5 Steps to Creating an Effective Sales Funnel on Social Media
If you’ve spent any amount of time marketing a product or learning how to market a product effectively, you’re probably familiar with the concept of the sales funnel.
Over the past 100 years, it has become one of the most popular (and most successful) tactics used in modern marketing. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find many successful marketing strategies that don’t integrate at least some variation of the sales funnel concept.
This is because, at its core, the sales funnel capitalizes on an important truth: that building trust takes time, and it develops in stages. It’s not something that forms instantaneously or by chance, especially when both parties are strangers.
The sales funnel respects a step-by-step process – that to sell something to someone, you have to take that individual from point A to point B, from B to point C, from point C to point D, and so on – building both credibility and appeal with each step.
The basic funnel utilizes 4 stages: awareness, interest, desire, and action. These stages can be broken down, embellished, or expanded; but the concepts are universal and can be used in various applications.
Today, we’re going to discuss how to best implement a successful sales funnel on social media, using a 5-stage process.
1. Awareness
Scroll through social media for a moment, and stop when you come across an ad. If it’s an effective lead, that ad will tell you something about a product without necessarily imploring you to make an immediate purchase.
Why?
Because introducing a call-to-action here is not only pointless but also distracting. Don’t be too eager to make a sale that you turn the “awareness” stage into something it’s not.
On social media, start creating awareness by posting videos, ads (paid ads are good, too!), or other content that introduces people to your product or service. Get the information out there! You want to gain attention and pique the general interest of potential buyers, and direct that traffic to your social media pages.
2. Assessment
You’ve built some attention, but now you’ve got to make your case.
The “assessment” stage of the sales funnel is when the buyer starts to critically evaluate your product or service, making it one of the most important components of your funnel.
So, once users have arrived at your business page, what are you doing to turn initial attention into serious interest? Establish some credibility up front. Show your buyers that you’re the real deal by sharing positive customer reviews, posting product demos, and introducing them to your customer support team.
The sooner they can acquire more information and get their questions answered, the better.
3. Acquisition
At this point, some of the interest should be turning into desire. You’ve used a number of your best resources to entice your potential customers; now, you may need to prod them a little.
Ask them to take the next step. This can be done by directing traffic to an email sign-up or by offering exclusive products and discounts. Make sure there are multiple opportunities for users to get involved.
If prospects don’t decide to purchase, not all hope is lost. Make contact with them to provide additional opportunities. You can do this by sending a direct message to someone who connected with your customer support team, or by issuing a one-time offer to try your product for free.
4. Communication
By now, you should have gained a few new customers!
After all the effort you’ve put into the awareness, assessment, and acquisition stages, you of all people understand how much work it is to acquire a new customer; so, make a point of engaging with your customers, regularly.
You can accomplish this by checking in with customers, whether by direct message or a live Q&A on your social media page.
Remember, it’s easier to lose a customer than it is to win one. Make your customers a priority.
5. Mobilization
Interacting with your customers also mobilizes them. In fact, one of the most effective ways of getting more customers is through recommendations from your current customers.
How do you achieve this?
By giving them a voice. Of course, your customers can recommend your product or service by word of mouth, and that’s great; but you want them to spread the word via social media, too.
Create informative videos that can be easily shared to individual timelines and pages. Provide incentives to your existing customers for bringing new customers on board.
This 5-step social media sales funnel is a resource that your business can implement immediately.
With the advancements in social media and online marketing, all of the necessary tools are available within clicks. This makes the social media sales funnel process easy and cohesive for any brand looking to market their product or service effectively.