Today we've made it to Part III of our "Marketing Planning with the Conversion Funnel" series (part 1 here and part 2 here), and we've entered the territory where digital marketing really shines -> driving user Interest and Consideration.
To set the stage again: the core concept is that different marketing channels reach users at different stages of their decision-making process, and therefore, you need to understand the user's mindset, the Conversion Funnel, and each marketing channel's strengths and weaknesses in relation to those stages, in order to be successful with your marketing.
As a reminder, in the world of the Conversion Funnel, you basically reach larger, less-targeted audiences towards the top of the funnel and smaller, more-targeted audiences towards the bottom of the funnel. Each end of the funnel comes with its benefits and its drawbacks, so you need to understand where your goals and strengths lie and optimize all of your channels to work in the ways that they are designed to, together.
Here's our nifty visualization for reference:
In the case of the Interest and Consideration sections, which I am combining into one discussion because they share many qualities and can sometimes blur together, your target user will likely already have some awareness of you or your product/service, and be scoping the marketplace for more information.
The main difference between Interest and Consideration is intent, with interested users entering into the first stage of proactive action (remember, this is after they have been made aware of you or your product/service) and now they are taking the next step to become more acquainted. By the time they reach Consideration, there is a stronger intent to move forward and the question is not whether they want to take an action but how, when and where. This is the point at which you need to most actively convince them to take the action with you versus your competitors, and at which your higher-up conversion funnel activities could make or break you, unless you are clearly, consistently the lowest price competitor in a fully commoditized market (in which case, may the cheapest price win!).
For these stages, the marketer should be focused on initial relationship acquisition and user engagement for "Interest" and relationship reinforcement for "Consideration" -> this is the point when the established relationship and brand feelings feed directly into action.
While there is a very wide range of Awareness marketing options that differ heavily based on a marketer's goals and industry, the marketing channels best suited to driving Interest and Consideration are quite consistent.
In most cases, marketers should have all of these bases covered:
- Search -> casting the net to collect the fruits of "Awareness" and funnel the user where you want them to go. Setting the tone and the direct landing path for the actions to come.
- Social Media -> building the relationship by providing on-going value before and after a customer converts. Solidify your access to the two-way conversation with the user by motivating them to follow you, and then following through by consistently providing them content that they want to engage with and share. When successful, this will then feed back into the Awareness and Interest segments through their word-of-mouth. Note that you cannot "force" them to follow you or engage, you must provide them with an experience that motivates them to choose to take these actions, and therefore to be successful you must put their needs and wants before your brand's (and ideally your brand messaging should be solidly aligned to your target user so that there is no conflict here. If you find that your brand messaging is not resonating with your audience, then you need to dig in and re-align -> no one wants to be JC Penney...).
- Contextual Display -> reiterating your message and brand while the user is browsing related content such as articles and reviews.
- Reviews -> showing the considering/comparing user that you are objectively the best choice.
- Your website -> showing relevance and trust elements that motivate the user to sign up for your email list (another form of the long-term relationship), follow you on social media, return for purchase, and/or follow-through with purchase right now.
- Retargeting -> after the user has been on your site, reiterate your brand and message in an even more targeted way. Be careful about whether your target user will be sensitive to privacy issues. If so, avoid this option, as it will likely backfire.
Let's use GoDaddy as an example:
I like GoDaddy as an example because they cultivate users throughout the entire conversion funnel, starting with awareness not just for their brand, but for their entire category.
GoDaddy sells domains and a number of add-on services for people who want to have a website, especially smaller businesses and individuals. They are one of many services who do this, and in many cases they are not the most convenient or the cheapest. Yet, they have done a fantastic job of building awareness for their category among average individuals -> people who otherwise might not know how to buy a domain at all. Their Awareness outreach is notable due to their splashy Superbowl commercials and other television advertising, which are unusual for a product/service that would otherwise be considered technical. But, they know their target audience, and their target audience are people who watch and respond to TV commercials.
