A sales funnel is an important part of any marketing strategy. At every step, different channels are used to motivate and guide the user to the next stage.
Social media is most effective when used as a top-of-funnel tactic to attract new users and funnel them to the next steps. Many people are unaware that social media plays a significant role in every stage of the sales funnel, from the top to the bottom.
If you want to create a social media sales funnel that will help turn potential customers looking for a real estate agent, into actual customers, keep reading.
What is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a process that takes potential customers through a journey in order to make a purchase. Depending on who you are talking to and where they are in the customer journey, the stages and definition of a sales funnel will vary. There are four main components to a sales funnel.
1. Awareness
Content that’s designed for the top of the sales and marketing funnel should make prospects aware of your business and also highlight a problem they have. They will begin searching for answers to the problem you have presented to them once they are aware of it. This takes place during the consideration stage.
2. Consideration
When a person realizes they have a need or problem, they become a lead and start searching for answers. They carefully weigh their options and consult many businesses before making a final decision. You can use content to show that you have the solution to what your audience needs. This is valuable and educational.
3. Conversion
In this stage, your lead turns into a customer. They will make a decision soon, and if you have been supportive throughout their process, they are more likely to choose you. The importance of validation and social proof, such as ratings and reviews, cannot be understated.
4. Advocacy
Advocacy occurs when customers are thrilled with the product or service being offered. A typical customer service job involves making customers happy and turning them into advocates who will send more leads your way.
The key to successful marketing is to nurture your users as they move down the funnel, gradually filtering them, building interest, and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
How To Build A Social Media Sales Funnel
Social media is traditionally used to attract new prospects and create awareness. Social media can filter prospects and turn them into brand advocates.
Social Media Awareness
Social media is an excellent way to reach people who are unaware of your brand. Social media can be used to attract new customers and potential sales through social sharing, social advertising, and content.
You are making people aware of a problem they may not have known about, which in turn makes them curious. They will investigate further and move to the consideration stage.
Type of Content
Video
If you want to quickly grab someone’s attention who has never heard of your brand, you should use video at the top-of-the-funnel level. Since people’s attention spans are shorter and they are constantly being bombarded with brand messages, it is important that your message stands out within the first 6 seconds.
Eye-catching Visuals
If you want your social posts to stand out and catch the eye of potential leads, use colors that are eye-catching. In order to stand out on social media, your posts need to be visually appealing.
Infographics
An infographic is a way to show potential customers interesting and unique information in an engaging way. Do you have information that you think would be appealing and interesting to social media users, as well as bring awareness to their problems? Try creating an infographic!
Who to Target
You are typically targeting people who have never interacted with your business before in the brand awareness stage of the social media marketing funnel. As you move forward in your targeting, it will become increasingly important to understand your ideal buyer persona. At this stage, your targeting is relatively broad, so understanding who your ideal buyer is will help you focus your efforts. It is beneficial to identify those who are not interested in your business so that you can focus your efforts elsewhere.
You can target people based on various factors, including gender, location, age, interests, and even job title. This will allow you to target a specific demographic and only invest time in those who will be beneficial to your company in the future.
Social Media Consideration
Once you have identified a problem or question that a prospect has, you can begin creating content that answers and solves it for them. Your social followers may start asking questions and interacting with your posts at this stage.
It’s important to interact with potential customers on social media and direct them towards content that will convince them to buy your product or service.
Type of Content
Educational Blog Posts
In order to get people to your website or landing page, it is beneficial to create posts that offer solutions to the needs/problems of your target audience. The purpose of these posts is to get people to visit your website so that they can learn about your solution to their problem.
Lead-generating Ads
Lead capture ads are a great way to get email addresses that you can use to nurture your customers down the sales funnel.
Who to Target
By this point, people have usually already had some interaction with your brand. Tracking tools like Facebook’s pixel and Google Ads tags help you understand your audience and what they’re interested in so you can better target your ads. You can show ads to people who have visited your website or interacted with your social media profiles. These ads can feature content that will help these people progress further along the social media sales funnel.
Social Media Conversion
The step that we all strive for is conversion. This is when your followers have moved down the sales funnel and now trust your company to make a purchase. In this step, positive reviews and ratings from other users are especially important on social media, as they provide potential customers with proof and verification that your product/service is worth purchasing.
