If you own a business or run a marketing department, you’ve probably heard of both the buyer’s journey and funnel marketing before. But how deeply do you understand its value?
More importantly, do you know how to build them yourself? Small business owners – pay close attention and read this article all the way through.
In this article:
- What is the digital customer journey?
- What is lower funnel marketing?
- What is POWR One?
- Lower Funnel Stages Explained
Research shows that only 3% of prospects are ready to buy now. How can you address the other 97% in the meantime?
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Providing accurate information helps them make an informed purchase decision at the appropriate buyer journey stage.
You can accomplish it and win new business by clearly understanding your customer’s purchase journey and optimizing your lower-funnel marketing.
What is the Digital Customer Journey?
The digital customer journey is the path a person takes online, from becoming aware that your company or product exists to becoming a loyal customer.
Search Google for ‘customer journey,’ ‘purchase funnel,’ or other buzzword combinations, and you’ll get various results that essentially are the same.
One that’s growing in popularity is the AIDA stages, or Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action.
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Regardless of their names, they are the different stages of the funnel every person takes to become your customer.
Each stage of the consumer purchase funnel presents distinct challenges, strategies, content, and data tracking requirements.
The better you know your ideal customer, the more effective the top of your purchase funnel will be. You must understand their desires, motivations, and fears.
The closer you can match and mimic their thought process, the more you can tap into customer psychology to get them to take the actions you need to increase sales.
This article outlines the lower-funnel stages and shows how POWR One can optimize your lower-funnel marketing efforts, driving more conversions and improving customer loyalty.
What is Lower Funnel Marketing?
Lower-funnel marketing (sometimes called the bottom of the funnel) refers to the final stages of the purchase journey, where decisions are made.
The primary goal in the lower funnel is conversions. Sales. Revenue. Call it what you want, but you hope the time and money you’ve spent to get consumers interested in your product or service will ultimately pay off here.
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Of all the stages of the funnel, the lower section, also called BOF (bottom-of-funnel), is where the site visitor must now choose, “Do I buy from this company?”
You’ve made them aware of your company, and they’re considering a purchase, but how do you get them to click “Buy Now”?
To stack the deck in your favor, you must ensure you fully optimize your website or online store so site visitors see what they need to see, when they need to see it, to decide your company is the one to choose.
So how do you do that? Glad you asked! Each section in the remainder of this article is an in-product engagement tactic you can do without needing a web developer's help.
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What is POWR One?
POWR One is an all-in-one suite of website apps built to address and impact the bottom of the purchase funnel and to enrich conversion funnel optimization to the max, so you can focus more on the productivity of your small business.
Creating and installing the proper assets improves your chances of moving a site visitor down the funnel, resulting in a happy, loyal customer.
POWR One helps you manage your lead funnel while keeping your website load times low, which always delivers a delightful user experience.
Lower Funnel Stages Explained
As a small business owner, it's important to use marketing tactics that efficiently convert site visitors into paying customers.
A lower-funnel approach can be highly effective for achieving this goal. By targeting individuals who are most likely to make a purchase in the near future, you can maximize conversions and increase your overall return on investment (ROI).
Funnel Stage - Intent
In this stage, your goal is to get a site visitor to take an action that shows they are more than just interested; they intend to buy from you.
It can be done by installing website apps like a popup or a contact form where you ask them to give you more information about themselves.
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How does POWR One apply to the buyer intent stage?
Let’s look at one example with the discount pop-up. Pop-ups are a prime method of generating new leads.
Indeed, you have clicked on a website before, and the screen goes grey, then a small box pops up with a percent-off offer on your first purchase. Sound familiar?
It is a lead-collection attempt and often works well. You give them your email address; they give you a discount.
You’ve demonstrated buyer intent, thus moving one step further down the funnel to the purchase stage.
Example popup created by author with POWR One
It is just one method of identifying buyer intent using POWR One. The good news is that it is an all-in-one platform with access to all marketing and sales tools, not just the pop-up.
You can mix and match apps and do A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t until you find the right combination for your business.
Funnel Stage - Purchase
Ah, the most important of all the stages! You won’t stay in business if you cannot convince consumers to buy your product or service, right?
People hate being sold to, but they love to buy. How do you persuade someone to buy from you? By presenting your offerings and removing any barriers to completing a purchase.
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How does POWR One apply to the purchase stage?
POWR One includes product galleries, shoppable Instagram feeds, and others, but let’s look specifically at the Payment Button as an example in the purchase stage.
Once a site visitor has decided to buy an item or service, the last thing they want is to encounter payment issues.
It’s essential that you remove any payment barriers and provide the simplest possible experience. For example, a one-click checkout experience is optimal for boosting online conversions.
But sometimes, it isn’t that easy. You may have a service business that requires more detail, for example. In that case, use an order form to collect additional information necessary for fulfillment.
And not only can you collect payments with an order form, but you can also set up instant alert notifications and sync your contacts instantly with Google Sheets, among other cool features.
Example order form created by author with POWR One
Finally, set up conditional autoresponder emails to continue communicating with your new customers and provide excellent customer support.
At this stage of the digital customer journey, we’ve taken someone from not knowing your company to being interested in what you offer.
They showed intent to buy, ultimately completed the purchase, and you now have an ROI to calculate. Congrats!
But if you thought that’s where it ends, you have missed the customer journey's final and most critical part – the loyalty stage.
Funnel Stage - Loyalty
On average, over 5 million new businesses are created every year. That’s over 13,000 per 24-hour period.
What can you do to see that yours will survive and thrive when as many as 90% of startups fail? By building a loyal customer base from day one.
You accomplish this by gathering customer feedback and prominently displaying it for other consumers interested in buying from you.
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How does POWR One apply to the loyalty stage?
The loyalty stage is critical, and POWR has addressed this by offering many website plugins to choose from.
Two of the most important are customer feedback surveys and star rating reviews. How important, you ask?
An actual review of POWR One on Shopify
Statistics show that 95% of online consumers read reviews before buying a product.
What’s more, this same study shows that displaying reviews increases conversions by 270%!
Review management is a lot of work, but the payoff is enormous. Can you recall the last time you made an online purchase without checking reviews? Neither can I.
People trust reviews because they represent a real-life experience with your product or service. Even negative reviews can have a positive impact if you approach them from a marketing perspective.
It’s impossible to please everyone every time, so when you inevitably receive a negative review, you must acknowledge the poor experience publicly, offer an explanation or resolution, and include your contact information in your reply.
Paying close attention to the loyalty stage of the customer buying funnel is paramount in today’s online purchasing experience. It isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s a must-have to stay competitive and remain in business.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve delved into the digital customer journey and examined how to optimize your lower-funnel marketing. And it’s easy to see a funnel as a fixed, rigid structure because it seems like one.
But truth be told, a customer purchase funnel is anything but rigid. It’s a living, breathing thing that is going to evolve. It will twist, turn, and reroute like a river flowing downstream.
You must adapt your funnel to new marketing trends and economic changes. You will have to consider adding AI tools and technologies to your toolbox.
Your customer behavior will adjust; your target buyer persona may change or need to be expanded; and countless unseen obstacles will arise.
To stay in business and scale, you must close new sales and work tirelessly to retain your existing customers.
And guess who will be evolving with your business, ebbing and flowing with the current right alongside you – POWR One.
Author Bio
Mick Essex is the Growth Marketing Manager at POWR. His career spans two decades, primarily in the healthcare industry, with stints in broadcast television advertising and copy editing. Mick attended the College of Journalism at the University of Louisiana - Monroe. He and his family currently reside in Lafayette, Louisiana. Follow him on LinkedIn.