Factors That Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions: Rethinking the Marketing Funnel

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In order to continue attracting your target audience, you need to keep up with the wants and needs of customers. This can be a real challenge if you don’t understand the factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions. Those factors are a lot different than what they used to be, which means that the customer journey has changed a lot as well. This updated journey is referred to by many as the consumer decision journey (CDJ). What makes the CDJ so different than traditional marketing funnels is that each consumer’s CDJ is unique. Keeping that in mind, the following are three of the biggest factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions in today’s digital age:

Product/Service Reviews

Very few consumers are going to blind buy a product or service based on the content they’ve come across on your website. It doesn’t matter how effective you say it is, how clear your demonstration videos are, or what kind of accolades you’ve received. Customers are going to look up reviews first. Online reviews are easy to find — and many consumers aren’t going to feel comfortable buying a product or service unless it has good reviews.

Reviews come in many forms. There are tons of different websites where customers leave reviews. For example, Angie’s List, Yelp, and Amazon all allow customers to leave feedback on products, services, and overall customer experiences. In addition to customer reviews, consumers also seek out professional reviews. For example, Consumer Reports provides not only professional reviews of certain products, but they offer comparisons between different products as well.

Encouraging customers, as well as professionals, to review your products and services can be hugely beneficial. Doing so (as long as the reviews are mostly positive) can help improve your reputation and build trust with consumers who are in the evaluation stage of their journey.

Learn To Use Social Media To Find New Leads

Peer Recommendations

More often than not, consumers will initially become aware of brands or their products and services through peer recommendations. They may ask someone in person for a recommendation or ask online, via social media, online chat, or email. It’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to continue targeting existing customers. The journey doesn’t end when someone makes a purchase. You want to continue marketing to those customers to turn them into repeat customers. This allows you to build brand loyalty, which in turn will turn them into brand ambassadors that will recommend your products or services to their peers.

 Social Media

Having a social media presence is incredibly important because so many consumers will turn to social media as a way to do research. They’ll look up brands, ask them direct questions, ask their social groups about their thoughts on your products or services, and look at your social interactions in general. This means that they will look at how you engage with your followers, as well as with users in general, to get a sense of how you carry yourself and whether they can relate to you. A brand with no social presence, or one that doesn’t regularly engage with the community is not going to make as good of an impression on consumers.

It’s important not to become over-reliant on the traditional marketing funnel. Consumers have so much power when it comes to doing their own research about different brands and their products and services, that it’s important to understand how unique the CDJ is. These are three very important factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions in this day and age that you need to make sure you address.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business
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Improving User Experience With Good Website Navigation Design

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It’s not a stretch to say that your website is one of — if not the — most important element of your inbound marketing strategy. Without it, there’s very little that you can do. Because of this, it’s essential to make sure that poor web design doesn’t frustrate your visitors. Content quality will not mean as much if visitors have trouble viewing your pages or finding what they’re looking for. This is why you need to make sure you focus on creating a user-friendly website navigation design.

Making Your Website Easy To Navigate

When someone visits your website, no matter how they got there, you’ll want them to spend as much time on it as possible. The more they engage with your site, the easier it becomes to nurture and eventually convert them. As such, you’ll want to make navigation through your website easy. Good website navigation design makes it easy to find links to your site’s main pages, as well as  being able to navigate to those individual pages, conveniently. Awareness Stage

Even if you do have a navigation bar with drop-down menus, it is important to note that most users, today, tend to prefer scrolling.  They’ve become accustomed to scrolling because of the way most social media channels work. Therefore, instead of  visitors clicking through your drop-down menu, a scrollable menu allows them to simply move their mouse over the menu to make it automatically drop-down. This way, they don’t have to click three or four times to get to the page they want to go to. Alternatively, they can just scroll through their options until they find the actual page they want to click on.

It’s a better idea to keep content on one page instead of breaking it up on multiple pages. Even if it’s a long-form piece, forcing the user to click on buttons at the end of each page that says continue to page 2, page 3, etc., is a hassle. Since they have to click to get to the next page, in addition to waiting for that page to load as well. Simply allowing them to scroll through the entire article will make your page more user-friendly.

