Understanding Social Media Marketing Funnel

At each stage of the user experience, the users can pass through a social media marketing funnel. The funnel or pipeline idea is used in most marketing strategies, and social media is no exception.

A marketing funnel is a term that you might already be familiar with.

Even if not, it is not difficult.

Consider the following scenario: When you advertise your online company on social media, you are casting a big net.

As in, a net of billions of potential users.

Of course, you are just targeting a small group of prospects. You have people in the group who can interact with your messages and ultimately become customers after getting to know you. Your funnel is the mechanism that brings certain people from point A to point B.

When your prospects learn more about your brand and interact with it, you have a range of stages for various styles of funnels. Thus, breaking down the social media funnel into four stages in this article.

·      Awareness: The first step of your funnel is to familiarise people with who you are and what you must do. To put it another way, you are raising consciousness among people who have not heard from you before.

·      Engagement: In the second stage of the pipe, you are exchanging material and feedback with your followers. These encounters will assist you in determining whether the candidates are qualified leads.

·      Consideration: The critical build-up to their final decision is the third stage of your funnel. It is possible that your audience is thinking about your brand and maybe rivals at this stage.

·      Action/Conversion: People make sales is the third level of the social media marketing pipeline. This is where the advertisements, promotional letters, and deals really shine.

After the conversion is complete, we may add a final stage. This is the loyalty level, and it entails converting one-time shoppers into lifelong customers. You will essentially be repeating the steps above for people you already know and trust.

What Does a Social Media Marketing Funnel Look Like in Action?

Every organization already has a kind of marketing funnel in operation. However, whether the funnel is successful is a different story entirely.

That is why it is critical for companies to recognise these steps and develop marketing messages for each. And if one stage of the funnel is behind schedule, the others are affected as well.

As a result, you end up squandering money and damaging client relationships.

Businesses cannot ignore their social media marketing pipeline if they want to convert more consumers and develop a simple and effective advertising plan.

Thus, breaking down how marketers will produce content and advertisements for each stage below to better explain how a funnel works.

·      Awareness

First and foremost, you must contact your prospects. Those are the ones who are not entirely certain who you are or what you are offering.

Perhaps they are complete strangers. Maybe they are just looking through the windows. In any case, they must be trained and made mindful of why they need your presence in their lives.

Cold traffic can also be attracted to the funnel by using blog posts and advertorials. These prospects can come across your content because of a Google search or by having it posted on social media. Canva, for example, uses their blog posts to hit keywords while still posting sharable bits that appeal explicitly to their target audience.

·      Engagement/Consideration

Here is some food for thought: as per the marketing "rule of seven," companies must make seven contact points with a customer before they are able to buy.

What is the good news? Social networking is a low-hanging fruit for achieving such touchpoints.

There are a lot of people who Like. Comment. Share.

These actions will all be completed in a matter of seconds to show that your leads and prospects are interested in what you must do. - when you appear in someone's feed, you are inadvertently bringing your company to their attention.

Interactions between you and your fans that are meaningful are another milestone toward gaining a new client.

Consider basic question-based posts, which allow you to interact with your followers in addition to videos and blog posts.

Also, anything as plain as a meme may have the desired effect. Posts that humanise your brand and demonstrate your sense of humour are often the most engaging.

On the advertisement front, Facebook remarketing advertisements will have those all-important touch points for users who might be familiar with you but have not yet acted. Even if they do not click through, they will become more acquainted with your business.

These advertisements are ideal for bringing users to the Conversion process of your social media marketing funnel because they target people who have not visited your website or engaged with you.

·      Conversion

Avoiding the "hard sell" is a big part of social media marketing.

However, after followers have taken acts, such as clicking on an ad, participating in a trial, or signing up for your email list, you should be sure that they have the desire to buy.

Your funnel's Conversion stage means that you capitalise on those priceless moments. Lead-targeted remarketing advertisements are fair game for boosting conversions.

Not all move you take during the Conversion process needs to be done on social media. Using exclusive discounts and cart abandonment updates to combine email and social media will help give your followers the much-needed boost inside their inboxes.

And, as previously said, do not be afraid to press a discount on someone who has repeatedly interacted with your business. After all, the aim of your social media marketing funnel is to get more consumers.

·      Loyalty

Consider that acquiring a new client is five times more expensive than keeping the customers you currently have. That is why the Loyalty stage of the funnel can't be overlooked.

Remarketing commercials are fantastic at this point as well.

Are you promoting a new product or a special offer? If you want to give a one-time discount to previous customers? Targeting former customers with advertising is a fast and spam-free way to promote repeat purchases.

Brands can also cross-sell merchandise and offer special discounts to their clients.

Publishing consumer images and other types of user-generated content is another way to build loyalty. This not only tells consumers that you care for them, but it also allows you to advance the brand's story.

How Do I Measure the Success of My Funnel?

Understanding the steps of your social media marketing funnel is important, but so is examining each piece individually.

This is where the data mining come in handy.

Often businesses make the error of focusing only on cash conversions. This not only ignores the other three levels of the funnel, but it also sets companies up with a low conversion rate.

Instead, brands should track indicators like how many opportunities turn into leads, when those leads transform, and how many of those conversions turn into return buyers. This stems from tracking follower contacts outside of social media, such as email sign-ups.

Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager can be extremely useful in this regard since they allow you to monitor individual interactions and conversions in context without having to second-guess or pull your hair out.