Do Sales Funnels Work in Trinidad and Tobago?

While popular the strategy’s efficacy has been put into question by many companies

There are many trends and practices in marketing to help attract new customers and retain current ones. Sales funnels are one of them. The popular method works similarly to customer journey mapping and aims to track the customer’s experience from the time they see or interact with the brand to the point of purchase.

However, some local companies question its effectiveness. Here are some things to know about creating an effective sales funnel in Trinidad and Tobago:

What is a Sales Funnel?

To give you a synopsis, a sales funnel is essentially assessing the steps that someone takes before they become a customer. It tracks prospective customers from their first contact with the business to their eventual purchase. Businesses strategize their sales funnels to create a more sustainable way of growing customers and thus, their business.

It is broken down into 4 categories:

1. Awareness: the customers first contact with the business. In digital marketing, an example of this would be a Facebook ad that grabs the customer’s attention.

2. Consideration: this is when the customer will weigh their options, This includes: research and cost comparisons to find out what exact product or service is the best solution to solve their problem.

3. Decision: this phase is when the customer knows exactly what they want and is ready to buy but is still considering their options. This is typically when companies will include factors such as free shipping or a discount code.

4. Action: This is when the customer makes the purchase. However, it also includes retaining that customer after purchases, for example, asking them to sign up for the company’s email list or giving them back a feedback form.

Considering each of these steps, companies will create a sales funnel strategy from awareness to purchase to attract customers and boost their overall sales. Here is an example.

Awareness - a captivating Facebook ad showcasing specific products that leads to the company’s website

Consideration - The landing page with the products advertised also offers a 10% discount

Decision - the content on the website helps compare costs, free shipping is offered or the website has videos about how the products are used.

Action: Purchase is made. The company then asks them to sign up for their email list to see new products and be informed about sales.

Do Sales Funnels Work in the Trinidad and Tobago consumer market?

Many times when companies implement sales funnels they do not consider their audiences behaviours, journey and building a relationship with their customers. Our examples above are quite generic illustrations of what can be done. Businesses, on the other hand, have to do a careful assessment of their customers and what approach will actually make them loyal to the brand and continue to make purchases.

To get the success required in the context of Trinidad and Tobago with the use of a sales funnel, consider some of the factors we have listed below.

1. Audience Behaviour

Understanding your audience and their digital behaviours are the most important part of creating an effective sales funnel. Companies must remember that they are advertising to their specific audience, not everyone online. Therefore, knowing the behaviours and interests of their audience is a great way to verify the type of content they will engage with.

For example, a business that has a Gen Z target audience would find multiple datasets that show that Gen Zs actively search for entertainment and information on their phones for the majority of their internet use. Thus, their sales funnel would have to consider this especially, when creating their “awareness content” and a mobile-optimized landing page.

2. Assess Every Stage

Often companies put a lot of effort into one of these phases. However, each level of a sales funnel has to be carefully assessed and implemented. Similar to our example above, if an awareness campaign leads to a landing page, the company needs to ensure that the customer goes to the exact page that is promised in the ad.

Essentially, the experience from the first point of contact to purchase has to be as seamless as possible for the customer. Recent stats show that consumers exit a website that takes over 3 seconds to load. Factors as small as this must be considered at each level.

3. Focus on Building a Relationship

One of the most important factors of the sales funnel is retention. Whether the funnel results in more followers on social media or a few more people on an email list; companies must continue to create relevant and valuable content for their audience. One of the biggest advantages of sales funnels is that it helps companies think long term. Therefore, the goal of the sales funnel and its content should be relationship building with the audience.

This can be content that shows insights into the company, special offers for customers who are in the “ecosystem” of the company (ie email list) and exclusive access to sales and more. Companies tend to lose sight of these larger goals in the daily production of content. However, produced content must give an impression of the larger goals of the company.

We would like to hear more about your experience using the process of a sales funnel in T&T. Was it a success? What challenges did you face? Did you make amendments to ensure your brand’s success? Please feel free to leave us a comment and share it with our audience. We would love to hear about it!

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Stay tuned to Connective Pros, on Facebook & Instagram we have an upcoming blog about what makes scroll stopping content at all levels of the social media creation process.