Empower Your Customer Service with the Digital Conversion Funnel for Customer Service

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[Music] hello and in this upcoming section your loan strategies to move a customer through each stage of the marketing funnel we'll start with an overview of the customer persona which is a representation of an ideal customer for a business you'll also learn how to research and create multiple personas then you'll get an overview of the marketing funnel this is a step-by-step approach on how to attract customers who may not know about a brand and its products and services and turn them into repeat customers and brand advocates we review the first stage of the funnel which is the awareness stage this section is all about strategies to get customers introduced to the brand then we'll discuss the second funnel stage consideration this stage is all about building interest in potential customers after that we'll cover conversion at this stage of the funnel customers are ready to make a purchase we need to build their trust so they become paying customers and finally we'll discuss the loyalty stage this is when you have paying customers and are encouraging them to become repeat customers and brand advocates you'll also read through several case studies on how businesses applied these strategies for each stage of the marketing funnel we have a lot to cover over the next several videos are you ready great let's get started [Music] we're bombarded with marketing and advertisements all day so as a marketing professional how do you get a brand to stand out you must create messaging and materials that connect with your customer before you start creating marketing materials you need to know who you're marketing to that's why we're going to start this course with an important marketing concept defining your ideal customer in this video we're going to discuss the customer persona also called the buyer persona marketing persona or audience persona a customer persona represents a group of similar people in a desirable audience they can help you figure out how to reach people at the right time with the right message offer and products the customer persona we'll be discussing is very simple it includes who the persona represents also known as their characteristics their goal or what they want to achieve and the barrier to reaching their goal also called the pain point typically a marketer creates several types of personas for a product or service you may even work with a business with over 10. this is because most businesses have more than just one type of customer it's important to remember that customer personas can get very complex for our purposes we are presenting a simple version as a marketer you may find yourself adding many details such as customer interests behaviors needs and skills so why create customer personas in the first place well one reason is to better understand the customer's perspective with a persona you're imagining things to the individual's point of view this is more specific than a target audience which is more broad in general than a persona when creating a marketing material such as an advertisement or an email you should consider the customer's priorities like what message or visuals would best appeal to them does it help them reach their goals or relate to their pain points another reason is once you understand who your customer is it's easier to create customized content for them you'll understand how they think what they want to achieve and what's holding them back from making a purchase the last reason to create customer personas is for effective ad targeting later in this course and in the following courses you'll learn more about ad targeting also called targeted advertising most digital advertising platforms now provide targeted advertising the platforms offer several different targeting tools to help get your ads in front of the audiences you wish to reach let's quickly go over an example of a customer persona specifically for a company that sells camping tents now they want to create a marketing campaign for a six-person tent based on the company's research the marketing team determines one of the persona's elements is a parent or guardian they continue doing research on demographics and learn that they're in their mid-30s to mid-50s and have two to three children after conducting in-person interviews the marketing team learns that their general goal is to purchase a budget-friendly tent that will last for several years you'll also learn that a common barrier to purchasing a large tent is concerned about setting it up due to frustrating prior experience with this persona you can create materials ingly for example an online ad could read like easy to set up tent for the whole family you can also target this ad to people who fit the demographic profile remember you can certainly go in more depth on the demographics the goals or the barriers for this customer persona excellent now you have a working knowledge of customer personas which will help you connect with customers in your future digital marketing role [Music] hello there now that you know what customer personas are and why they're important let's discuss how to create one when crafting a customer persona you'll need information about your ideal customers you shouldn't just guess you need actual data the thing is you'll likely need to do research to collect this information here are a few ways to do the research the first is to review customer data it's possible the business already has existing data about its customers review this for information for details such as demographics location sales history and customer service notes a second way is to conduct customer interviews like consider interviewing customers directly about their experience with the product or service ask questions such as what brought them to the product well how did it solve their problem and if appropriate consider collecting information on their other interests as well to form a more detailed persona now another way is to analyze web data if the business is active on social media review any demographic data about people who follow your business account additionally website analytics such as google analytics provide data about elements like the age and gender of website visitors now if you're wondering what google analytics is we'll be covering that in a later course if available research online reviews and comments as well they can be a