3 Tiered SEO Sales Funnel Marketing

SEO Sales Funnel

The three-tiered sales funnel and how to make it work for you when it comes to SEO

Located in the suburbs of Sacramento (El Dorado Hills), Front Street Media has the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experience you can count on when it comes to a proper inbound marketing and content marketing strategy. If you are looking for a team of inbound marketers and seasoned SEO veterans in El Dorado Hills that know and understand the inbound process, count on us.

The SEO and Inbound Marketing Sales Funnel

The model of the SEO and online marketing sales funnel is changing. Looking at consumer patterns, it is easy to think that the sales funnel no longer looks like a sales funnel; it now looks like a sales maze. Recent consumer studies have shown that the average consumer needs no fewer than 10 points of contact before they buy.

This might make it seem like attracting new customers is a Sisyphean effort of endless content. Inbound Marketing will help simplify this process and streamline your online marketing sales funnel. Whether you are a large corporation in the Greater Sacramento Area or a local mom and pop shop in Folsom/ El Dorado Hills, this process will give you a good idea of where to start.

With the old model of the sales funnel still be used in direct mail marketing and print marketing, there are still reasons to keep your efforts here and for many local markets in Sacramento, this still works. Even if an individual customer’s journey might take a shotgun blast of print mail rather than a targeted sniper rifle effect, at least your getting leads.

The Three Tiered SEO/ Inbound Marketing Sales Funnel

To improve on your online marketing and SEO sales funnel sales, block your content into three tiers and you will see the sales funnel working for you. Also keep in mind there are many steps to inbound marketing and understanding these steps is crucial to your success with this SEO and inbound marketing sales funnel.

Inbound Marketing Sales Funnel

The Top Tier: Education

At the top tier of the sales funnel, you are engaging customers who don’t even know they have a problem yet. They think their lives are perfect and complete, or at least they don’t know that they are missing what you have to offer. At this level, your sole purpose is to create awareness about the issue in general.

You educate customers at all levels, but this is the level where you are starting with people who really don’t know about your area of expertise. Your goal is to bring them from knowing nothing or next to nothing about your topic, to having a deep enough knowledge to be able to start comparing products (the next step).

Some things you might want to include in the top tier of your sales funnel are:

  • How-to guides
  • Ebooks
  • “Definitive” guides
  • Blog posts and guests posts

For example, if your business is selling cameras or camera accessories, the top tier of your sales funnel would include articles and guides like “How to take better pictures” and “The definitive guide to stunning holiday photos.” You’re focusing on broad, general information that will boost your reader’s trust in you and will establish you as someone who knows something about your business.

The Middle Tier: Comparison

At this level, you have educated your audience enough that they are beginning to think about your product or service, but they don’t know enough yet to know if your version is good, or if a competitor’s is better. They don’t even really know what they are looking for in a (your product here), but they are pretty sure they need one of some sort.

At this level, you are going to start educating your customers about the differences between the options that are available to them. You will start teaching them about different models and specs, and what the different options actually mean.

At this level, you will be putting up things like:

  • Buyer’s guides
  • Brand comparisons
  • Product comparisons

Following up on the example of camera equipment, at the middle tier of your sales funnel you will be publishing titles such as “How to choose the best DSLR for you,” “Should I get a Canon or a Nikon?” and “User review: Nikon D3300 vs D7000.”

The Bottom Tier: The Sale

At the bottom tier, you are actively trying to get your readers to buy your product. They’ve done their research, they’ve compared products and learned what else is out there, and now it’s time to bring them in and get them to open up their wallets.

Some people make buying decisions based on numbers and specs. Other people want more of an emotional connection. They want to be talked into it. They want to be reassured that they are making the right decision and that they are going to love the product they are buying or the service they are signing up for.

This is the stage where you will put things like:

  • Testimonials
  • Special offers
  • Product demos
  • Free trials

Of course, this doesn’t mean that your customers have to encounter your content in exactly this order or all is lost; as we’ve already mentioned the online sales funnel is decidedly non-linear. Your customers will actually tend to gravitate toward the content that reflects where they are in the sales funnel. Your inbound marketing strategy should be to focus on having plenty of solid content in these three tiers, and your customers’ curiosity will lead them to deeper and deeper levels of education until they are ready to commit to spending money with you.