Growth-Driven Web Design – Is It Right For Your Company? 

Tips for Good Website Navigation Design

The following are a few more examples of how you can create a good website navigation design that will improve your user experience:

Use a responsive design – Your website navigation design may be well thought out for your desktop users, but it may not translate well to mobile devices. This happens due to the fact that most websites use a horizontal design, whereas screens on mobile devices are vertical. By using a responsive design, your navigation menu can be designed to turn into a mobile friendly hamburger-style menu.

Incorporate breadcrumbs – Breadcrumbs allow users to see what links they have followed to get to the page they are on. This makes it easy for them to backtrack to a previous page they were on if they got lost going through your site.

Link logo to your homepage – Make sure that the logo at the top of your page links to your homepage. This makes it easy for visitors to go back to the beginning, without searching for a link to your homepage.

Always display a link to your contact page – Displaying your contact information at the top of your page along with a link to your contact page makes you easier to reach.

Make links easy to click for mobile – Use buttons for CTAs that are easy for people to click on when using mobile devices.

Do You Need to Redesign Your Website

When designing your website, make sure that you carefully consider your website navigation design. Easy to use and clear navigation will help to improve your user experience, thereby making it easier to keep visitors engaged and on your website.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

What Are The Benefits Of Using HubSpot Marketing Automation Tools?

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Creating a successful long-term inbound marketing strategy requires that you tackle several different tactics on different fronts, such as optimizing your site for SEO, creating high-quality content for your website, producing email newsletters, and engaging with followers on social media. Because these tactics all require constant attention to be effective, you should strongly consider the use of HubSpot marketing automation tools as a way to simplify your workload. The following are four reasons why you should be using HubSpot marketing automation tools:

1. Collect and Analyze Data to Improve Your Marketing Efforts

HubSpot’s analytics tools can help to collect data across all of your marketing platforms and provide you with metrics that you can use to the benefit of your marketing campaign. For example, you’ll be able to see what blog posts are outperforming other posts based on metrics such as visits, social engagement, click-throughs and captures. You can use this information to determine what kind of content is more effective or what elements of your blog posts need to be changed. For instance, if you have content that is receiving tons of views but no click-throughs, it may be because your calls-to-action are poor.

6 Effective Call To Action Examples

2. Personalize Communication With Your Customers

Marketing automation allows you to segment your email list, which makes it easier to personalize your emails and send more relevant content to your recipients. This is done by gathering data from your opt-in forms and using that data to segment your email list into different groups. For example, if you run an online clothing store, then segmenting your list into male and female will prevent you from sending content about women’s clothing to your male audience, which would hurt your ability to properly nurture leads through the sales funnel. The use of email segmentation will make your email marketing strategy more efficient and effective.

3. Schedule Out Your Work Ahead of Time

One of the important aspects of a good content marketing strategy is making sure that you continually publish new content on a regular basis. Your readers are going to expect new content at certain times and if you don’t publish it on the same days at the same times, you’ll lose readers. Of course, remembering to manually publish new content, whether it’s a posting an article to your blog or sending out a tweet, is time-consuming. Marketing automation allows you to create your content and posts well ahead of time and set them to be automatically published at specific times on specific dates.

Read our article: Content Marketing Misconceptions

4. Send More Qualified Leads to Your Sales Team

One of the challenges that a lot of businesses face is having their marketing team on the same page as their sales team. Sales personnel often don’t know what state of the buyer’s journey prospects are on, which makes their job more difficult — especially if they are sent leads that aren’t qualified. HubSpot marketing automation tools allow you to collect extremely useful visitor information, including their history of actions on your website, which in turn can allow you to send more highly qualified leads through to your sales team when they are ready.

The use of HubSpot marketing automation tools allows you make more efficient use of your resources and gives you the opportunity to see exactly what is and isn’t working in your marketing strategies. You’ll end up saving a lot of time on smaller, more time-consuming tasks, which you can then dedicate to more important aspects of your marketing campaign, such as engaging with and nurturing your leads.

