3 Tips on the Sales Funnel & Communications

Social media is a way for customers to communicate with your business in order to lead them to sales.

If the communication is not on point, then customers will not make it to the final stage of the sales funnel.

If your social media facilitation is not gaining a deep relationship with your customers, then you need to decide how to change the communication in order to lead them to the sale.

Here are a few pointers to evaluate your communications through each stage of the sales funnel.

 

1. Record Existing Communications

 

With each stage of the sales funnel (exposure, influence, engagement, action, and customer retention), write out all of your current communications with your social media contacts.

This includes any form of communication such as phone calls, emails, direct mail, webinars, etc.

Recording each communication outlet will allow you to evaluate if each form is relationship-building or if a type of communication is hurting the engagement with a customer.

 

2. Identify Communication Outlets That Don’t Work

At this point, you need to decide if there are communications that hurt the engagement when brought to a social media contact.

Are you sending out the wrong information to people who are not interested in your products or services yet? Are there communications that are pushing customers away by being over the top?

If there are any of these communications that make you cringe, then you need to step up and adjust your strategy to solve the problem.

While you do not have to get rid of any of these communications entirely, any communication can be altered to best serve the customer. This could also mean creating new communication pieces.

 

3. Determine Metrics on Where People Fall Out of the Funnel

Now that you understand how your contacts receive information from you on each level of the sales funnel, it is time to determine how to evaluate whether or not a communication outlet if helping or hurting a relationship with a customer.

For example, you can evaluate the metrics of newsletters by the # of unsubscribers, # of opens, and # of clicks.

If your social media customers stop opening up the emails, stop clicking on links, or are unsubscribing at an unusually high rate, then you will need to adjust your communication.

With phone calls from the sales department, if the calls are not generating leads and follow-up opportunities, then the calls may not be helping to build upon your relationship with the consumer.

If this is the case, then is it possible that the calls are happening too early in the buying process when consumers are not ready to commit to the sale.

Remember that social media contacts are people who may not be actively searching to buy a product or service from your brand, but show interest in your company to result in a sale later on down the line.

If you can recognize where the gaps are in your communication with your social media contacts, then you are one step ahead of many other businesses in communicating with your customers online.

If you need assistance with building strategies for customers in the sales funnel, reach out to one of our business experts below.