The best marketing strategy for small business is one that reliably generates revenue. The first step in optimizing for revenue is looking at the customer journey. Marketing campaigns which target later stages of the customer journey have the benefit of being more likely to produce a larger return on capital (human and cash) than marketing campaigns which target earlier steps in the customer journey.

How to Address the Bottom Funnel

Customer Follow Up

Customer follow up marketing automation sits at the very bottom of the funnel. A simple marketing automation system would follow up with existing customers. The series could have three main message ponts. First, write a review. Getting your customers to review your service online provides social proof for future customers and will increase sales conversion over time. Second, referral request. Ask your customers to refer people they know who could also benefit from your service. Third, cross sell, up sell, partner offers. Do you sell peanut butter? Maybe your customers also need some jelly. Do customers love your peanut butter? Maybe they’d like to order a larger size or make sure they don’t run out by subscribing for a monthly auto delivery.

Anybody who has spent more than a week or two as a working salesman knows he should be doing this, but the rate at which these processes are executed is appalingly low. We implement low cost technology tools to improve the execution rate of these fundamental markeing principles automatically.

Lead Nurturing

The next big opportunity that many businesses miss out on is lead nurturing. On average, only 4% of website visitors complete the primary conversion. Using an exit intent and/or session stall popover to give the user a compelling reason to enter their email address can result in 15-20% conversion rates for this “soft conversion”. The next step is to send the new lead a series of emails. The emails should address common questions customers have. Offering limited time discounts can also help tip the prospect over the edge between lead and customer.

Let’s run the numbers for an example case of lead nurturing. We have advertiser A who does not soft capture and lead nurture and advertiser B who does. They have equal cost of traffic and primary conversion rates. The only difference is advertiser B captures 20% of non converting user email addresses and convinces 15% of those users to make a purchase within 30 days.

Advertiser A

• Ad Budget: $10,000
• Cost per click: $2
• Clicks: 5,000
• Conversion Rate: 4%
• Revenue per conversion: $100
• Total Transactions: 200
• Total Revenue: $20,000
• ROAS: 2x

Advertiser B

• Ad Budget: $10,000
• Cost per click: $2
• Clicks: 5,000
• Conversion Rate: 4%
• Soft Conversion Emails Captured: 960
• Soft Conversion Incremental Sales: 144
• Revenue per conversion: $100
• Total Transactions: 344
• Total Revenue: $34,400
• ROAS: 3.4x

As you can see, based on these assumptions ROAS improves 70%. This would not be a surprising outcome for most advertisers. Another thing to consider is that an Advertsiser with a 2x gross ROAS and 40% profit margin would be bleeding cash ($20,000 x 40% = $8,000 less $10k ad spend = $2k net loss). That same advertiser would be profitable with a 3.4x gross ROAS ($34,400 x 40% = $13,760 less $10k ad spend = $3,760 net profit).

Implement Bottom Funnel Efforts Today

Automating your lead nurturing and customer follow up processes has never been easier or less expensive than it is in 2019. We all know that following up with customers and prospects is absolutely necessary for the long term health of our business. Despite that, many opportunities slip through the cracks. Whether it happens because of missed opportunities on the landing page or failing to implement a landing page testing program, focusing on bottom funnel customer acquisition often doesn’t get the attention it deserves. If you’re ready to get started and want to engage with us for either consulting or fully managed digital marketing services, schedule a complimentary introduction call here.