Learn To Use Social Media To Find New Leads

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Drip Email Marketing vs. Lead Nurturing Campaigns; When To Use Each

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Many marketing tools seem similar and are often mistaken for one another. Two tactics that are often confused are drip email marketing and lead nurturing campaign. It’s true that there are similarities in the way they work. However, they are two distinct tactics that serve different purposes. You should have both in your marketer’s toolbox to use when appropriate, especially with attraction marketing. Let’s learn a bit about each tactic and when they should be used.

Email Drip Marketing

Emails are a huge part of modern marketing. One email marketing option is email drip marketing. Named after drip coffee makers, this marketing tactic sends out emails at specific timed intervals. Time is the only factor used to indicate when an email is sent. Nothing else.

When should you use email drip marketing?

  • Educating prospects on all the products and services in your company’s portfolio.
  • Keeping your brand in front of your customers while they are contemplating a purchase.
  • Announcing new products or services for your business.
  • Showcasing best sellers in your portfolio.

A well-crafted drip email campaign can educate and inform your audience. However, done too frequently, or used only to pitch products or services, your audience may perceive these emails as spam.

[Read About Interactive Email Marketing Trends Here]

Lead Nurturing Campaigns

A lead nurturing campaign is not based on timed emails. It is based on the lead’s behavior. When a lead performs a specific behavior, it triggers an email with targeted information to be sent to your audience. These emails are designed to guide the lead through the buying process.

This type of campaign depends on gathered information about the lead’s behavior. Specific behaviors that can trigger an email include:

  • Which whitepapers grab the lead’s attention
  • How many times they visit a specific page on your website
  • Which webinar they attend
  • Which of blog post category they spend the most time in

The goal of the emails sent during a lead nurturing campaign is to deliver useful information at critical points in the sales cycle.

A marketing automation system is ideal for lead nurturing. You can build full campaigns within the system that automates almost everything in the process. The power of marketing automation systems is their ability to capture key data. This then triggers the specific emails that nurture leads.

They Complement Each Other Very Well

Drip email campaigns and lead nurturing campaigns, if well designed, will do their jobs well. They both help leads engage with your brand and give leads the information needed to make an informed decision about your products and services.

They are each powerful tools in the marketer’s toolbox on their own, but working together, they are even more powerful. Coordinated campaigns can help close deals faster and keep your brand ahead of the pack.

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Lead Generation Strategy

The Right Lead Nurturing Strategy Can Help You Stay Top of Mind

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Just as you put thoughtfully planned initiatives in place to help with new lead generation, you must also think about how you will then nurture these prospects through the sales cycle once you obtain the lead. Successful attraction marketing is having leads. A smart, strategic email and direct mail program can help you maintain a consistent connection with prospects and grow the relationships you have available to you—remaining ‘on their list’ and top of mind when they are ready to act.

Lead Nurturing Basics

It’s a proven fact: marketing needs to assist sales in order to achieve the most effective conversion results. So when you create a program that keeps prospects in touch with your thinking beyond just a salesperson’s outreach, you provide an opportunity to push the prospect through their journey faster. Utilize various outbound communications as key touch-points that complement the sales teams efforts, yet showcase your company’s thinking on a different level. Provide information contacts may be seeking out—not what you want to tell them—to build trust as they make their way to a purchase decision.

Key Considerations

The goal is to offer interesting, relevant and varied content that is not primarily self-serving in nature. Begin by creating a detailed plan for messaging and scheduling of communications. Think about common questions prospects may have, and how you can provide those answers while conveying your competitive advantages, promoting educational content you have to offer, and building trust in your abilities.

A study by DemandGen found that leads that are nurtured with targeted content produce an increase in sales opportunities of more than 20%. To ensure even greater success, target content to coincide with the behavior and mindset of your audiences at different points in their journey—naturally guiding them through the sales funnel by providing the right information at the right time in the buying process.