Posts/Ads with Incentive
If you add an incentive, such as a discount or a freebie, to a post near the bottom of the marketing funnel, it may encourage leads to convert into customers. This could mean displaying reviews that show the benefits your product/service has had for other paying customers.
Ads to Purchase with a CTA
If you have already warmed up your leads, all you need to do is give them a call to action, such as “Start Your Free Trial.” Your ad should have a clear purpose, with a single call-to-action for the desired lead response.
Who to Target
At this point, you should aim for leads that are very likely to convert, or those that are the warmest. You can improve your website by analyzing how people interact with it and setting up audiences based on who has interacted with your most valuable content and for how long.
Social Media Advocacy
After a customer makes a purchase, it is your opportunity to provide them with excellent customer service. If you want to keep your customers engaged, make sure to keep providing them with content that is both educational and relevant to your product or service. Social media is a great outlet for this.
This means that you are able to turn customers into advocates, which gives you a larger group of people to market to. This, in turn, helps you bring in new prospects, creating a never-ending cycle.
Testimonial Posts
Publishing testimonials on social media not only engage potential customers and help to convert them into paying customers, but can also turn other paying customers into advocates. Testimonials can encourage others to share their experiences with your product/service as well.
Posts that Engage Customers
Interacting with customers on a regular basis can build strong relationships that can lead to customer loyalty. For example, create posts that encourage customers to share how they’re using your product/service and to use a certain hashtag. Creating a community and brand loyalty around your most valuable users will allow you to increase your company’s value.
Who to Target
The most effective way to get testimonials and reviews at this stage is to target existing customers. These can be shared with potential customers who are further along in the sales process.
Funnel Maps
The social media funnel charts the journey potential customers take from first becoming aware of your brand, to considering your brand, making a purchase, and finally becoming loyal customers or advocates for your business.
In this stage, people are discovering that you exist. Your current followers and other people who have seen your profile can see stories that have been posted by friends or other businesses. If your niche is selling condos in Denver, people might notice your #DenverCondoSale hashtag and become interested in your real estate services.
At this stage, potential customers are becoming more interested in you and are taking more action than simply liking or sharing your posts. They may start requesting more information about your listings. People give you their email address in exchange for your newsletter or other content, like e-books and webinars. The fans of your page are also engaging with each other by commenting on posts and messaging each other directly with questions. This can give you additional information about them and their motivations so that you can customize content more effectively down the line.
Understand Your Audience
Analyze data related to how people are introduced to your brand in order to determine which methods are most effective. This data can include the number of people who visit your website, use your app, or sign up for email newsletters.
In order to create content that will resonate with your target market, you must first understand who they are and what they want. Only then will you be able to create something that they will actually find valuable. User research helps you understand what interests your users so that you can better design for them. Try using focus groups, surveys, and quizzes to get this information. For example:
- Are they millennials or retired Baby Boomers looking to downsize?
- Do they frequent Instagram?
- What area or neighborhood are they looking at?
- Are they first-time buyers?
Track Your Audience
The way that people discover your social media accounts has a big impact on your funnel. Some people may find out about your brand through advertisements while others may find out through a friend. One of the most effective ways to generate brand loyalty and awareness is through word-of-mouth. This is an excellent way to get customers interested in your product or service.
You could also gain new followers by advertising on Facebook or Twitter, so it is important to think about which keywords potential customers might use.
Track Your Social Media Success
To make sure your social media funnel is effective, you need to have the right social media tracking set up.
You can see how your social media is doing by looking at the commenting, liking, sharing, retweeting, following, and other activities. Some of the important social media metrics to track when validating your social media efforts include:
Subscribers/Followers
The number of followers and subscribers is generally a good indication of how reputable a social media profile is. Other social media users can see how popular a business is by looking at the number of likes, shares, and comments on a post.
Conversions
Your lower-funnel’s performance will be demonstrated by conversions from social media. If you are getting a lot of web traffic from social media but your conversion rates are low, you can use data to identify which parts of your social media funnel need improvement.
Revenue
Revenue from social media can be used to determine your ROI from your social media campaigns. It allows you to see if your social media efforts are effective.
Web Traffic
The goal of most website owners should be to get their website in front of as many people as possible. You can see how certain events impact your website traffic by tracking this metric on a graph.
