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We’ve all been there. Your website says you’re getting consistent or even increased traffic, but your sales aren’t following the same pattern. While many companies build a site, send it live, and hope for the best, it’s smart to refer to a sales or marketing funnel to find out what areas you can continue to work on. If you’re losing potential customer, they could be dropping off at any point of the sales funnel. Finding out where you’re losing people is an important step in building a performing website.
Zib Digital has created an updated version of the traditional marketing funnel that focuses on the specifics of digital marketing. To ensure you’re getting the most from a hardworking website, we’ve highlighted the most important areas of each stage of the funnel that you should focus on to maximise conversion rates.
Stage: Awareness
Focus: Marketing
This doesn’t have to mean pricey advertisements and billboards. Marketing efforts for your website include all of your owned and earned media. This includes everything that gets people to your site and it is made up of blog posts, links through other sites, web promotions, how well you show up on searches, social media and yes, ads. Consider investing in SEO Sydney, social media help or local blog partnerships. Maximising your marketing means you’re doing the most important step of getting feet through the door or clicks through the URL, as it were. However, the key here is to get quality traffic onto your site, you don’t want to aim for quantity which will result in lower conversion rates as people quickly click away from your page.
Stage: Engagement
Focus: Landing Pages
So, you’ve got people to your site. Keeping them there is another story. You might have only seconds, or however long it takes to scroll a page, to hook them and keep them interested in your product or service offering. Building landing pages is a great way to do this. These tailor-built pages can target customers based on how they found you. The point is to serve different information to a person who finds you via Instagram than to someone who finds you via a local blog so that you can speak more directly to each group. Since you’re personalising the first glimpse of your company to their interests or needs, you’re going to be more likely to be able to get them further down the funnel.
Stage: Consideration
Focus: Content Strategy
If a visitor likes what they see on your landing page they’ll usually click through to multiple other pages. At this stage, you’ve still only got seconds to convince them of your offering and the layout of your site will be key. While a well-designed and professionally worded site may not seem important, to your potential customers it is. People will automatically associate a put-together site with a well-established company that cares about how they look and operate. This type of site can position you as a qualified company. Make sure to put important information upfront and create simple headings and an easy to navigate menu. If your customer base can’t locate the contact page, finds your site frustrating to use or views your online image as sloppy, you’re needlessly killing the leads you worked so hard to get.
Stage: Conversion
Focus: Calls to Action
This is the important step that can turn a window shopper into a customer. Your call to action should be clear and motivating. You may want to consider using a button, icon or image-based call to action (CTA) if you want your customer base to take immediate action. Some good examples of this could be “Book your free consultation”, “Find your nearest location”, or “Shop our products”. It may seem silly but simply by telling your customer what to do, you’re increasing the chance that they will take action. If you’re looking to convert leads by gaining contact information for follow-ups, you may want to offer brochures, price lists or free content by way of a contact entry CTA. These are called lead magnets and offer a way for you to re-engage with customers who’ve fallen out of your sales funnel.
Stage: Connect
Focus: Customer Relationship Management
Once you have a visitor’s contact information, use it. This doesn’t mean you need to opt for pushy sales tactics or endless phone calls. Frequent email marketing, special discount offers, or product suggestions are all valid ways to reconnect with your audience. Have you ever gotten the “You left this in your cart” email? Believe it or not, these strategies work. Simply by nurturing the relationship after the point of initial contact, you may be able to convert a lead into a customer that otherwise would have fallen out of the funnel. For those visitors who have already been converted to customers, utilise your communication with them to get survey responses, send related content or request a review or referral.
By referencing the Zib Digital Marketing Funnel, you can be strategic about how you’re interacting with customers in different stages of the customer journey. Utilising these easy tips can mean the difference between making a sale or losing a lead so ensure you’re putting work into your online presence and your website will start working for you.
Zib Digital offers industry-leading digital marketing work to enhance local business efforts. As specialists in an ever-growing industry, we help businesses facilitate an earned space for themselves within the digital landscape by focusing on clear and knowledgeable web content, comprehensive digital campaigns and top-ranked SEO websites. Get in touch to discuss your specific digital marketing strategy for your business.
