"BECAUSE IF YOU CAN'T MEASURE IT, YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT."
The great business guru Peter Drucker taught about the importance of defining metrics that matter so you can track performance.
Implementing a marketing funnel provides an automated, measurable system that will not only serve as a guide for your customers but provide a baseline of measurable touch points.
Since people are probably not going to just randomly stumble across your website and immediately make a purchase, they will need a bit of nurturing, educating, and convincing before they get to that point. The measurable touchpoints throughout the marketing funnel will let you know what is working and what isn’t so you can adjust and refine your content to give your customers exactly what they want.
Think of these funnels as a “get to know you” process that explains to people the different reasons why they should make the leap and become a paying customer.
The most effective way to communicate directly with people who are interested in your brand is via email campaigns. Once you get people to opt in to your email list, you can deliver content directly to their inboxes and track how they respond to that hand-picked content. Trust us, it’s much easier to adjust your content once you can see what your prospects are most interested in and engaged with.
NEED HELP GETTING STARTED WITH A DATA COLLECTION PLAN?
Know Your Data, Know Your Customer is a course designed just for you!
HOW TO COLLECT, TRACK, AND MEASURE DATA DURING EACH STAGE
If the thought of collecting, tracking, measuring data from a sales funnel makes you nervous, fear not. We have created a quick list of some basic things you can start thinking about before you dive into learning how to set up your data collection dashboard.
Use a tool like bit.ly and add some unique, trackable links to your blogs, email campaigns, and social media. Even if you’ve never looked at Google Analytics before, you can get your feet wet by seeing how many people clicked on these links, and which channel they were on when they clicked.
Your email platform will have some sort of reporting that will be super user-friendly and will give you great insight into how your prospects are interacting with your content.
In a basic MailChimp report (even with a free account), you can see what kind of “open rate” a specific email had, how many people opened it, and—even more interesting—what time they opened it. It’s important to take a peek at which links they clicked on, too.
If you have intake forms (contact forms, newsletter signups, wholesale applications, etc.) as part of your marketing funnel, you should have a notification set up to get an email anytime someone fills out the form. This is data, and all data is golden! Just from those few interaction points, you can get a good feel for how your community of potential customers is interacting (or not) with the content you have created.
- The “abandoned cart” percentage rate. If users are adding items to their checkout cart but not completing the purchase, you should make sure everything is functioning properly, then test out the process to see if you can make it any smoother. The abandoned cart rate is a statistic that can be found in your e-commerce platform.
- When a wholesale contact asks you to send them some sample products. This is a huge indication that they have a desire to purchase your product. Make sure you have a system to log interactions so that you can copy the things that worked next time.
- A contact collection system for when you are hosting a booth at events. If you’re going to be at a trade show or pop-up, it’s very important to have a signup sheet that will help you follow up and nurture those interested parties.
- All of these are actions are measurable! They can provide valuable insights as to what your potential customers like and don’t like. Collect and leverage these free clues to validate whether or not you’re on the right track.
Once you get one funnel flowing, then you can start using more funnels to create other unique customer journeys. You might have a few marketing funnels working at the same time because you may have different target customers. You aren’t limited to using your funnel strictly for signing up and/or purchasing. You can put funnels all over your website to see how visitors move through a specific website flow.