[Read About The Importance Of Lead Generation Content Marketing]

Fine Tuning

Set a solid foundation for your program by maintaining an up-to-date database with as much information on each prospect as possible. Determine the activity level, timing and quantity of communications that makes sense for each. Be organized, yet allow for adjustments as your program evolves. Track and score behavior and deliver content accordingly, allowing the sales team to receive better quality leads along the way to reach their goals. And remember: conversion is the ultimate objective. Always hold something back—never tell the whole story in your email—make them want to click through to your site or landing page to learn more.

How Marketing Automation Can Help

According to ChadwickMartinBailey, 56% of U.S. email users unsubscribe from a business or nonprofit email subscription because of content that is no longer relevant. Automation makes it easier to schedule emails, segment contacts, manage your content, trigger responsive emails based on actions, and track the lifecycle of prospects in your marketing funnel. By addressing their specific needs, contacts stay engaged; yet you are ultimately in control because you set the parameters for informing, interacting with and nurturing each lead. It provides you the ability to better target your contacts in a personalized way—assisting the buying decision based on their behavior—and leading to increased conversion rates. Consider investing in one of many standard marketing automation software systems to simplify your Top of Mind program initiatives.

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How To Nurture Your Leads With Email Marketing

How To Nurture Your Leads With Email Marketing

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Despite some claims that email is dead, it is still a highly effective way for marketers to connect with consumers. It is an integral part of inbound marketing as well as attraction marketing, and is a great way to send nurture leads throughout the buying process. Here are a few email best practices that will help nurture your leads.

Segmentation

The segmentation of your contacts database will help define your audience into categories. If you are unfamiliar with buyer personas, read about them here, as they will be extremely useful in segmenting your contacts. Segmenting be done in terms of geographic location, company type, role within that company, behavior, marketing intelligence, or any other category that could be valuable to your company. Use segmenting to your advantage by targeting those different groups with useful content based on their specific needs.

Read more

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How To Use Targeted CTAs To Increase Lead Conversion

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Lead conversion can prove a tricky mistress, but inbound software has changed the way marketers interact with their prospective clients. They now reach customers through clever virtual workflows and smart targeting. Specifically, targeted CTAs can help convert the visitors to leads 42% more often than standard CTAs. A good CTA is a part of attraction marketing. Let’s look at how to use targeted CTAs to increase lead conversion.

What is a “Smart” CTA?

Targeted or smart CTAs convert visitors to leads by tailoring the content to a specific user. They’re based on segmented lists and what stage of the customer lifecycle they’re in. Basically, based on the data your lead generation software is provided, a smart CTA changes dynamically enabling your pages and calls-to-action to be more effective and targeted.

Read More: 3 Helpful Tips To Improve Your CTAs To Generate More Leads

Slice Up Your Contacts: Use Segmented Lists

If you’re not already using segmented lists, you may as well be throwing darts at an indiscriminate and undefined dart board. In other words, if your contacts occupy one single list or a small handful, then you’re really not leveraging your lead conversion software to the max.

Start by creating filters that help define your buyer personas. For example, you may want to create a filter to put “C” level managers with 100-300 employees in a 3-state area in a specific list or perhaps you want to simply create a list where follow-up emails can be generated. In either case, making your lists and your leads more specific will definitely increase the effectiveness of targeted CTAs.

Get Personal: Design and Copy

Finally, let’s talk about getting personal with your leads’ CTAs. Not in a weird way, but in a way that can actually close some sales! Smart CTAs have the ability to change the copy on a CTA button or change the design based on the end user.

If you’re selling chocolate candy bars to a potential customer, perhaps you want them to click the “Get a Free Sample Here” CTA at which point they become a lead and potentially a sale. On the other hand, however, your website may be entertaining an existing chocolate buyer who already loves your product. As a result, giving them a sample won’t necessarily get the job done nor further the value of your expertise as a chocolateer.

This is where smart CTAs show their beauty. Instead of offering a sample, a smart CTA would show your existing customer the “There’s S’more to Chocolate” CTA. Here, they can learn about how to use your product to their advantage. While the example may seem silly, the fact of the matter is that both the design and copy can be altered based on the input of your CRM.

