At the top of your sales funnel lies your opportunity to introduce potential customers to your brand and products through eye-catching content like blog posts and infographics.

At this stage of the funnel, it is an opportunity to offer gated content such as eBooks or service landing pages that encourage leads to book calls with you – helping build trust while humanizing your brand.

Awareness

At this stage, potential customers become aware of your brand. They become interested in learning about your services, products and competitors in order to find an answer or solution to their pain point or challenge.

Effective marketing to sales funnel strategies aim to grab potential customers’ attention during this stage through social media engagement, website traffic growth, SEO efforts, PPC ads and word-of-mouth referrals. All efforts should portray your business’s brand image consistently so potential customers recognize your business immediately.

The middle of the funnel serves to nurture audiences who have moved past awareness or interest stages, but still require encouragement before purchasing. Content that focuses more on making sales such as case studies, product demonstrations, pricing information and discounts can encourage buyers to proceed further down their purchase path.

Interest

Your prospects in the interest phase are looking for solutions to their problems or ways to achieve their goals, searching online and conducting research to discover who can assist them best. They may visit various companies’ websites or conduct phone calls before making their choice.

At this stage, your task should be to create content that engages readers while showing off your expertise. When making such an impressionive statement about products or services that could eventually turn people away.

At this stage, your prospects will make up their mind whether to purchase your product or service. They may take steps such as filling out a query form or signing up for your e-newsletter, while also considering its pros and cons compared to similar offerings and pricing and value proposition. They may make their decision after gathering enough information.

Desire

At this stage, your prospects recognize a need or want and conduct research into possible solutions and evaluate options available to them; perhaps they need a new mattress or gym membership membership.

Your content must be informative and tailored specifically to each prospective client’s individual needs, such as blogs, podcasts, case studies or any other form of media that showcases your expertise while showing why it would be a suitable solution for them. This may include blogs, podcasts or case studies which demonstrate why it might be suitable.

Make it your goal to convert as many leads into customers at the top of your sales funnel. This requires creating engaging content marketing, as well as understanding who your audience is. While not every lead who reaches Interest might buy right away, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will never buy from you again!

Decision

No matter the nature of your retail business – online retail or brick and mortar storefront – marketing funnels are an indispensable way to connect with potential customers and drive sales growth and customer retention.

At the core of any sales funnel is getting customers back through again and again, which requires tracking repeat customer counts and retention rates to identify any areas in which your marketing funnel may not be functioning optimally, and make necessary changes that will boost conversion rates.

Action

Once your prospects and leads have progressed through your sales funnel stages, it’s time to convert them into paying customers. Zendesk Sell can assist in this effort by organizing and tracking prospects, collecting pipeline metrics, and automating email marketing campaigns.

Action Step: Convert prospects into customers! By selling them something from your business or signing them up for your newsletter, or through special offers and loyalty programs.

Remember, once a prospect becomes a customer, your relationship doesn’t stop here. Focus on keeping them by showing gratitude, gathering feedback and offering tech support (if relevant). Doing this will keep your brand top of mind for future purchasing considerations.