And so, once the user has emerged from becoming aware of 1) the fact they they can buy a domain, 2) the fact that they should buy a domain and 3) the fact that GoDaddy sells domains, now it is up to GoDaddy to coax them along, all the way to the end of the conversion funnel. They definitely understand this, because they have cast an appropriate net for users entering the Interest and Consideration stages.
Let's take a look at the Google search results for a typical search by a user who is somewhere in the Interest/Consideration space:
You'll notice that GoDaddy is dominating both Paid and Organic search results in top positions for both. Their ad text for both SEM and SEO is highly customized for the value propositions that their newbie target audience will care about -> low price, customer service, largest domain name service. They even have a call-to-action in the headline -> "Compare us" -> which is a perfect call-out to the Consideration user.
Also notice that GoDaddy has 74k followers on Google+ (they have another 636K on Facebook with a current 28k "engaged" which is a pretty good engagement ratio), and so they have set up all of the additional social nets to capture and cultivate potential users through social media.
Once on their website, the primary conversion action is the first thing you see (the domain name search box at the top):
And it is followed up by trust elements:
Their social media content strategy is focused on information that is useful to their target audience, perfect for cultivating an on-going interest and a long-term relationship. Their content features information and tools for small businesses and individuals with websites, and you'll note, as is true for almost all successful social media programs, they are not aggressively upselling their own products. They are sharing useful and interesting content to their target user, and therefore, their users are choosing to follow them and share their content.
If they were to post coupons or "buy a domain now" language every day, they would not be using their social media channel successfully - they would likely be alienating the customers that they were hoping to cultivate. Do you want to receive aggressive marketing language every day? Would you trust and love a brand that made you? Probably not, unless that's what the brand is supposed to do (like coupon affiliates).
GoDaddy's social content is sending a message to their interested potential users that they are a trustworthy partner who goes the extra mile to help small businesses thrive. The next time that small business owner needs any sort of web service, they will be more likely to check out what GoDaddy has to offer, and they will be more likely to purchase that service from them. Maybe it won't happen today, maybe not tomorrow, but when the user's need arises, it will happen, and the social content strategy can gently cultivate that action over time.
Also note, that the social content strategy here works for both potential customers in the interest/consideration phase as well as for CRM. The info is equally useful to users who may have already purchased from GoDaddy in the past as it is for users who are considering it in the future. Therefore, all of the budget and effort that goes into this social channel will pay off doubly, both in the acquisition front and in the retention/lifetime-value front. Given that posting this content is free, except for the cost of the team leading it, it's possibly one of the best deals in all of marketing.
Key Takeaways:
While the GoDaddy example is only one company in one industry, they demonstrate excellent execution (and successful results), from properly using the conversion funnel and optimizing messaging for users at their point in the funnel.
Just remember, you can't force the user down the funnel faster than they want to go! Doing so will likely nudge a sensitive user out of your funnel, because aggressive marketing can be a turn-off during the important relationship development and cultivation stages.
That said, many users are ready to push quickly through the conversion funnel on their own, sometimes jumping in so fast that they breeze through all stages in one quick slalom. For these users, you must make the path as easy and enticing as possible.
It is possible to address both the jumpers and the meanderers successfully at the same time, but knowing how your customers typically push through the funnel will help you prioritize your marketing channel planning and your user experience. Do they like to take a long time? Optimize more heavily to communicate with them regularly while they decide. Do they like to jump through quickly? Optimize more heavily to help them skip through to the end of the conversion on the spot. Knowing your customers will be the key to making this prioritization correctly.
The farther down you get in the funnel, the more you need to know your user and accommodate their wants and needs. When you are successful, you can drive revenue at a great ROI, because the marketing channels at these stages are cheaper (usually CPC and/or organic/free) and more targeted than the awareness stages. But, if no one knows enough about your company or category, you may have trouble finding enough people to start the journey with you, so you need to balance that need with your ROI considerations.
Stay tuned for the final installments of the Conversion Funnel series and many more topics near and dear to the 2014 marketers heart!
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