How Do Social Media & Inbound Marketing Affect Your Sales Funnel?
Many small and mid-sized businesses that we speak to are very interested in learning about what they should be doing to bring social media into their marketingmix. There is definitely a "bandwagon" effect going on here, as everyone clamors to climb on board and get into social media, perhaps without giving much thought to how it will work with their current process for acquiring new customers, sometimes called the "sales funnel."
Most companies tend to look at the sales funnel in a linear fashion, as in the image above, and define it as marketing's job to help generate new leads and pass them off to sales to convert into new customers. Is that how your organization works? If so, then you are likely still employing a traditional "oubound" approach to marketing and the steps in your sales funnel to generate new leads probably go something like this:
- Awareness: create product and brand awareness among potential new customers
- Evaluation: provide information to allow prospective customers to evaluate your products or services vs their needs and your competition
- Engagement: develop methods to get prospects engaged with the product or service, thinking about how it benefits them.
- Conversion: get a commitment to enter into closer dialog, start a trial, make an initial purchase, etc from the customer
- Loyalty: generate loyalty that leads to repeat sales and higher customer lifetime value.
How Do Inbound Marketing & Social Media Affect Your Sales Funnel Process?
The first thing that changes, philosophically, is that at the top of the funnel (TOFU) instead of going "looking" for new customers by broadcasting unsolicited messages of one form or another, your goal changes to focus on "getting found" by self-identified prospects who are actively looking for the products and services your company offers. You're not just looking to make a one-off sale and move on. What you are looking to do is to begin a relationship that is on the prospect's terms, that respects their pace, and to engage them by providing compelling and useful online content that they value.
The end game at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) also changes, because now that you have built a relationship, and done so through employing social tools, you have the opportunity to move your customer one step beyond mere loyalty (which would involve getting an individual customer's repeat business over time) to advocacy, by providing them the reason and the opportunity (through shareable content and your social media presence) to actually advocate on your behalf and recommend your company to their network of connections at every stage of the process.
The middle of the funnel (MOFU) evaluation stage changes as well when you employ social media. Prospects are not just going to be evaluating the web page content or downloadable fact sheet provided on your and your competitor's websites. They are going to be asking around, checking with friends, reading blogs and online reviews. What they learn about you from others will mean more to them than anything they hear from you. Are you giving them reasons to comment favorably? Are you listening and interacting with them in these spaces?
I guess you could say that, in contrast to the linear sales funnel of outbound marketing, the inbound marketing sales funnel is more like a corkscrew. Prospects will move through it, go back and forward a step, step out of it laterally and return, etc.
Marketing is no longer entirely in your control, is no longer a one way message. It is a relationship, an ongoing dialog, and you are not in control any more. If you act like you want to be, by online producing interruptive outbound messages but not making yourself available for conversation, your approach will look "salesy," and will turn people off. Inbound marketing involves the ongoing publication of useful content, designed with your prospects and customers in mind, that engages them and creates trust no matter where they are in your sales funnel. That content of course should be crafted in such a way, that when combined with meaningful offers and effective calls to action, encourages people to move along in the sales funnel. If you do this welll, you'll generate trust, referral and advocacy, and enhance your brand's reputation.
If that makes sense to you, and you think there could be a role for inbound marketing and social media to play in enhancing your online marketing and lead generation efforts, then we encourage you to consider taking us up on our 30 day free trial and proof of concept.