In last week’s blog about the psychology of testimonials, you met the five “praising personas” you’re likely to encounter when asking for a recommendation or testimonial. When you understand each, you won’t be caught off guard when the response you get isn’t quite the response you anticipated.
When was the last time someone said something nice about you or your business? It felt good, right? Now, think about how influential those complimentary comments could be if they were part of developing your business persona through the eyes of your biggest supporters.
If you’ve tightened up your middle of the funnel (MOFU) content based on last week’s recommendations, you’re well on your way to completing your journey down the conversion funnel. You’ve laid all the groundwork with top of the funnel “awareness and education” content (TOFU) and moved prospects further down the funnel with MOFU’s continued education and solution-focused materials.
Navigating the sales funnel can seem more like a roller coaster than a smooth top-to-bottom transition if you don’t have a solid content strategy in place. Last week’s blog on this topic discussed why top of funnel content is no place for a “Buy NOW!” message. Instead, the initial stage (TOFU) should be focused on building awareness about your company and educating targets.
As you move down the funnel towards the middle (MOFU), you may become anxious to dig into active selling tactics.
Not so fast.
In last week’s blog, my colleague Bari Cener spoke about the stages of the sales funnel and how to effectively navigate from one to the next to optimize conversions. Progression through the funnel makes a lot of sense on paper—and the title of her blog, “A Blueprint For Creating A High-Converting Sales Funnel,” was an accurate way to explain how to set yourself up for success.
The buyer journey is not a path that can be scripted. Each consumer’s experience is unique. However, your strategy to converting sales heavily influences where targets end up.
Will they wander off the conversion path or make it through each stage to ultimately become a customer?
Sales success depends on how effectively you guide consumers through the sales funnel. You can pump out creative content all day long--and even find success attracting website visitors by doing so--but if your efforts fail in navigating consumers to the next stage, your marketing will fall short of achieving optimal results.
A few years ago when I started at White Space, a friend sent us a promising lead. A growing telecom company needed marketing strategy and execution support.
Ilene and I had just returned from Hubspot’s annual INBOUND conference and we were pumped. The ideas were flowing as fast as our adrenaline. Our initial phone calls with this company were lengthy, lots of indications that we had what they needed, and our meetings were peppered with the appropriate amount of humor.
You can’t boil the ocean.
We say this a lot in marketing. With only so much time, energy, and resources, you’re lucky to boil even a bucketful at a time. This is particularly true when it comes to attracting a base of customers for your product. Short of running a Superbowl commercial—which you probably can’t afford—you’re not going to reach everyone. Better to aim smaller and smarter.
That’s where buyer personas come in.
When it comes to web design, it’s not all about looks.
We all can point out a jumbled page, a dated layout, and wonky formatting. Messy aesthetics, indeed, do not speak well for your company.
Be careful, however, not to let aesthetics be the primary driver of your website redesign. Looks, on their own are usually not reason enough for a full overhaul.
Social media is critical in today’s competitive environment. You set up a company Facebook page, Twitter handle, and LinkedIn profile. You dedicate 10 minutes each morning to keeping up with the endless barrage of phone notifications. Now what?