great opportunity for persona data a fourth way is to send out surveys a simple method to collect information is to email a survey out to current customers you may find that participation is low on this particular type of strategy so to do instead encourage survey participation by giving away something for free to one of the customers who fills out the survey now once you've done your research the first part of creating a persona is defining who your customer is this includes defining persona interests traits and demographics demographics are information specific to the customer such as age gender identity income family size occupation education and location for example a persona for a pet business could be a man in his 30s with two children who loves the outdoors and lives in the suburbs they may even get more specific with their personas and detail out a 32 old man with two children who owns a large dog and likes to go hiking now the more detailed your personas typically the more personas you'll create this aligns your advertising language to many members of your audience now once you determine the persona's interest traits and demographics it's time to get specific about their goals and barriers to create the goals and barriers you should primarily rely on the data you collect about customers such as surveys and interviews for the customer persona goal get specific about the customer and what they want to achieve this goal needs to be related to the product or service for example if it's a landscaping business the customer wants great looking greenery reviewing the data you also identify additional goals they may want to achieve some of the customers just want peace of mind that their plants and property will be taken care of for other customers it's pride in the look of their landscaping while you're relying on your data to form the goal and barrier it's okay to include additional details for instance maybe customers consistently said they want their landscaping to look good you can infer they want to feel pride in their home now after identifying goals consider the barrier or what's preventing the customer from achieving their goal you can also consider what's keeping the customer from hiring the company again review the customer data including the surveys and interviews can you identify any barriers continuing with the landscaping example when reviewing the customer survey you notice a few recurring barriers some customers say they don't have time to take care of their lawn others state they've tried but you know don't believe the lawn looks any good another group stated they simply just don't have the equipment consider a barrier related to hiring the company one could be that they don't trust landscaping companies because they received poor service in the past now that you've have the demographic information the goals and the barriers combine that information to create your personas following the landscaping example again one persona could be a 55 year old woman in the city with a small yard and a garden she has been taking care of her own yard for five years but currently doesn't have the time to do it a second persona could be a 30 year old new homeowner they've never worked with landscaping before and just moved to the suburbs and a third persona could be a 27 year old budget conscious renter in a rural area they are trying to get basic landscaping to keep up with their homeowners association demands now let's imagine you've completed a few personas now what do you do with them a best practice is to keep them readily available whenever you work on any marketing material consider all of your personas who you trying to reach what visuals appeal to them what messages appeal to them what online platforms do they spend their time on that's the power of a persona instead of just guessing or combining all personas together you have specific data about who your customers are you know what they want to achieve and the barriers that keep them from achieving those goals customer personas may seem like a lot of work but they are well worth it successful marketing starts with knowing your customers well and now you know what steps to take to gain that knowledge and really make that connection [Music] welcome back earlier you're introduced to the marketing funnel which is a process to take people who are unfamiliar with your products or services and turn them into paying customers overall our main goal of the marketing funnel is to help a business accomplish their goals whether that be for profit revenue new customers or even something different all of the marketing efforts need to be well optimized so that they lead to achieving business goals now as a marketer you want to ensure that you are reaching and resonating with your target audiences in all stages of the customer journey now if you do any research on marketing funnels you'll quickly realize that there are many many different kinds you may work for a company that has a six stage marketing funnel that's perfectly okay a marketing funnel is just a framework it helps show how customers move from knowing about a business to purchasing something the structure may be a little different depending on the business for this course we're going to focus on a four-stage marketing funnel awareness consideration conversion and loyalty in the following videos we will break down each stage in depth and discuss marketing strategies but before we start discussing the strategies let's briefly go over the benefits of a marketing funnel the first benefit of this framework is to consider the buyer's journey instead of just simply trying random marketing strategies or sticking to what drives sales at the bottom of the funnel the marketing funnel encourages you to consider the experience a buyer has with the brand now when do they first experience the brand how do they experience it and what do they do after their first experience now these types of questions help you as the marketer help you really better understand the brand and the business from the customer's perspective the next benefit is to optimize your marketing strategy all marketing strategies have gaps and the funnel helps you recognize and fix them maybe the display ads aren't connecting with your potential customer or maybe they connect with your ads but the web page they land on loads slowly preventing them from moving forward when optimizing your funnel you can find and address these kinds of challenges and lastly once you