What is a conversion funnel?

If you don’t already know what a conversion funnel is, have no fear. Odds are you already have one in place. Every business does, although not every business professional knows what you and we know; that your conversion funnel needs to be optimised.

The customer journey is important in today’s times, and each step of the way guides the customer to eventually purchasing a product or subscribing to a service. The conversion funnel assists consumers with this process and leads them to take the desired action to seek further information about the brand.

Five elements of a conversion funnel

Despite its name, a conversion funnel does not require you to pour customers into it. The main goal is to effectively pull customers through the funnel once your digital marketing campaign attracts an audience. This requires guiding the customer to each consecutive action and understanding the importance of the user experience at each step. Here are 5 important elements of a good conversion funnel:

• Attention
  

  This phase of the funnel focuses on grabbing the attention of potential shoppers and gaining brand awareness. This can be through marketing, social media, blogs, or referrals. Conduct research to discover certain words or messages that truly resonate with your target audience.

   

• Interest
  

  So you have the attention of your shoppers, now you need to keep it. Pique your readers’ interest with bold headings, compelling copy, and striking images on your homepage. A well-implemented and attention-grabbing layout will ensure that any contact people have with your brand will pull them further into your marketing funnel.

   

• Desire
  

  Once a customer gathers more information about a brand, they start searching for a reason to want your specific product/service. Use detailed product descriptions, exciting photos/videos and good product reviews to impress your audience. At this stage you aim to make customers not only need what your brand is offering but need it from you.

• Conversion
  

  This is the stage when you convert shoppers into customers, with the action of purchasing a product or subscribing to a service. Although they haven’t fully committed yet you need to ensure the customer’s checkout procedure is smooth and with intriguing product pages and enough information to answer all of their questions.

   

• Follow-up

At this stage, you want to encourage repeat buyers to fill back into your conversion funnel. These are highly valuable customers because you do not spend any resources to acquire them, they already have an interest in your brand. You can further develop this loyalty by providing promotions, newsletters or coupons to show how much you value them as a customer.

Achieving efficiency in all 5 of these elements is key to optimising your conversion funnel. Digital marketers need to think of the act of conversion as an experience that can be made exciting, and therefore worthwhile in the eyes of their audiences. Having a streamlined conversion funnel will put any business on the road to eCommerce success.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Take the first step in your marketing journey today with a National Certificate of Advertising & Digital Marketing through DSM, or view what other courses we have to offer on our digital marketing courses page.