
The importance of digital marketing in today’s business landscape cannot be overstated. The bottom line is that it takes a dynamic digital marketing strategy to get in front of the right audience, capture their attention, and stay there. However, that doesn’t mean you have to invest in and keep up with every digital marketing service. In fact, we don’t recommend that you do.
Not all digital marketing strategies are a good investment for every business all the time. That’s why it helps to have a digital marketing agency on your side that knows the details and uses of every service and can make a custom strategy for your business based on your budget, audience, goals, and what you have to offer. So, while it’s not really beneficial to run every service at once, there are a few fundamentals that your friendly, digital advertising experts at Uptick Marketing do recommend for every business.
If you’re having trouble finding and converting leads for your business, these fundamentals, along with other potential services, go hand-in-hand with certain stages of your lead generation funnel to increase your success with these goals.
What Is a Lead Generation Funnel?
A lead generation funnel represents the journey a lead makes to become a buying customer.
Not all lead generation funnels have the same stages, but they also don’t deviate too far from each other. For the sake of this blog, the stages of the lead generation funnel are:
- Awareness: capture your lead’s attention
- Interest: show your value to garner interest
- Desire: solve their problem with your product to build desire
- Action: convince them to make a purchase
- Conversion: make the sale
Depending on where potential customers are in the funnel, different digital marketing services align with each stage to help make progress and eventually get to the last stage: conversion.
How Do Digital Marketing Services Complement the Lead Generation Funnel?
Awareness
A good website, landing page, and high-quality videos are what we call the fundamentals of digital marketing, and we recommend that all of our clients have them. Think of them like butter, salt, and pepper. Can you make a meal without them? Sure, but it’s not going to be nearly as delicious (not to mention nobody’s coming back for seconds). Without the fundamentals, your business isn’t likely to go anywhere online because there’s nowhere to drive your lead traffic. Additionally, high-quality videos are the best way to tell your story, demonstrate your products and services, and create a lasting impression.
Behavioral, geotargeting, and social posts/ads are at the top of the funnel because they help create brand awareness and introduce your brand to the right audience. Targeting enables you to aim your ads at individuals who want to hear from you and are most likely to be interested in you and purchase your product(s).
If you’re aiming to make your brand known and you’re dealing with fierce competition in your industry, using ads like these can be a smart way to spend your budget. This is especially true if you’re also using other digital advertising methods like retargeting. Additionally, if you have a new product that people are not familiar with or actively searching for, these types of ads can give you that much-needed exposure.
Interest
Search engine optimization (SEO) is towards the top of the lead generation funnel because it’s how people find you when they use a search engine to find the product or service they’re looking for. They know what they want and are ready to take action with a brand or product to solve their problem. They could be looking for your business specifically or a business like yours. Encouraging people to transition from Google to your website is a positive step forward.
Retargeting ads are beyond necessary for online marketing. They repeatedly put you in front of leads who are aware of you and have already been to your website but have yet to make a purchase. They’re interested in you, but they need extra ‘oomph’ to convert into a sale.
Every time a lead sees your ad on a website, it’s considered a touchpoint. The more touchpoints the better, as this keeps your business top-of-mind. When they finally do click on your ad, they’re taken to a landing page designed to convert them into a buying customer. They’re like the younger sibling who follows you around until you give them attention.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the paid ads that appear in search results with the word “ad.” When it comes to advertising, PPC is a great way to get your products and services in front of people who are actively looking for what you (and your competitors) offer. By creating compelling ads and directing visitors to a well-crafted landing page, you can increase the likelihood of turning those visitors into paying customers without wasting money on irrelevant traffic.
Desire
Content marketing helps beef up your website and helps it stay active with Google. This can include blog articles and other website content, email marketing, and more. Content marketing gives you the opportunity to fortify your value proposition and show your customer how you can solve their problem or meet their need, thereby increasing their desire to make a purchase.
As a component of content marketing, email marketing is a valuable tool to increase desire in the customer by re-engaging, regularly communicating, and nurturing leads. If you can provide valuable information to the customer by promoting a blog or event, they’re more likely to see your business as reputable, valuable, and able to alleviate their pain point.
Action
Once your lead decides to take action, e-commerce optimization is crucial. You don’t want anything to interfere with their journey from choosing a product to making the purchase. Think about it: if a page you click on doesn’t load in less than five seconds, what are you likely to do? Close the tab. There’s nothing worse than a website that loads slowly or isn’t mobile-friendly.
E-commerce optimization also means your category pages need to be on point, with relevant, informational keywords and no lagging product images or descriptions. Ensure your website is easy to navigate and all links are working properly and up-to-date.
Conversion
Now that you’ve converted your lead (congratulations!), you want to create repeat customers through brand loyalty. Frequent communication about product updates, new products, and relevant news via a newsletter is the perfect way to do so. They’re also an easy way to encourage your customers to connect with you on social media.
Speaking of social media, your customers want to hear from you! A short or long-term social media strategy can go a long way to increase engagement from your followers. More than ever, people want to feel connected to the brands they support instead of like they’re in some Wizard behind the curtain scenario. Creative, relatable, and authentic content is the name of the game, here! Showcase why you’re a brand that customers can be proud to support and make them want to keep coming back.
Find and Convert Leads Through Digital Marketing with Uptick
If you don’t feel thoroughly prepared to take on the world of digital marketing, no worries! We’re here to help and would love to be a part of helping you achieve online marketing success for your business. While there are services we can recommend for quick success in certain areas, it’s important to keep in mind that digital advertising is a marathon in most cases—not a sprint. Sometimes finding quality leads and converting them into loyal customers can be a slow-growing process, but our experienced team is here to guide you every step of the way.
Let’s talk! We’re eager to listen, learn, and create a winning strategy for your business online.