Could you turn strangers into raving customers with a series of steps the customer follows, each one leading them closer to purchasing your product? Yes, it’s called a “sales funnel”
People follow these four steps before they’re ready to buy.
- Awareness: you need people to become aware that your product or service exists.
- Interest: people need to be intrigued enough to read your ad or click to your website.
- Desire: inertia is the marketer’s greatest hurdle. You need to get people to express interest or curiosity in your product.
- Action: people need to decide to take the next step, whether calling you or adding a product to their cart.
Building your first social media sales funnel is important as its greatest power is helping customers attract more customers.
Evaluation – How will they use social media to compare you to competitors or similar products?
Acquisition – How will you get them to buy or convert today?
Engagement – How will you use social channels to keep in touch with customers (so you can sell them more things later)?
Advocacy – How will you get them to recommend your product on social channels to their friends?
A common mistake is to only invest in a few stages of the funnel
For example, you’ll see popular YouTube channels with lots of traffic and awareness. But they don’t work very hard to sell you anything as they haven’t invested in their sales content.
Or you’ll see a small business with a beautiful website with lots of case studies, product videos, and sales content. But they don’t have a strategy—such as a popular Instagram account or Facebook videos to get people to their website.
Use the checklist below to ensure you’ve got tactics that match every stage of the sales funnel. Avoid picking too many tactics. Limit yourself to one or two tactics for each stage, master them, and then add new ones once you’ve seen success.
- Awareness: How will customers find you?
There’s lots of ways to earn the attention of your audience. Pick one of these tactics rather than trying to do them all.
- Facebook Live
- Social media contests
- Free content (guides, blog posts)
- Participate in Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
- Use YouTube and SEO to attract free subscribers
- Social videos
- Create visuals such as infographics, GIFs, and Twitter cards
- Create content specifically for Facebook
- Evaluation: How will they compare you to competitors or similar products?
Earning attention isn’t enough. You need to make sure you’ve got enough reviews, case studies, and credible information to persuade customers.
- Gain positive reviews on your Facebook Page
- Gain positive reviews on your Google Business Profile
- Share glimpses into your company on Instagram
- Created video testimonials from customers and add to your Facebook Page
- Product shots and catalogues in Instagram or Pinterest
- Support team answering questions on Twitter
- YouTube videos with product demos
- Acquisition: How will you get them to buy or convert today?
- Prospects need a nudge to buy. Help them take the leap with these tactics.
- Convert social traffic into email sign-ups (and then send them offers).
- Social media contests with purchase incentives.
- Facebook and Instagram ads with timed offers or coupons.
- Social contests with promotions
- Engagement: How will you keep in touch with this customer (so you can sell them more things later)?
It’s a lot of work to find customers. Stay connected with existing customers, so you can sell them new products in the future.
- Hosting regular Twitter Chats
- Answer customer questions in a weekly Facebook Live series.
- Advocacy: How will you get them to recommend your product to their friends?
Make it easy for customers to share their experience and love for your products. This increases your credibility and attracts new customers.
- Private Facebook Groups for customers who have bought your product.
- Build an employee and customer advocacy program.
- Customer communities on Instagram
