The 4 Stages of the Blog Sales Funnel and How to Use Them

A recent study found that over 55% of business owners claim that blog creation is their main method of attracting more visitors to their website. Modern consumers are hungry for information, which is why developing insightful and useful blogs is important.

The main goal you should have when investing in content marketing is making sure you get a great return on your investment. Maximising the return you get on content marketing will require you to expand your knowledge of your sales funnel. Below is some information on the various stages of your blog funnel and how to use them adequately.

1. Having Top-Notch Content Is Crucial

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The only way you can get consumers interested in what your business does is by providing them with high-quality content. Figuring out what type of content you need to produce will require you to expand your knowledge of your audience. Developing personas for the types of people you are trying to engage with your blog content can help you avoid missteps.

Ideally, you want to establish your business as an authority in your industry. Doing this will require you to focus on industry-specific content that is both interesting and unique. A well-written blog will allow you to establish credibility with the reader and move them onto the next step of your sales funnel.

Placing relevant links in your blog content not only provides the reader with more context, but it also helps you increase your visibility on popular search engines like Google. Figuring out which links you need to use is easy when using an actual SEO management tool like Linkio.

2. Focus on Writing Effective Calls to Action

While a well-written blog will help you get your foot in the door with a potential customer, you will need to do more to seal the deal. Ignoring the need for well-written calls to action in your blogs can lead to less than stellar lead generation. At the end of your blogs, you need to have a call to action that lets the reader know what action you want them to take.

This action can be anything from signing up for your email newsletter to contacting a member of your team for more information on the products/services you provide. Acquiring a large list of email addresses from interested consumers will allow you to create marketing campaigns that actually garner results. Over 80% of small business owners use email as their primary customer acquisition channel. With a well-placed call to action, getting email addresses from potential customers will be easy.

3. Your Initial Offering

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If a consumer takes you up on the offer mentioned in your call to action, you need to be prepared. The initial offering you make a potential customer can make or break your business. This is why you need to figure out how to engage with consumers with this offer.

Your initial offering to a consumer should provide both value and an opportunity to keep selling to them in the future. The worst mistake most business owners make with their initial offering is overloading a consumer with options and information. Ideally, you want to focus on a single product/service. Doing this will help you avoid overwhelming a new customer.

4. Don’t Forget to Follow Up

You need to realise that your sales funnel doesn’t end once a customer makes their initial purchase. Failing to follow up with a customer after their first purchase can create lots of problems. In the follow-up stage of your sales funnel, you need to think about offering a customer other products or an upsell. Personalising these follow up messages can help you engage with a new customer and motivate them to use more of your products/services.

Optimising Your Blog Sales Funnel

Resting on your laurels when it comes to your content marketing sales funnel is a horrible idea. Instead of making this mistake, take every opportunity to optimise and improve this sales funnel. Using the power of data is a great way to see where changes need to be made.