they take the intended action.

For example, if a landing page's objective is to get the visitor's contact information, it would act as an opt-in page. You can use it to offer your potential customers something of value, such as a free video tutorial, in exchange for their email addresses. Once they give you their email address, you can take them to a "thank you" page that gives them the link to the video.

Most landing pages aren't used as a stand-alone tactic for conversion. Instead, they are used alongside paid promotion or as part of the sales funnel to push the visitor into the final stages of the buyer's journey.

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Landing pages pursue a single objective and ask the visitor to either take action or leave. They usually have the following three elements:

1. A scrollable page with a compelling offer, often with a video for powerful messaging
2. A section that asks the visitor to take action, such as a submit button and blank fields for entering contact information
3. A “thank you” page for follow-up. It usually contains something of value for the customer or more related information

You can create landing pages for multiple objectives, such as increasing footfall at your brick-and-mortar store, getting customer details, pushing educational content, or populating your email subscriber list.

What are the types of Landing Pages?

There are mainly two types of landing pages:

A. Lead Generation Landing Pages: They are also known as lead captureā  pages. They often use a form as their CTA to capture lead data, including the visitor's name and email address. B2B marketers use these landing pages to sell expensive items that require building a list of prospective customers and then nurturing those leads. For instance, if your company sells a B2B IoT infrastructure solution like an MQTT Broker, its language should speak directly to its target audience. To achieve this level of clarity and engagement, we recommend it contain a mix of technical and high-level information to communicate the benefit to its end user.

Businesses also use these pages to offer free ebooks and webinars in exchange for visitors' contact information.

B. Click Through Landing Pages: These are frequently used by eCommerce businesses and are tied to a CTA to close sales or subscriptions. They use a button to send the visitors into the checkout flow to complete a transaction.

What is a Sales Funnel?

It is a path in a buyer’s journey that often involves several steps that a prospect can take to become your paid customer.

Here is an example of a sales funnel for physical store shopping:

The passersby spot your store while walking on the street. They are considered top-of-the-funnel prospects. A few of them decide to step in; it is the next stage of the funnel. A customer spots a rack of casual shoes with discount offers. He decides to have a look, taking the next step. He then selects a pair of shoes and heads toward the checkout. He is at the last stage of the funnel now. When he makes the payment and finishes the purchase, he is at the funnel’s bottom.

A similar process plays out for online businesses. The steps involved in online sales funnels are:

Step 1: Analyze your audience’s behavior pattern using various tools
Step 2: Capture their attention through compelling offers
Step 3: Build a landing page with a specific CTA and conversion goal
Step 4: Run an email campaign to educate your audience about your brand and current offers for recurring sales
Step 5: Keep in touch

Your sales funnel represents the path your prospective customers take when making a buying decision. If you understand the funnel, you can find the exact stages where your prospects are moving out of the funnel, never to return. A close analysis will help you find the key issues and resolve them. You can’t optimize a funnel for conversion if you don’t understand it. It’s crucial to know how your website visitors walk through the funnel and are they likely to convert.

Sales Funnels vs. Landing Pages

The prime difference between a landing page and a sales funnel is that the sales funnel includes many landing pages with different CTAs throughout each stage in the buying cycle. You can use both tactics based on your marketing and ad plan.

How Do Sales Funnels Work?

A sales funnel is an essential element of the sales process marked with a series of well-defined stages, where businesses choose and monitor their interactions with the prospects from the first contact to the last stage of the purchase decision.

Here is a walk-through of how a sales funnel works in an online marketing and sales ecosystem:

1. Lead

As soon as a user clicks on an ad or a link on social media or Google search results, they enter into your sales funnel as a prospect. They may browse through some of your products or check out your blog posts. You can seize this opportunity and ask them to sign up for a newsletter using a pop-up or opt-in form on your web page. If they show interest and fill out the opt-in form, they become a part of your email list. In other words, they become your business lead, which you can nurture over time through regular messaging.