MAXIMIZING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET

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Perfect Your Inbound Marketing Strategy With Lead Nurturing

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When it comes to marketing, many businesses focus on trying to attract as big of an audience as possible. The more awareness you generate, the more potential customers you’ll have, after all. However, it’s crucial that you don’t skip a step when it comes to generating leads. Just because your marketing efforts have successfully attracted new leads doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically convert into sales. Most of the leads you generate will need to be nurtured before they’ll convert into customers. As such, no inbound marketing campaign is going to be complete if you don’t implement a comprehensive lead nurturing strategy.

What Is Lead Nurturing?

People who discover your brand are going to be doing so at various points of the sales funnel. Everyone is going to be in a different place. For instance, some leads will be in the awareness stage, which means that they are still doing research about their problem. Others may be in the consideration stage, which means that they are looking for solutions to their problem. Then there are those that are in the decision stage, which means that they are comparing solutions from various brands and are in the process of making a purchasing decision.

Lead nurturing is all about meeting the needs of your leads. The goal is to present them with the information and guidance that they need to move through the sales funnel. However, lead nurturing is also about building a relationship through your marketing and communication efforts that not only educates leads and builds trust with your brand, thereby creating a connection that lasts beyond the first sale.

Lead nurturing is an important aspect of marketing. Read more here.

The Benefits Of Lead Nurturing

It’s not just about moving your leads through the sales funnel so that you can close a sale. The following are a few of the additional benefits of a strong lead nurturing strategy:

  • Increase ROI of marketing efforts – Leads that are nurtured are more likely to make a purchase. As such, your marketing efforts are going to result in a greater return if you implement a lead nurturing strategy.
  • Build brand authority – By presenting content that addresses the needs of your leads at every stage of the sales funnel, you’ll establish yourself as a brand authority, which will boost your brand reputation and trust.
  • Generate loyalty – Customers that were nurtured throughout the sales process are going to have a deeper connection with your brand than those that weren’t. As such, they’ll be more likely to remain loyal and may even refer your business to others as a result.

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Ways To Nurture Your Leads

The following are a few tips on how you can successfully nurture your leads through the sales funnel:

  • Develop buyer personas – Your leads all have different needs and motivations. To be able to build relationships with your leads, you will need to understand who your audience is. Develop buyer personas so that you can target every part of your audience.
  • Create high-quality content – Avoid over-promotional content. Instead, focus on creating content that educates your leads. Make sure that you create content that not only addresses every stage of the sales funnel, but that also targets each one of your buyer personas.
  • Personalize emails – Email marketing is a great way to nurture your leads since it allows you to directly send them content that can nurture them. However, it’s essential that you make sure your emails are relevant. You can do this by personalizing them. For instance, segment your email list using the information you’ve gathered on every lead (such as the data provided in your opt-in forms and from their purchasing history).
  • Use email drip campaigns – Email drip campaigns can nurture leads that you’ve captured over a specific period of time. They are designed to slowly nurture leads through the sales funnel by sending emails over a few weeks to encourage leads to make a purchase.
  • Implement lead scoring – Using a lead scoring tool allows you to track at which point in the sales funnel your leads are. This is incredibly useful as it gives you the opportunity to engage your leads at the right time so that you can successfully nurture them through to the next stage.

Implement A Lead Nurturing Strategy Today

Effective lead nurturing is the best way to increase your chances of converting new leads into customers. It’s also important to note that it is essential to building long-term relationships with your customers. The more time and effort you put into developing leads, the more likely they’ll be to return as repeat customers.

30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips
Factors That Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions

What Are Marketing Qualified Leads And Why Do They Matter?

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How are you handling your marketing qualified leads? Once you have a lead at the top of the sales funnel, you can’t just stop marketing and hope that initial lead turns into a sales-qualified lead (SQL). You need to keep your eye on your marketing qualified leads (MQLs) as well.

Don’t Forget the Lead in the Middle

Prospects, also known as contacts and leads, are the consumers at the top of your sales funnel. They have an initial interest in your product or service and might provide an email address or first name, in exchange for a report or other premium offer. However, they are only at the browsing stage and are definitely not ready to make a purchase yet.

