5 Step Marketing Funnel For Business Success
This works for any business anywhere
Every small business faces a common problem. They know they need to market their business but usually don’t have the time or expertise to market and stay on top of everything else.
Often they think that marketing is too costly and they don’t have the budget for it so they don’t have a marketing plan or strategy and just wing it and hope for the best.
That’s not a good strategy and usually ends up with a lack of sufficient sales and, worst yet, can lead to the ultimate failure of the business.
Fortunately, there is an alternative for businesses that don’t have time or expertise or even a lot of money for a marketing budget.
If you’re one of the thousands of small businesses that find yourself in the above circumstances, this article is written for you.
We will cover 5 powerful but simple marketing steps that will work for your business if you put in the time and effort to follow them and if you don’t want to do it yourself you can outsource it for very little money.
Let’s get to it.
1. CREATE OR ACQUIRE A PRODUCT THAT SOLVES A PROBLEM WITH A BIG DEMAND
The first step is to create or acquire a product or service that solves a pressing problem that has a big demand for a solution. You may already have a product or service that will work just fine as long as there is an identified demand for it.
The product or service must match up with an identified target audience that has a pain point that needs to be removed or it provides a pleasure point that people are seeking to experience.
The problem or pleasure point should be specifically identified to the narrowest target market possible. Concentrate on just one specific pain or pleasure-seeking point. Rule everything else out for now. You can always look for other opportunities later once you’ve set up a successful marketing funnel campaign that is working for you.
The narrower you can identify the market being served the better. In marketing talk, the persons being identified are referred to as a “target audience”, “a niche”, “persona”, or “avatar.” They all mean the same thing. They are the persons best suited for your product or service.
You can identify your target audience by using certain tools like Ubersuggest.io, AnswerThePublic.com, Google Trends, and several other tools that will give you an idea of how many people are searching for what you have to sell.
Just type in the search bar of one of either of these tools and it will return the number of people that are searching for a particular product or service every 30 days on average.
See the image below to get an idea of what it looks like if your business was selling popcorn and more specifically a particular type of popcorn. The monthly search for the keyword “popcorn” is 201,100. This is a huge demand. This is how to find a target market.
Ubersuggest offers a free account which is more than sufficient for most small business purposes to begin with and it provides a great tutorial on how to get the most from it.
2. CREATE A SHORT MESSAGE THAT TELLS OR SHOWS THE BENEFITS OF USING YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE
Create a short message that tells anyone about the benefits of your product/service and how it solves the target audience’s problem or removes their pain. This often is referred to as a USP- Unique Sales Proposition or elevator speech. Be ready to share with anyone who asks what you do.
Use it in all of your communication channels. It becomes your brand. Use it over and over again. Don’t deviate from it unless there is a strong reason to tweak it based on data showing the return of better results.
Use what is known in marketing as the 4 U’s of messaging to craft your short quick message.
Those U’s stand for the proposition that whatever message you communicate to your target audience should be:
- Useful- It solves a problem/removes a pain point
- Unique- shows the benefits and how they are different or better than competitors
- Urgent- Use language that creates an urgency to act now
- Ultra-specific- describes the benefits and how the person will be better off after using the product or service than before.
3. Create a landing page on your own website
A landing page is a page on a website that describes what your product or service does to relieve the pain or solve the problem your target audience is experiencing.
It should be benefit-laden using the 4 U’s concept of providing useful information that is unique and is distinctly different from any competitor’s offering.
A landing page is the page internet searchers land on first when they type a term in Google or some other search engine and hit the enter button to be taken to a place that gives them the information they want or leads them to the product or service they want to buy. The words or phrases a searcher puts into a search engine or browser are called “keywords.”
It should also create a sense of urgency without any hype but delivered with emotional impact that prompts immediate action by the targeted customer to take whatever action you want them to take.
If you want them to buy something then the landing page should tell them that. If you want them to simply sign up for a free subscription the landing page should tell them that. If you want them to call for an appointment it should clearly tell them that also.
Don’t leave it up to the reader when they land on your page to try and figure out what you want them to do. If you do, they will leave the page and generally will never come back.
A confused mind always says no.
4. Create a free lead-generating product or tool to capture names and emails.
Once the prospect or target audience lands on your website’s landing page there should be an offer of a free product or tool offered to them in return for them providing a name and address. Once they enter their name and email address they are instructed to click on a button.
This function collects their name and email and places them on an email mailing list that you should already have set up with an email service provider to collect those names.
Your free lead generation tools should be something of value that provides enough incentive for the website visitor to want to give up their name and email in return for the product.
Popular lead generation gifts that are used for marketing purposes are:
· A PDF of valuable information that is relevant to your product or service and helpful to the website visitor
· A free eBook
· A free course
· A checklist
· A template
These are a few examples among many possibilities. However, the point is to give something of value so there will a prompting to act by the website visitor to give his or her name and email and become part of your company’s list to receive whatever information or service promised in the content of your landing page.
5. Follow up on the names and email addresses collected
The fortune is in the follow-up when it comes to effective marketing. The end result of a marketing funnel should be to not only generate some sales along the way but to build a prospect list which your business can use to convert to buying customers.
The list is where the gold is. The list is one of your business's most valuable assets. It is created through the lead generation system just explained in step number 4.
Once a name and email are captured through the lead generator system an email campaign should be in place to automatically generate a series of emails to the person, beginning with a welcome email first.
Then there can be a number of follow-up emails with different messages designed to create a relationship with the list subscriber. Feed them with valuable information that addresses whatever pain point they may have and how to help remove it or tell or show them how to acquire the pleasurable experience they seek.
Doing so creates a trusting and liking relationship that allows you to send emails with offerings of your product or service for sale because they now feel you have their interest in mind and it’s all about them and not about you and your desire for sales.
Conversions to sales can then be more easily generated on a repeat basis and loyalty to continue doing business with you is built.
This becomes the core of your business and will grow it, sustain it, and provide a legacy for you.
Use these 5 steps to build an effective marketing funnel to take your business to the next level…
BUT WAIT!!
None of this will work if you don’t work it.
Within the 5 marketing steps, there is a hidden but very important word. EXECUTION. If you don’t execute these steps nothing good will happen.
Lack of execution (taking needed action consistently) is the death blow to most small businesses. Don’t let it be yours.
