When it comes to selling and attracting people with the goal of generating conversions and becoming customers or consumers of the product or service, there is a part-guided process and carefully treated to generate final value at every stage of the process. This has a name: sales funnel. This process has many applications and Jorge Zuñiga Blanco, an eCommerce and sales expert, discusses how to create the sales funnel for an eCommerce business.
Each level of the Inbound Marketing funnel process involves tasks that feed on marketing actions to strengthen the relationships between the company and the consumer. In eCommerce, the web is the platform that works as a channel to generate the conversion process through the funnel. If the website and everything involved works correctly, so does sales. “The funnel is essential to verify what stage of the purchase your customer is at and what messages or strategies you should use to bring them closer to the conversion,” explains Zuñiga.
You must analyze the purchase cycle of your products by analyzing the website traffic. The SEO (search engine optimization) strategy ensures that people end up clicking on your website when they google it. Depending on the business, the funnel may require different actions with different elements: sales appointments, queries, landing pages, email tracking, phone tracking or store visits. To do this, you need to know the Customer Journey of your Buyer Persona.
Weekly sales metrics will show the evolution and direction the company takes with respect to goals. Creating metrics and documents weekly helps your business stay on top of the latest information about the most important factors in pipeline tools, new sales opportunities, and what sales have achieved over the past week. This enables the sales group to target its target more effectively. We recommend that you have a metric dashboard in eCommerce to optimize your company’s strategy.
The importance of positioning in search engines is present in all three phases of the funnel. By providing value to your content, you get them to link you, especially other relevant websites in your sector. By analyzing the keywords that users use and which pages they access, you can create the type of content they’re looking for that will help you position.
Your funnel can have as many phases as you need. The main phases are TOFU, MOFU and BOFU, which you can split your sales funnel for eCommerce. Top of the funnel (TOFU) refers to awareness or generate brand awareness. Asserts Zuñiga, “At this stage, the visitor to the website may have come to the page for several reasons: good web design, Google search results, social media appearance or advertising campaigns.”
Attract potential customers at this stage through content marketing. Through the continuous updating of a blog that brings value to the user, it retains and contributes what it seeks: quality content, articles and expert opinions. The social media strategy is also essential for user engagement and for the dissemination of blog content. In this line, the addition of Webinars and other types of informational content can meet the needs of users at this stage. Ads or ad servers, mail, and offline marketing are also used in this first stage of the funnel.
The middle of the funnel (MOFU) incorporates actions that generate trust to the user who has previously gone through the TOFU phase. At this stage, the person is sought to provide their personal data. Trust is essential in this sales funnel cover for an eCommerce, because if users share their data with you, they demonstrate a certain affinity with your brand. For this purpose, both in the MOFU and in the other two phases, there can be no lack of security, navigation to find products with breadcrumbs and the generation of some harmony in the elements of navigation. The MOFU phase is intended for retargeting, nurturing lead campaigns and special promotions for those who have reached that stage of trust.
Likewise, improving the search that saves the user headaches will help him or her to move on to the next phase. This is done using techniques such as predictive writing, accepting synonyms, misspellings, and accompanying a brief description of the product when searching to add value. At this stage, the task of eCommerce will be to convince the consumer that the service offered is the best among all those looking for the network. The greatest treasure for anyone working with marketing and sales is the leads database.
Buy or buy not; that’s the question. This is the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). The time has come for the truth, the last decision in which the user will be one click away from being your client. Signify that you have been satisfied and in addition, you have to cause you to want to repeat the experience. Try to add as much information as possible on the purchase screen; the user does not want to encounter surprises such as surcharges. Make it clear what the shipping costs, returns and possible discount vouchers are.
“At this stage, it should be noted that it costs more to get new customers than to retain those that are already available,” adds Zuñiga. “Using abandoned shopping cart recovery strategies is highly recommended: reminders by email or remarketing, offer special discounts.”