2. Sales Call

Once you have their contact information, you can expand your sales interactions beyond your website through calls, text messages, and emails. For example, you can make an introductory sales call or send them an email to initiate the process.

3. Follow Up

You may use all three communication channelsā€”email, phone, and text messagesā€”to follow up. If you've already had an initial interaction with your prospect and didn't receive a clear, definite no, then follow up as long as it takes to receive a response.

4. Conversion

Answer their queries and dispel doubts to remove obstacles in the funnel that might be preventing them from moving further and make a purchase decision.

5. Sales

Many of these leads are likely to revisit your website if you contact them with a compelling offer or a coupon code. As a prospect moves through the funnel, it narrows down, so the people near the bottom are often fewer than the top. Therefore, it's crucial that your messaging is highly focused and targeted during all these stages.

How to Run Ads According to Various Stages in the Sales Funnel?

The average customer engages with three to five pieces of content before talking to a sales rep. So, you can start your ad campaign by building email lists and asking users to subscribe to your newsletters. Once they become a part of your email lists, you can share with them your best and most appropriate content according to their stage in the funnel by inviting them to the specific landing pages on your website.

Tip: Content plays a vital role in conversion, and users need different kinds of content at each stage in the sales funnel to move toward a purchase decision. You can use your ads to divert users to such pieces of content.

Right Messaging and Timing

Each of these stages requires a different marketing approach. A wrong message is not only wasteful but can potentially interfere with the entire sales flow. The paid ads you run can be the strongest channels for messaging and communication. You can tweak the messages in your ads according to these stages in the funnel.

The timing of a message is also essential. You don't want a dessert in a restaurant before you order food and drinks.

What are the Stages of a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel's various stages can be defined with AIDA, the acronym for Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. You can identify these four stages after a deep analysis of the sales process and customer's mindset.

1. Awareness

Use messages at this stage to catch the attention of your prospects. The objective is to make them aware of your business and what you offer.

• Tips for creating ads at the “awareness” stage

You can explain the features, benefits, and USPs of your products through your ad messaging at this stage. You can also use your ads to direct the visitors to relevant content such as blog posts, sales videos, podcasts, infographics, and social media updates, to create product awareness.

2. Interest

At this stage in the sales funnel, the user is already familiar with your brand and products, but they need more information and education. Your prospects must be researching, comparing, and weighing the various available options.

• Tips for creating ads at the “interest” stage

At this stage, you can use your ads to invite visitors to attend educational webinars, videos, informative blog posts, and ebooks. You should tweak the ad script accordingly.

3. Decision

At the decision-making stage, the prospect is ready to buy and has narrowed down their options to just two or three — you can be one of them. Here, you need to give them a compelling offer such as a discount code, free shipping charges, or a bonus product.

• Tips for creating ads at the “decision” stage

At this stage, use your ads to make a compelling offer, such as discount codes, lifetime memberships, etc. Make it so irresistible that your prospect can’t say no to it.

4. Action

At the action stage, the customer makes a purchase and becomes part of your network. It is the bottom of the funnel, but your job doesn’t end here. You need to work towards building a lifetime relationship with your customer and aim for recurring sales.

• Tips for creating ads at the “action” stage

Aim for retention at the action stage and use your ads to offer tech support. You can also use them to show other products that might be of value or interest.

All these actions at various stages in the sales funnel bring the visitor one step closer to the buying decision. You can use many software programs such as ClickFunnels and GetResponse to build sales funnels and streamline the entire sales process. You don’t require any technical skills to use these software programs.

Conclusion

The ultimate objective of both landing pages and sales funnels is to build a relationship with potential customers and convince them to make a purchase.

However, a sales funnel significantly reduces the conversion cost and increases the conversion rate. It also provides you multiple opportunities to upsell and downsell customers.

If you want to be successful with your conversion funnels and landing pages, keep on testing, optimizing, and re-testing your funnels and ads and focus on your messaging.