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Your complete guide to setting up a social media marketing funnel

by | Jul 21, 2021 | Analysis, Public Relations

Many businesses use social media as their primary marketing channel. Today, it’s a given that your ideal consumer is somewhere on social media, waiting for you to find them. You want to reach out to this audience, engage with them, and persuade them to buy or test your service.

This post will go through one of the most successful methods for doing so. I’ll explain how to create a social media funnel. I’ll show you how to transform a cold lead into a red-hot advocate of your brand.

What is a social media funnel?

A social media funnel is a means of generating leads and customers from social media. There are various types of social media funnels you can create. For example, you can design social funnels that directly push your social media to a conversion point.

One way you could do this is to incentivize people who engage with your company on social media to sign up to your email list through a squeeze page. It’s not the only way, though. For example, you could run an online competition that engages people on social media and turns them into subscribers.

A social media funnel doesn’t need to generate instant results. You can develop a social marketing strategy that slowly engages and converts people over time, taking them from prospects to customers.

A marketing funnel can help your company in multiple ways, including:

  • The stages of a funnel might help you understand what motivates potential customers to explore and buy.
  • Understand why a particular marketing tactic, such as white paper downloads, is only effective at specific points of the funnel.
  • Learn how to cultivate connections with new prospects and current customers and when to do so.
  • Create a strategy for reaching out to users at various phases of the sales funnel.

As you can see, the benefits and uses of a social media funnel are many and varied. Let’s look at how to create a social media funnel that works for your business.

5 stages of a social media marketing funnel

Marketing funnels are helpful tools for acquiring, converting, and retaining customers. A social media funnel assists you in bringing prospects who may or may not be aware of your brand to a stage where they express interest in your products or services and eventually make a purchase.

Your complete guide to setting up a social media marketing funnel

Source: Buffer

The five steps of a marketing funnel are as follows:

1. Awareness

The social media marketing funnel starts with potential customers discovering your brand. People who have never heard of your brand, product, or service make up the top of the awareness stage funnel.

In the awareness stage, the goal is to help people understand the problem they face and the role your company can play in resolving the issue. Communication at this stage should focus on creating awareness of your brand, products, and service while building trust with the leads.

To do this effectively, you need to understand your customer persona.

Your complete guide to setting up a social media marketing funnel

Source: Launch Space

Avoid directly pitching your product or services in the awareness stage, especially if you are selling expensive products or services. You’ll lose their trust and never make your sale.

Rather than trying to make an instant sale, consider what you can offer that people interested in your sector might find valuable. Downloadable eBooks, white papers, and free courses that address customer pain points are all potentially useful.

Let me give you a hypothetical example. If you manage an eCommerce store selling running shoes, you might release a downloadable guide of “10 Mistakes Amateur Runners Make That Slow You Down.” That guide is something people interested in running and would buy running shoes, might find useful.

You can use this type of content to get people onto your email list. Once they’re on your email list, you can work on developing that relationship with the lead.

2. Consideration

The consideration stage, or the middle of the funnel, has leads who are aware of the problem they are facing, aware of the solution you provide and are now seeking to acquire the best solution.

However, they aren’t yet ready to commit to a solution. This is a stage of comparison. During the comparison stage, people will review your services against competitors. Variables like price, features, reviews, and customer service will all impact the decision of which company to purchase from.

Let’s say you have a pricier product than your competition, but it is overall a much better product. How do you convince the lead that you are better than the competition?

Well, you have two options. You can dive in and create marketing content ranging from white papers to videos, infographics, and blogs to show your product is better.

Depending on the product or service offering, you can offer a 30-day, opt-out, free trial of all features of your product. An opt-out trial (Credit card information required) gets fewer leads but 2.5X the conversion rate. For example, Google offers a four-month unlimited trial of Play Music Unlimited and YouTube Red for new subscribers.

Your complete guide to setting up a social media marketing funnel

Source

You need to decide on the appropriate approach for your business.

Consider running retargeting ads and implementing remarketing strategies to convert prospects who are in the consideration stage. They are almost ready to make a purchase, and with the right incentive, they could choose your company.

3. Action

By now, the leads have read about your competition, compared prices and features. But they have not purchased products or services from your company. Customer reviews are critical at this point since they are one of the primary motivators for acquiring a product.

Other content elements that might persuade your audience to buy include social proof, case studies, and product demos. Again, remarketing and retargeting are most effective at this stage of the funnel.

4. Engagement

Customer acquisition is difficult. Customer retention is a lot easier and more profitable. Unfortunately, many businesses spend too little effort on this part of the funnel.

It may look that a customer is a lifelong enthusiast since they’ve made a purchase, but this isn’t necessarily the case. You must continue to nurture the relationship.

Keep in touch with your clients and make them feel like they’re a member of your tribe. You may achieve this by sharing social media and blog content that benefits them.

It would be best to consider going through some content style guides to maintain a consistent brand experience. After all, building a brand and brand loyalty needs continuity across all touchpoints.

Your complete guide to setting up a social media marketing funnel

Source: Instagram

Essie launched the #essielove hashtag to encourage consumers to submit images of their nail paint in action. Clients can use the hashtag to distribute their content with the hashtag’s 2 million followers.

5. Advocacy

The ultimate objective of your marketing funnel should be to turn loyal consumers into proactive ambassadors for your company. People are more inclined to trust a brand that comes highly recommended by their friends than any other sort of advertising. Referral programs are a fantastic method to transform your loyal customers into brand advocates.

Referral programs are similar to targeted marketing in that your consumers are more likely to suggest friends interested in your items.

Bottom line

To create a marketing funnel, you need to start with aligning the many moving parts. Marketing funnels may appear confusing, but they can help you improve your whole digital marketing approach by increasing conversion rates. To further simplify your workflow, you could even use process automation.

You can use a funnel approach to take your audience through the various phases of the buyer’s journey and eventually persuade them to purchase by using a funnel strategy.

Nicholas Rubright
Nicholas Rubright is the communications specialist for Writer, an AI writing assistant designed for teams. Nicholas has previously worked to develop content marketing strategies for brands like Webex, Havenly, and Fictiv.

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