The Bottom of the Funnel: How to Make Leads Become Customers

• Date: 25 September 2020
• reading time: 7 Minutes
• Blogger: Francisca Zimmermann
• E-mail: [email protected]

Have you seen our latest blogs about the top- and the middle of the funnel? In this series of 3 blogs, we will dive into the three stages of the sales funnel, as defined in our 3-phases Digital Marketing Framework®.

In the first blog, we described the Connect stage of the framework. We looked at typical Connect stage content and explained how knowing your audience is essential for success in the rest of the funnel.

In the second blog, we looked at the middle of the funnel: the Commit stage. We explained which type of content works best in this phase, and stressed the importance of automation and tooling to reach our goals.

In this blog, the last one in our series, we will dive into the Close stage. The close stage is the part of the funnel, where people make the choice to purchase your product or service. After getting to know you and your brand in the earlier phases, the Close stage pushes your leads over the edge. It convinces them with offers, demos, and trials, and makes sure their purchase goes smoothly.

In the close stage, three aspects have a central position:

• Sharing the right content for this specific stage;
• using e-mail marketing to convince your prospects to purchase;
• and using automation and ongoing analysis to keep improving.

In this blog, we will look at these three aspects, followed by a discussion of what many of us are puzzling with:

Which online products or services can make the money roll in, during the Close phase?

Close stage: The bottom of the funnel

The Close stage is where you make money. You convince your leads to make a purchase decision with clever e-mail marketing campaigns; you monetize your website and set up the right automations to make sure you keep growing.

Let's take a closer look at the main aspects of this stage; content, e-mail marketing, and automation.

1. Close stage content

In the Close stage, your potential customers have already followed you and your brand for a while. They know who you are, what you offer and are considering you as a good candidate to buy from. But how do you push them over the edge? How do you make sure they buy from you, instead of from your competitor?

A great way to convince your prospects that they need your product or service, is letting them see- or try it.

Organize a demo, share instruction videos on your social media channels, give away coupons or discount codes, or organize trials. By doing so, you can show those who are still unsure, that your product really is the best.

Of course, it’s important to implement your content into your funnel. Share your content by retargeting your prospects, contact your prospects from the Commit stage with the right offer, and track carefully who would benefit most from a Close stage offer.

2. E-mail marketing

Within the Close stage, e-mail marketing might even be more important than in the Connect and the Commit stage. While we sent out webinar invites, case studies, and FAQ sheets in the Commit stage, our e-mails now become even more specific.

If you place yourself in the shoes of someone who is trying to find the right business to buy from, ask yourself what kind of e-mails would push you over the edge and make you decide to buy.

This will probably be:

• Personal messages with your name, references to earlier communication, and a friendly tone.
• Discounts, free trials, or other ways that help you see and test before you decide.

Of course, it’s important to make sure your e-mail campaigns fit in your funnel and are targeting the right people at the right time. Make sure to retarget the people that showed a lot of interest in your product or service before, and automate your e-mail marketing with the right tool.

3. Automate, scale and analyze

Does the end of the funnel mean the end of your efforts? Not at all. The more momentum your funnel gets, the more data you can collect, and the better you get at improving your content, automations, targeting, and sales.

As explained in our previous blogs, we use Kartra to set up fully automated funnels. Kartra does it all. It provides beautiful landing pages; it automatically captures leads, sends out e-mails to the right people at the right time, and much more.

And one of the best things? By using Kartra’s Analytic functions, you can keep improving your work.

Kartra offers analytics for absolutely everything you do. For instance:

• You can track how your e-mails perform, how many people click on a link, or how many people sign up for an offer.
• You can see how your landing pages perform. How many people visit your page, click on certain links, or take any other action you want them to take.
• You can learn which automations (e-mail sequences, for instance) do well, and which ones need some improvement.
• You can A/B test your actions to see which route to take. For instance, you send out two different e-mails and compare which one converts better.
• You can test which of your audience segments buy (or interact) more.

And this is only a short selection out of all the analytic functions you can use. By regularly checking the results of your actions, you will see that you can keep improving your entire funnel. This leads to amazing results in the long run.

Monetization: Which online products or services can make the money roll in, during the Close phase?

Now we know which strategies can convince our prospects to make a purchase decision, we would like to take a quick look at how we earn our money in the Close stage.

We know that most of you are selling online products, or looking for a way to make money online. Luckily, there are many ways to do so.

Let’s look at the main ways of monetizing a website in the Close stage:

1. Digital products:

Possibly the most obvious of all is a digital product. Think of selling an ebook, a course, or an online tool.

2. Ecommerce:

Not all products need to be digital, in order to bring in money online. You can sell physical products too! By pre-producing or buying a large stock, you can automate your ecommerce process completely. By storing your stock at a logistics company, orders are automatically handled by them. All you need to do, is provide them with the stock and make sure your product gets sold.

3. Affiliate products:

Do you have a successful website or a good following on social media? Or would you like to work hard on growing one? Then you might benefit from affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing means offering someone else's product or service through your own website. Do you make a sale? Then you get a commission percentage from the original seller.

4. Display advertising:

Last but not least, you can allow Google to use your website for advertising. By signing up for an Ad Network, you get a small amount of money for each person that clicks on the ad that's displayed on your website. The bigger your community, the more likely you are to make good money with this strategy.

Need help?

Do you need help setting up your funnel, getting started with Kartra, or would you just like a brainstorm session on how to grow your online business?

We would love to help you! Feel free to us for a FREE strategy call so you can tell us more about your business goals.

Would you like to learn more about social media marketing, sales funnels, and marketing in general? Then our Social Media Gids Community might be worth checking out. On this platform, you can find all our training material and discuss your progress with like-minded entrepreneurs. Message us for more info, so we can tell you precisely what you can expect from your subscription.

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• Blogger: Francisca Zimmermann
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Social media manager & content creator at Social Media Gids
• Francisca Zimmermann is a social media expert with a background in research and a love for learning new things. She travels the world looking for beautiful places and interesting cultures, while she dives into the world of her clients to be able to write about them and their interests as a real 'insider'.
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