At the bottom of your sales funnel are your sales qualified leads, also known as SQLs. These leads are ready to make a purchase. This is when your sales people need to be in contact, ready to provide additional information and incentives to finalize the sale.

Now there is plenty of room between the prospect and the SQL. This is where the marketing qualified lead (MQL) sits.

An MQL has moved beyond the browsing stage and is seriously evaluating whether your product or service meets certain criteria. They are looking at your competition as well. This is when your marketing needs to shift. An MQL needs more detailed information on your products and services, and needs to know how you differ from the competition. This information will help the MQL move towards the decision-making point.

Read here to find out how to nurture leads with email marketing

How Can You Tell if a Lead is Marketing Qualified?

To tell when a lead is moving towards the MQL stage, you need to gather pertinent data from the lead and monitor his/her activity on your website. Then, compare this information to past sales opportunities to determine what direction the prospect is moving towards.

  • Demographic data from the lead, like location, industry, and business size makes a difference. Also, how much do they want to spend? Is your product within their budget needs?
  • What types of actions are they taking on your website? Frequent visits added with downloading whitepapers or other detailed information is a good sign they are in this stage.
  • How similar are they to your past sales opportunities? If your typical customers are established companies with a large budget, a start-up with a limited budget may not be a good fit. That doesn’t mean that start-up won’t make a purchase, it is just less likely to happen.

The exact definition of what an MQL means to your company is something only you can define. But, no matter how you define MQLs, you cannot forget them in your marketing process. Forgetting them means less SQLs which means less final sales. And that defeats the purpose of marketing in the first place. The next step is learning how to engage marketing qualified leads until they move to being an SQL.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

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How to Drive Website Conversions with the Buyer’s Journey

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Before any customer commits to purchasing a product, they will have to go through the sales funnel. The sales funnel is comprised of several stages that the buyer will go through, from identifying the problem they have to making a decision. In online marketing, the sales funnel expands from a prospective buyer to a buyer looking to purchase. Marketers are responsible for guiding prospective clients along the sales funnel until they eventually make a purchase. Attraction marketing is what will catch the attention of customers.

Growing social media usage gives marketers a chance to engage their prospective buyers by creating customized content. However, some marketers still find it challenging to identify the most effective content for each step. The following is a guide to creating the right content to drive website conversions at each step of the sales funnel.

Top of the Funnel: Awareness and Research

This is the primary step where prospective customers realize they have a problem or a need to fulfill. Buyers at the top of the funnel are searching for high quality and relevant information to point them towards the solution

Over 80% of buyers research products online before buying. The best way to attract them is by offering exactly what they need: highly optimized content with original research. Additionally, posting explainer videos that contain demonstrations can have a huge impact on your site. Lastly, create attractive landing pages to offer your visitors solutions at the click of a button.

Read More: How To Use The Buyer’s Journey To Create Great Content

Middle of the Funnel: Evaluation

During the second stage of the sales funnel, buyers are trying to sort through their best options that you and your competitors are offering.  It’s the seller’s job to explain why they are the best solution for the customer’s problem. The purpose of this section of the funnel is to highlight your expertise and begin the process of lead nurturing.

The best content for this stage are webinars and live communication features. These give the marketers and customers a space to interact with live questions and discussions. Email marketing is also a great way to offer relevant and consistent content. Don’t forget to include clear calls to action that will convert leads.

Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase

At the final stage, the buyer has decided they are ready to make a purchase, but they have not yet decided the source of their purchase. Providing them with access to the solution as well as some incentives will likely turn a prospective buyer to a customer.

Clear calls to action linked to trial offers, video tutorials, and product information can have a huge impact on prospective customers. Aligning your offers with educational and entertaining testimonials is an effective technique. It’s also wise to creating a purchasable demo based on a free plan that entices customers to access its premium features.

Pay Attention to the Buyer’s Journey

Above all, remember to consider your clients’ needs first. From there, develop your funnel in order to fulfill these needs at each stage. If the sales funnel is implemented correctly and your content is helpful to customers, your lead conversion rate will definitely increase.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business