consider the buyer's journey and optimize the marketing strategies you'll increase the conversion rate and drive more business results for example with an e-commerce business you may track the percentage of potential customers that become paying customers if 100 people visit a product page and only one of them purchase a product that's a one percent conversion rate optimizing your funnel provides a better experience for potential customers this can increase the conversion rate and ultimately earn the company more revenue overall a main goal of a marketing funnel is to provide a great experience for the customer and earn the business more revenue all marketing efforts need to be well optimized this ensures that the marketing performance helps meet the business goals learning what does and doesn't move your customer through the funnel may be one of your more important tasks as a marketer [Music] hello again in the previous video we discussed the marketing funnel and its benefits now in the following videos we'll share specific marketing strategies for each funnel stage let's discuss the first stage in our funnel and that's awareness in this stage the potential customer may not know about the product or service maybe they have a specific problem or pain point they need to solve such as wanting to buy a new piece of furniture or maybe they were introduced to your brand without specifically searching for your product or service such as through a facebook or instagram ad however they encounter the brand the awareness stage is when a potential customer first becomes aware of the product or service this first impression counts imagine you're a digital marketer you're tasked with creating and implementing a strategy to get more people aware of a product or service well how do you do it now before i get into these strategies let me first say that if you're struggling to understand these terms and concepts that's okay i'll be covering these more in depth as you go through this course and the following courses so by the end of the certificate program i promise you will be a pro let's quickly go over the difference between strategies and tactics this is an important marketing concept often you'll find marketers using these terms interchangeably however for our purposes strategies support the plan to achieve the marketing goal and then to be more general ideas tactics are actions taken to make the plan happen for example social media marketing would be a strategy it's a general idea and actions on social media would be the tactics these support the strategy here are some strategies and tactics to build awareness versus search engine optimization or also called seo this is the process of improving a website to increase its visibility in a search engine such as google search or microsoft think about when a potential customer searches for a resolution to their pain point if your website appears at the top of the search they will become aware of your business next is search engine marketing also called scm is when you increase a website's visibility in a search engine through paid advertisement it's similar to seo now when a customer does a google search for what you provide wouldn't it be great to show near the top of the search results sem can get the brand there now display ads are graphic based advertising such as photos videos or text now you commonly encounter display ads on websites and applications build awareness by getting display ads on websites your potential customers are visiting next is social media marketing these are posts on any social media platforms such as facebook instagram or linkedin typically these are no cost now depending on the social media platform there are many ways to build awareness one common strategy is to get a follower to share the brand's post to their followers when this happens new people get introduced to your brand social media advertising is similar to social media marketing except that it's paid the type of advertising varies depending on the platform now a common paid opportunity that builds awareness is an ad that shows in non-followers feeds you can target new potential customers based on their interest video marketing comes in many forms but a common one to build awareness is a youtube ad that plays before a video similar to social media advertising you can target potential customers based on what videos they previously watched so influencer marketing is when you partner with a person or a brand that has a large following for a fee they'll promote your product or service to their followers there are several types of influencer marketing partnerships a common one to build awareness is a review for example a brand could pay an influencer to try out their product or service the influencer would then detail their experience that review could be in a video a photo or a text format remember when doing influencer to marketing make sure your influencer discloses the relationship follow all regulatory guidelines next is content marketing and this is a marketing technique that focuses on creating and distributing valuable content for example of this is a downloadable ebook that your potential customer may want to read it could also be an educational webpage content marketing is often tied with seo or scm but remember creating valuable content is just the first step of content marketing the next is to get the content in front of potential customers all right that was a lot of strategies to build awareness as a quick recap we covered search engine optimization search engine marketing display ads social media marketing social media advertising video marketing influencer marketing and content marketing remember you'll be learning more about those throughout this program [Music] okay you now have potential customers aware of the brand and what it provides however they aren't ready to purchase yet now what do you do next you build consideration in the consideration stage of the marketing funnel you build interest for your product or service the potential customer already knows about the product or service and now they're ready to learn more now it's important to remember that the strategies we discussed in the previous video still apply in the consideration stage for example social media marketing helps build consideration content marketing does too now a difference between the awareness and the consideration phase is a type of marketing strategy you apply for example the content for the consideration phase