Maybe your website is doing just fine without a particular marketing strategy. Maybe you’re making okay earnings every month with what you are doing right now.
But the truth is, without a direction, you could be ultimately shooting yourself in the foot – so to speak.
A conversion funnel can organize not only the way you run your business – but more importantly – it can make your shoppers transition to customers much easier.
If you don’t know what a conversion funnel is or haven’t developed one, you’re in luck. In today’s piece, we are focusing on what a conversion funnel is, why they are so important, and how they can benefit your business.
First thing’s first: What is a conversion funnel?
A conversion funnel is a concept that helps marketers visualize how a customer lands on their website and is directed to perform a certain desired action – usually to purchase a product or service.
You may have heard it called a “sales funnel” before. In truth, they are one in the same. It is called a funnel because it guides the customer toward a conversion point in a multitude of ways:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Paid Ads
- Cold Email Outreach
The terms “desired action” is defined by what the business hopes to accomplish. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the desired action is to have your customer purchase a product or service, although it mostly used as such.
A conversion funnel can also be used to gather customers’ email addresses in an effort to create an email list that your business can use for an effective email marketing campaign. It can also guide visitors to download useful PDFs on certain subjects, offering a little more information that wouldn’t be found in a traditional blog.
However, the word “funnel” may implicate some sort of haphazard pouring of customers into your business. Of course, you need to do your best to attract customers to your funnel, but don’t narrow it down so much that a customer feels closed in. Your customer needs to have options that they can select (like proceeding to a landing page, opting in or out of an email list, etc.), and the funnel must also present clear directions to them there.
Let’s Put This All into Context
Take, for instance, a customer interested in purchasing scented candles. They’ll type in “scented candles” in the Google search bar and find a distributor recommended by a friend. The moment the friend told them about the site, they were already in the first stage of the funnel known as “Awareness”.
The potential customer will go to the website and immediately notice a blog: “Three Scented Candles You Want to Use Around the House For Summer”. They’ll click on it because that was just what they were looking for. This particular stage in the funnel is called “Interest”.
They’ll read the content and are pleased with the inspiration that it provided them. This is the “Desire” stage of the funnel.
At the end of the blog post will be a “Call to Action”. A call to action attempts to convince your potential customer to do a desired action. In this case, perhaps it will be a link that leads to the three candles that were highlighted in the blog with an option to buy. This stage is known as “Conversion” because you are converting shoppers into customers—assuming they make the purchase.
So, let’s recap. The stages within a conversion funnel are:
- Awareness – making customers aware of your product through SEO, content marketing, word of mouth, etc.
- Interest – providing engaging and attractive content like blogs or email campaigns.
- Desire – essentially building upon the interest stage with product reviews, tantalizing images of your product, fantastic product descriptions, or inspiring videos.
- Conversion – turning the shopper into a customer.
While these are all crucial components of a conversion funnel, people tend to forget another important part of it: re-engaging.
Customer retention is the lifeblood of an e-commerce business. These customers are crucial to your revenue streams because:
- You don’t have to pay much of anything to get these type of customers.
- They already demonstrated an interest in your business.
Needless to say, you’ll want to pull these customers back to the top of the funnel to start the process all over again. Some of the easiest ways to do this are to:
- Have them sign up for an email list.
- Encourage them to follow your social media accounts for latest news, offers, products, and more.
- Send coupons or special deals to their email.
- Ship marketing or loyalty materials with their purchase so they know they are a valued customer.
- Expand your product line or develop new services to entice them back.
These are all cost-effective ways to re-attract customers that you can use to pump up your revenue stream.
Why are conversion funnels so important?
Simply, conversion funnels are important because they help you pinpoint where customers are having difficulty transitioning from potential shoppers to actual customers. If your website doesn’t have a conversion funnel strategy, that could be a big reason why your conversion rate is so low.
Maybe the shopping cart is buggy or not user-friendly. Maybe content is not engaging or missing a call to action and customers don’t know where to go to purchase your product or services. Cluttered or poorly detailed product pages and descriptions can leave a customer confused.
So many minor and major things can compromise the conversion of shoppers to customers, and your earning potential may be suffering as a result. With a proper conversion funnel strategy, you can easily see where improvements must be made – and then make them. In the end, taking the time to address these pain points only builds up your business’ earnings and that is always a good thing.
With a good conversion funnel, your business can truly thrive. To start developing yours, enlist the help of an expert digital marketing consultant like me, Mauricio Pina. Contact me at (956) 566-4998 today to find out how I can help you grow your business through digital marketing.
