Consumers aren’t anymore gullible – they all take enough time to perform thorough research on their purchases and seek help from multiple channels to influence their decision.
How do you decide whether to purchase something or not?
A massive shift in consumer purchase process and behavior generally involves multiple channels for a single deal.
When you have a piece of good knowledge about each touchpoint, it allows you to easily create great content that coaxes your target audience and moves them down the sales funnel.
However, what sort of content should you create? It depends on the phases of the sales funnel.
Before we dive deeper, let us see how to build a prospect list.
How to do email lookup?
If you wish to build a prospect list, one of the best ways to create one is by using an email lookup tool.
For instance, GetEmail.io, Hunter.io, Snov.io are all some of the email lookup tools. Besides these tools, you may find a lot more search tools in the market. To find out the one that works well for you, you need to test the efficiency of each of these tools.
You could compare a lot of parameters to find the best email lookup tool—for example, the time it takes, the accuracy rate, customer support, etc.
Now that you know the availability of tools and how to make your choice, you are almost there to build your prospect list.
The Prospect list is ready – What’s the next step.
As you begin your email marketing, you must be aware of your sales funnel; This helps you segment your prospect list following the customer journey through the sales funnel.
A customer goes through three stages in a sales funnel such as awareness, consideration, decision.
Awareness is the first stage of a sales funnel where a prospect first learns about your band. They would become aware of what you have to offer.
In the consideration stage, a prospect realizes that your product or service could be the best solution for their problem. Your prospect would research your product and compare it with your competitors.
Finally, in the decision stage, the prospect is more likely to make their decision, and your potential audience requires an extra nudge to encourage them to purchase from you.
Each of these stages plays a vital role in the buying process. Having a good understanding of these stages and your customer would help you create a cohesive content strategy.
Now let us look at how to craft content for each stage.
How to create content for the awareness stage?
In the awareness stage, you must educate your prospects about your brand, product, and how you be the excellent solution to their problem or how your product or service could fulfill their need.
Over a while, you would have to create content to build trust and establish your brand credibility.
Some Prospects Crossed the Awareness stage – How should be the next content?
When your prospects move to the consideration stage, they are in the middle of the sales funnel.
In this stage, you should create content that makes them believe in you strongly. For example, you could share your existing customers’ success stories, a case study of how your product or service transforms the businesses or personal life, or maybe a free webinar to let them know your potential.
Finally, the Decision Stage
In the final stage of the sales funnel, your prospects need a little push to take the desired action.
You can provide them a free trial, a considerable discount. They are sure to give your product or service a try.
Final Thoughts
Understanding each stage of a sales funnel helps you to fill the potential gaps. This would allow you to make an informed decision about your content marketing strategy.