may be more in-depth and persuasive such as a case study the ad targeting will likely be different as well previous visitors will be targeted here are some marketing strategies and tactics to build consideration first is a unique selling proposition also called the usp and it explains why a product or service is better than the competition and once a potential customer is aware of the product or service make sure that the usp is clear and repeated often testimonials are when customers provide their experience with a product or service a well-crafted testimony can build trust in a potential customer they imagine themselves as the customer who had a great experience and problem was solved testimonials can either be written in audio or in video next is case studies are similar to testimonials except they're usually more in depth they are often in written format a business with projects that last for several months may use a case studies to explain its progression a thorough case study builds trust in the potential customer remarketing ads are advertisements delivered to previous purchasers subscribers or visitors to a brand's website or social media these types of ads are common in e-commerce you likely have experienced ad remarketing for example maybe you viewed one or more pairs of shoes on a website and then later saw ads for those shoes showing up on other web pages or apps you visited that's remarketing you'll learn more about this tactic in a later course webinars are presentations typically educational that are provided online they are a great way to both educate potential customers and promote your product or service one challenge to webinars is getting people to attend you'll want to make sure you're providing something enticing and a value to your customers email marketing is when you send promotional or educational emails to an email list when a potential customer becomes aware of the brand and signs up from an email list they would like to learn more about the products or services offered there are many uses of an email list one strategy to build consideration is to send out educational emails about the products or services testimonials also work great for those who haven't purchased yet social media marketing is slightly different in the consideration stage than the awareness stage in the consideration stage potential customers are now account followers post to followers consistently with varied content to build their interest in the brand now that wraps up the strategies to build consideration okay the potential customers have considered the product or service and they're ready to make a purchase in the next video you'll learn about the conversion stage how to encourage customers to follow through and really make that purchase [Music] hey there in the previous video we learned how to build consideration and get customers super interested in a product or service now they're ready to buy the next stage of the marketing funnel is conversion think of conversion as the process to get a potential customer to take a desired action now this could be to sign up for a consultation or as simple as coming into the store for this video we're going to focus on online purchases you'd think this is an easy process someone visits a website and they make a purchase but it's not always that easy what if they have difficulty with the checkout process or get distracted and cannot complete the online transaction or what if they're interested in the product or service but are still undecided if it's right for them as a digital marketer or e-commerce analyst it may be your job to ensure the checkout process goes smoothly for the customer it may also be your job to increase the likelihood that the customer makes a purchase or you may be tasked with increasing the purchase volume or total value now both of these jobs have one main goal to increase conversion rate the conversion rate is the percentage of users or website visitors that take a desired action the typical conversion rate of an e-commerce business is around one to two percent for example if two people out of a hundred visit a product page and make a purchase that is a two percent conversion rate imagine if you could increase that by just one person out of a hundred so three people out of a hundred make a purchase you can increase the business revenue by 33 percent with a simple website change that would have a huge impact on the business revenue now that you understand more about the conversion let's discuss strategies and tactics optimize the checkout process when a customer goes to check out it should be as easy as possible every additional field or page may decrease the conversion rate a field is any piece of information the customer needs to enter before purchasing the product for example do you need their phone number if not delete that field another optimization idea are to change the purchase button from add to cart to buy now or consider adding additional payment options such as google pay or shopify's shop pay add better product and service photos the quality and number of photos on a web page may drastically affect the conversion rate add high quality photos with varied angles to increase that additionally many e-commerce companies only put photos of their product or service so consider adding lifestyle photos now a lifestyle photo shows someone actually using the product or service encourage customers to add lifestyle photos to their product reviews strengthen the product or service copy when a potential customer reads about the product or service they will purchase it should be persuasive the copy is any written material that encourages a customer to buy a product or a service make sure the copy is not only explaining the product but also making an emotional appeal to buy it add live chat not all companies will be able to add live chat however if they can it could increase the conversion rate if a customer has an issue with checkout or a product question they can simply ask the question through the chat that's better than having them actually leave the webpage if you're working for a small business that cannot staff live chat they can add chat bots instead chat bats are software that answers basic questions for website visitors pursue abandoned carts now this is when a customer starts the checkout process and enters their email but doesn't make the purchase you may think this isn't common but it is many e-commerce software now come with the capability to send