How To Build A Social Media Sales Funnel: Your Complete Guide

Social media has become a prominent marketing platform in the past few years. Any business shying away from using this channel for promotions is losing a major market share. These sites have captured the imagination of every generation and provide a wide range of content and interaction opportunities necessary in the globally connected world.

In February 2022, nearly 82.7% of Australians were using social media actively, whereas this percentage stood at just 58% in 2015. The vast difference aptly showcases the growing popularity of the medium.

Every small and big business needs to use social media to find their target audience, build brand awareness, improve reliability, start conversations, resolve queries and influence them to purchase. Here is a complete guide for entrepreneurs to help them build a social media sales funnel that can prove beneficial in generating leads and conversions. A funnel can make it easier to utilise the marketing budget effectively and get the desired results.

What Is A Social Media Sales Funnel?

A social media funnel comprises different stages of a customer’s journey, starting from awareness and ending at brand advocacy. They follow the path from being a prospective customer to a brand loyalist. The sales funnel ensures that the marketer maintains the chain of promotions at every level to persuade the customers to purchase. Gold Coast SEO experts insist on creating the funnel to generate the desired response from the consumers. They use social media tools and techniques to help potential customers move to the next level and reach the conversion and advocacy stage.

Five Stages of A Social Media Sales Funnel

The pathway from customer acquisition to retention goes through several steps. Let us help you understand how each is useful for the marketer.

1. Awareness – Brand Visibility

The topmost part of the funnel is the awareness stage, where the business informs the target audience about the company and its products. Marketers need to provide valuable information to customers to help them understand the business’s vision, mission and goals. It helps in building credibility and attracts a large number of prospective customers.

2. Interest – Arousing Buyer’s Curiosity

The next part of the funnel is the interest stage, where the marketer uses compelling messages to evoke an interest in the products. At this stage, the potential buyers try to compare the products with competitors and are still deciding about purchasing.

3. Action – Influencing the Buyer to Purchase

After the marketers succeed in developing an interest in the products, they make every effort to convert the leads. They use various tactics to make them purchase the products.

4. Engagement – Maintaining Customer Relationship

Once the customers have bought and used the product, they must be serviced as esteemed clients. The business should continue to engage with them to make them purchase again and retain them.

5. Advocacy – Creating Brand Loyalists       

Loyal customers reach the last stage of the funnel, where they become brand advocates. They provide positive word of mouth and praise the products online by giving excellent reviews.

How to Build A Social Media Sales Funnel?

Since the marketer has to engage with the buyer at every stage to push them through the levels, it is imperative to build a strategy. Planning helps to decide how the customers need to be engaged and employ STP marketing techniques to satisfy them. So, here is a step-by-step guide to building the social media sales funnel.

1. Preparing for the Brand Awareness Stage

To attract the attention of buyers, it is essential to create relevant, intriguing and valuable content, such as blogs, webinars, and powerful videos. These informative messages must answer their questions and make them understand the purpose of the business and its products.

To find customers, marketers can run social media contests on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to increase followers, become a part of LinkedIn groups and create share-worthy videos for YouTube and Facebook. They can also produce infographics, images, text-based posts and memes to grab eyeballs. If they have the budget, they can also opt for paid ads on the social media channels used by the target audience and partner with influencers.

2. Getting Ready for Evaluation by Customers

During the interest stage, buyers try to assess the products. Thus, SEO experts in Gold Coast ensure they find an intuitive website with positive customer reviews, 5-star ratings and all the information they need to make an informed decision.

Some techniques utilised to accomplish this goal are uploading videos and images of behind-the-scenes work of the business, posting demo videos on YouTube and Instagram, monitoring reviews and comments on all the sites, showcasing testimonials from satisfied customers and engaging in one-to-one conversations. They continue with paid advertising, emphasising product details and other discerning features. Also, paying attention to diversity and inclusion in advertising is essential for improving brand image.

3. Making the Buyer Purchase from the Brand

In the action stage, they are made to buy with an effective marketing strategy. At this level, the marketer uses email marketing, paid ads and social media contests with incentives. Remarketing ads on Facebook help acquire customers who had previously shown interest by adding products to the cart.

They can also offer a free trial to increase product demo videos created by users. Offering promo codes for the first purchase for a defined period helps to create a sense of urgency and increases conversions.

4. Building A Relationship With the Customers

Customer retention is easy if done the right way. The key to making them repeat buyers is to connect with the often, listen to their feedback and provide them with what they need. From the marketing perspective, engagement can be maintained through personalised emails, Facebook Messenger conversations, WhatsApp chats, and Live sessions on Instagram. Marketers must share blogs and newsletters with them and use upselling and cross-selling through paid ads to sell more.

5. Increasing Brand Loyalty

At the last stage of the funnel, SEO experts Gold Coast must allow the customers to talk about their experiences and share them on social media. Thus, they can create Facebook Groups where customers can share their feedback, offer special loyalty program discounts, and ask them to rate the products and write reviews and testimonials.

Wrapping Up

Social media marketing is no more restricted to creating profile pages and getting likes and followers. The process follows a strategy to connect with customers at every touch point and retain them to increase sales. Thus, marketers must follow the social media sales funnel guide to meet their expectations.