Breaking Down the 5 Sections of a Successful Digital Marketing Funnel. Part 3 of 5.
Understanding the client journey through the five sections of a successful marketing funnel can provide great insight in creating relevant content tailored for step of their decision making process. In part three, we will discuss the Conversion section. Tune in.
Breaking Down the 5 Sections of a Successful Digital Marketing Funnel (Part 3 of 5)
Hello. Good afternoon Michael Winn, Chief Digital Officer of Digital Opps a division of RB Oppenheim Associates. Welcome to the video podcast where we discuss digital marketing tactics and strategies to grow your business. Today we’re going to resume part three of a five part series on breaking down the five sections of a successful digital marketing funnel. Yesterday, in the episode before we discussed step one which is awareness, step two consideration and today we’re going to talk about the conversion section of the funnel. Obviously one of the most important sections of the funnel because this is where the rubber meets the road. Or where the digital pixel ends not necessarily but it’s the ultimate in for most businesses where the potential client prospect has decided they’ve done their research, they’ve done their homework, they’ve been consuming your additional valuable content like we talked about yesterday during their consideration stage. And now it’s time for you to present them with the ask you’re asking for their business.
Strategy One: 30-Day Free Trial
So I’m going to start off and talk about three different content strategies that you want to think about in this stage. And what kind of content you want to have in front of them, to help them pull the trigger and become part of your family, become a customer for life. So number one, I think one of the most successful methodologies that we’ve seen in digital marketing is to provide a 30-day free trial. For some businesses, this is a very simple concept. You can look at your annual contract, figure out what a pro-rated month looks like and let them experience your product or service for 30 days for free so they can experience what it’s like to do business with your and with your company. Now many times coupons can be offered. The one thing that I think is really important and we’ve talked about this before on the show, and is really easy to get addicted to discounts but not so much free stuff. Because if you present free, then you’re truly providing value whereas coupon almost could be perceived as my services or products are really not worth the original asking price. So I think that’s the downside to discounts in getting folks to make a decision. So the 30-day free trial is a great way to offer to your clients and prospects.
Strategy Two: One-on-One Consultation
Number two is to provide a one-on-one consultation for no obligation. In other words you’re offering to meet with or one of your staff meet directly face-to-face ,over the phone, or whatever. However you’re set up is as far as a consumer interaction, but a one to one consultation session can provide them again with what is it like to do business with your company, your staff, and your employees. We know that having the right people empowered in the right role is so important because when you’ve got the right people in the right role thing, magical things happen. So one-on-one consultations with no obligation are a great content strategy to use during the conversion section of the digital marketing funnel.
Strategy Three: Free Assessment
Number three would be similar to the first two that I mentioned and would be a free assessment. You see these types of offers where companies might offer they could assess your roof to see if it’s damaged or automotive shops may offer a free break inspection or free oil leak inspection. I remember back in my days working with marketing in the automotive industry at the Acura dealership and once a year we offered a free campaign for a complete inspection for any vehicle that was over seven years old. Man, we had people just come out of the woodworks for that free assessment. Now of course, we provided a list of all the things that need to be done to the vehicle and we put them in a priority with pricing of what it was to address those issues. That way the client, our prospect left with that information. Oftentimes right there, on the spot they would take advantage of those offers and have those repairs done. And other times they would say “thank you” and be on their merry way.
So those are just three ideas of types of contents or strategies to execute during the stage. Let’s talk about digital tools to use during this stage. I think it’s really important and we’ve talked about this before, to build your list. So what I mean by build your list is your email list. Your website should have a way to capture email addresses for website visitors who have come and looked at your content whether it’s a video or a white paper. Earlier we talked about the consideration stage about white papers, case studies, and infographics and all those things which are opportunities for you to collect their email address. So your email marketing efforts really can kick into play here.
Retargeting
The other thing we’ve talked about before is retargeting. Again, that’s where you use display advertising for people who have visited your website, specific sections of your website, and then they leave. And as they go across the internet whether it’s social media or other websites, they see banner ads, sidebar ads, or footer ads. Specific display ads that remind them that they visited your company and looked at your products or services. So those are retargeting yes, but what’s different about the conversion section of the digital marketing funnel is, you don’t want to show them that same ad because they’ve already taken the stuff in. You want to show them something different, to really entice them with that option. In the retargeting tools, you can create a rule that says “only show this display ad to people who have visited this particular page” and based on that content they’ve already gone through, the awareness phase, they’ve gone into the consideration things. Then maybe they’ve gone to that third piece of content but they haven’t quite pulled the trigger and contacted you, then you want to show a little bit of a different piece of creative that’s really dialed in to that specific ask .
So those are two strategies that I think can be very successful, you can also wrap that in with Facebook and Instagram ads. Again, you can place that Facebook pixel on your website and define that and say only visitor who have made it to this far through the content journey and show them the the ad based on their traffic pattern on your website. Then last but not least, is the value add opportunity and so here we want to really go beyond the expectations of your prospects. Once they do actually say “yes I want to sign up I want the 30 day trial”, you want to somehow go above and beyond. Surprise them with an additional value! You’ll have to think about what that looks like in your environment, but one idea that you might think about is offer them an additional incentive to share the fact they decided to make the purchase or sign up for the trial and share that on social media. Or share an email, provide them a way to essentially be what we would call social proof that your business is who they decided to pick. So you might give them another 30-day trial or you might offer them some other incentive to tell their friends “hey I decided to go with company A when it came to the products and services that I was looking at”.
And then lastly, guys, most importantly is to have a huge thank you. You really need to show your appreciation that they’ve decided to choose you. They could have picked anybody else and they decided to go with you. The topper really is if you can figure out a way to personalize that thank you, it really goes a long way. So again you have to leave that up to your marketing team and how they can do that and figure it out through social media. What’s important to folks and what really makes a value or you can give them some additional swag, I mean there’s all kinds of different incentives that you can really go over the top. Guys, thank you so much. My name is Michael Winn, I’m the Chief Digital Officer of Digital Opps. Have a great day and see you tomorrow!