these customers an email email reminds them that they still have items in their cart some customers with an abandoned cart will revisit the website and finish their purchase additionally this is a great opportunity to send a remarketed ad the ad will remind these potential customers what's in their cart increase website speed ing to a study by the state of online retail performance for every second delay in page load speed conversions can fall by 20 website speed is something we'll discuss later in the program by a few simple strategies to increase the speed of a slow website such as reducing the size of images offer a trial or a money back guarantee while this isn't possible for all products or services you can nudge a customer to a purchase you typically encounter a money back guarantee for more expensive purchases products i've recently experienced with money back guarantees include mattresses glasses and clothes experiment with a b test this is more advanced strategy because it involves analytics an a b test is when you compare two versions of a web page to determine which has the highest conversion weight we recommend that whenever you change an element on a page you compare its conversion rate to the page's previous version generally you should change one element at a time to get the most accurate results for example you could test different main photos for a product which converts the highest the product photo with a white background outside background or a lifestyle setup remember a b test applied to more industries than just ecommerce it's for any type of business that wants to make it easier for their customer to take a desired action when implementing any strategy to increase conversion you have to keep in mind the return rate it doesn't benefit a company if when the conversion goes up so does the amount of products returned like keep this in mind all right you've taken the potential customer from the awareness stage to the consideration stage to the conversion stage congrats they're now a customer but are you done marketing no no you're not in the next video we'll discuss the loyalty stage how to turn customers into repeat customers that support the brand [Music] in the last video we discussed strategies that turn interested customers in to paying customers in this video we'll discuss strategies to turn those paying customers into loyal repeat customers during the loyalty stage in the marketing funnel customers become repeat customers and brand advocates ideally they become the voices of the brand maybe they talk about how great the product is to family and friends maybe they make a social media post and share their experience with hundreds of friends or maybe they go from being reminded to purchase the service to actively seeking out the service with the digital tools now available it's never been easier to get customers into loyal brand followers at this stage in the funnel you've already earned the paying customer none of the following strategies are necessary however implementing these strategies will lead to repeat customers and increase conversion rate or conversion value plus you may get loyal customers to promote the product or service and be a voice of the brand that's free marketing now let's go over the post purchase strategies and tactics to increase loyalty among customers reward programs incentivize customers to keep coming back to the business we experience rewards programs on food apps like starbucks chipotle and mcdonald's many point of sale or pos systems now offer reward programs built into their software now a pos system accepts payments from customers and manages their information email marketing keeps your brand in front of the customer on a consistent basis remember to always craft emails that provide value to the customer if not they may unsubscribe to build loyalty consider educating your customers or tell the story of the brand social shares are when customers share your product or service to their social media followers it's important to first encourage customers to follow the businesses social media accounts then you have to deliver content that they may want to share to their followers consider remarketing to paying customers with new ads while we mentioned ad remarketing in a previous stage of the funnel you can use it again to re-engage customers and once you know what product the customer purchased you can recommend another product or add-ons to the current product another way to earn loyalty in a customer is to encourage them to leave a positive review if a customer has a positive experience with the business encourage them to write about their experience the review could be online such as on a social media account or simply through an email these positive reviews can be posted as content on the business website such as a social media page and through email marketing the thing is many people love to be recognized on their birthday considering offering a discount for your customers birthdays you could also provide a discount on the anniversary of the first day they became a customer freebies are a way to get customers reminded of the brand over and over again freebies could be a sticker a magnet a t-shirt or something related to the business like for example i recently bought a pillow and included with that product i received a complimentary branded sleep mask honestly i thought it was pretty cool and our last strategy is amusing confirmation messages when a customer purchases a product they often receive a confirmation email or a text often those messages are standard and transactional if appropriate for the brand why not just make them interesting add personality to the confirmation message by writing it in a way that makes the customer excited about receiving the product or service using descriptive language tell them how they feel when they'll receive the new product by really utilizing these strategies hopefully you can turn customers into loyal fans you'll keep them purchasing more products and services and ideally the loyal customers will tell their friends and family about the business too congratulations on finishing this video from the google digital marketing and e-commerce certificate access the full experience on coursera including job search help and start earning the official certificate by clicking the icon or the link in the description watch the next video in the course by clicking here and subscribe to our channel for more lessons from google career certificate