SEO Agencies’ 5 Stages of an Effective Sales Funnel

SEO secrets only lie with the professional SEO agency, the keys to which companies need to unravel. The journey of a productive SEO strategy begins from the consumer’s need, and the business owner’s role is to meet that need. When solving the problem at hand, there are different stages for both the seller and the buyer.

However, this article focuses on steps that a buyer takes from the problem or needs to find a solution. Meanwhile, different options are available to the buyer. And a good question is why a buyer should prefer one product to another. Better still, right from the point of contact with a possible solution to the buyer’s need, how can the seller make a sale?

An excellent digital marketer needs to nurture your potential buyer from first awareness of the brand product or service. The journey leads to purchasing the advertised item, followed by communication and successful sale events. This article begins with what precisely a marketing funnel is and why you need to optimize it for increased sales.

What is a Marketing Funnel?

A marketing or sales funnel refers to the process of converting a visitor or product browser into a loyal customer. In more precise terms, we are talking about your Search Engine Optimization strategies, email marketing, SMS marketing, social media marketing, and other methods of getting market leads. These strategies attempt to spread the news about your business brand products and service.

SEO Agencies’ 5 Stages of an Effective Sales Funnel

The term ‘funnel’ applies to these processes simply because you start with a relatively more significant number of leads at the beginning. However, only a tiny fraction of these people eventually get to the end of the process to purchase the product or become loyal customers. You begin by pronouncing the excellent news about your brand through awareness and other marketing tricks.

In some cases, Facebook and other social marketing funnels help you to gather friends and followers into buyers. But be ready to invest the required time, which may vary by the kind of product or service and the buyer’s willingness. However, it is sure that the product must be worthy of purchase in value while the potential buyer is convinced of the same value.

The Importance of Marketing Funnel

Since the marketing process begins from the very top of the funnel, awareness is the beginning of the process. Moreover, there are many reasons why you should use a marketing funnel to achieve your digital marketing goals.

  1. A marketing funnel allows you to make a meaningful connection with potential customers that are called leads. You can interact with them at any stage of the buyer’s journey and help them advance in the process.
  2. Alongside the relationship and bonding you form with your leads, you need to continue to build trust. Moreover, the level of trust you create will be instrumental to the final purchase that you expect them to make
  3. A sales or marketing funnel can use digital methods through digital mediums to get impressive results. The digital strategies include social media, SEO, email marketing, and remarketing to persuade and convert leads to loyal customers
  4. Finally, marketing funnels are your best chance of increasing the customer lifetime value. Moreover, you can then sell and resell to these customers.

Now, let us carefully explore the five stages of using sales or marketing funnels.

5 Sales or Marketing Funnel Stages

Stage 1: Awareness

The entry into the funnel is the awareness stage, where you invite total strangers or would-be customers to take many of your brand products. This step involves marketing campaigns that align with all their pains, problems, and needs. Moreover, when a prospect takes interest, they become a viable lead that can pass through this first stage to the other locations.

At this level, you must get in front of as many customers as possible as many times. It may also involve different side attractions to woo and court them to engage with your business. Meanwhile, some of the most efficient tools include videos, infographics, lead magnets, social media marketing, SEO, SEM, and evergreen posts as article writing.

Stage 2: Interest

The middle stage is marked by the interest of your leads in your products and services. Now, your leaders are considering their options through research, comparison, and different solutions. You should wow your target audience through education on the features of your offer but do not sell the product/service yet. This stage is still for building trust and having viable relationships.

Keep fronting the benefits you offer over your competitors. Available tools include blog posts, articles, video marketing, SEO/SEM, case studies, storytelling, social media marketing, and email marketing.

SEO Agencies’ 5 Stages of an Effective Sales Funnel

Stage 3: Consideration

Before this stage, you have built a relationship with these prospects through a piece of contact information you already have. This basic information, including a name, email address, or phone number, is enough to create a mix of offers through further encouragement. At this stage, you should provide more in-depth content further to deepen your customers’ interest in your request.

Some of the resources that can be helpful include eBooks, webinars, and white papers. A strategy to lead your potential buyers into this zone is remarketing your brand. Then, you can target those who have already shown interest. They will also begin to consider your brand products.

Stage 4: Decision

At the point of decision, your leads are now ready to buy and become customers. They have researched their options and chosen to buy from you. However, be careful not to overtake your chances by thinking that they already bought from you. Remember that this time is right to make your best offer to beat off the rest once and for all.

Some tools and strategies you may employ include free trials or live demonstrations of your products, customer reviews, testimonials, discounts, early purchases, and coupon codes. Moreover, at this stage, you can add some of the following features to ensure you lead them to the next level.

  • A smooth and easy to use checkout process
  • Live chat for customers to ask questions at any point of their journey
  • Secure payment feature to further build trust for customers’ finance
  • Email confirmation of a successful purchase

Stage 5: Repeat customers

When your customers are satisfied and delighted with the purchased item from your store, you should pursue to make them buy again. However, the will to buy again largely depends on how satisfied the initial product was. And if they love your brand, they will return ad buy again and again. Below are some of the most effective ways to give customers the best user experience.

  • Email drip campaigns contain helpful content for your product or service
  • Invite paying customers to be a part of your loyalty program
  • Give out special offers for your referral sources and repeat purchase buyers.

Related: Evaluating and Improving Your SEO Strategy