Customer Acquisition Funnel: The Easiest Guide Sarah Chan Rejante February 01, 2023
The customer acquisition process is delicate—studies show only about 10-15% of sales leads end up converting into deals.
A well-built customer acquisition funnel will allow you to gain a better picture of your overall customer acquisition strategy. That way, you can make more informed decisions about your marketing and sales efforts and measure success more effectively.
These insights will support your sales and marketing team, so they can design more effective campaigns and strategies that make a meaningful impact on potential customers.
What is a "Customer Acquisition Funnel"?
A customer acquisition funnel segments a customer's journey before making the final purchase decision. These stages are awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and purchase.
Stage 1: Awareness
This is your first contact with your target market! Whether it's through paid advertising, a marketing campaign, paid social media, direct conversations, or other customer acquisition strategies, this is where you get to put your best foot forward and make a great first impression on your ideal customer. To make the most of this stage, you'll want to take advantage of as many acquisition channels as your marketing budget will allow.
Possible lead acquisition strategies to get the attention of your target audience include the following.
social media marketing
paid ads
traditional advertising
Google search engine optimization
landing page creation
sales calls
If you are an established business, a great way to raise awareness with new customers is to engage with your already satisfied customers. Your current customers are the biggest advocates of your brand. Tell your customer stories on your social media and display examples of positive feedback on your website. Sharing another customer's journey could encourage potential customers to give your product a try.
Stage 2: Interest
Once you have eyeballs on your product, it's time to generate interest. How will you convert those wandering eyes into leads? By convincing people that your product is exactly what they're looking for. Help them understand that your product is solving a problem they desperately want a solution for.
Here are some ideas for this stage of the funnel:
Grow customer interest by becoming an industry leader through inbound marketing and content marketing.
Customers who are looking to solve a problem will go out of their way to read content directly related to the issue at hand.
Offering useful how-to guides, case studies, white papers, and more create added value for your new customers and existing customers, while also providing an opportunity for you to position your product as the ideal solution to their needs.
Stage 3: Consideration
Once you've positioned your brand as the perfect solution for your target audience's problem, the next step is to go head-to-head with your competitors. Customers who reach the consideration stage will begin to compare your product with similar offerings from other businesses. It's up to you to prove that your product is superior. You can steer them in the right direction by having a conversation while you have their attention.
One powerful way to engage with a potential customer once they reach this stage of customer acquisition is through Glass.io.
Glass.io allows you to directly converse with your new customers through chat and video calls so you can better understand their needs and connect them with the solution that works best for them. The app bridges the gap between your sales team or customer service team and potential paying customers.
When your customer service team or sales team reaches out via chat or video, customers will receive an incoming message notification through your website and they can choose to answer or decline. Although the power is still in the customer's hands to decide whether they want to connect with you, this is still a great opportunity to be an active part of your customer's buying process.
Stage 4: Intent
The line between consideration and intent can be quite blurry. As customers inch toward their final decision, they'll begin to show more signs of buyer intent. Perhaps they'll check some third-party reviews, visit your website to learn more about it, or even interact with your social media accounts.
Here are tips for sales and marketing teams to consider:
If you haven't already done so in the awareness portion of your customer acquisition strategy, leverage your existing customers by sharing positive feedback and reviews on your website and social media. Your new customers are looking to learn more about your product. This is your chance to give them a 360-degree view of what you have to offer.
You may also want to include video demonstrations or user guides on your website so that your customer can gain a better idea of what they can expect from your product.
Stage 5: Evaluation
By this point, your new customers are actively weighing the pros and cons of your product. They have already selected you as their ideal product, in comparison to your competitors, and are in the final stage of their decision-making. In this stage, they may request a trial or demo of your product to really get a feel for it before continuing onto the last step of the buying process.
Do you have 5-star reviews and other social proof visible on your website? You should.
Did you know that 68% of people are willing to pay extra for great customer service? Your customer service team could be the deciding factor in your customer's purchase decision. A loyal customer becomes a loyal customer because they feel respected and cared for by their favorite brands. As they are weighing the pros and cons of your business, go above and beyond for your paying customer and you will reap the rewards!
Stage 6: Purchase
Wait! This may be the last official stage in the buying process, but it isn't the end of your relationship with your customer. Retaining customers is a major part of the customer acquisition funnel, and it's important that your sales team invest time into customer retention. Loyal customers make the best (free) advertisers!
In the final stage of customer acquisition, you'll want to make your customer's life as simple as possible. Keep in contact with your customer throughout the customer's lifetime to make sure they are satisfied. The best way to retain customers is to build a strong relationship with them. They will in turn advocate for your brand. Your happy customers support your lead generation!
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a "Customer Acquisition Funnel," a "Sales Funnel," and a "Marketing Funnel"?
You might have heard of a sales funnel or a marketing funnel. If you're wondering what the difference is, and how they compare to a customer acquisition funnel, we're here to tell you that while they're all very similar, there is a key difference!
Marketing funnel = focuses on marketing strategy and giving leads a reason to buy
Sales funnel = focuses on sales strategy, finding and following up on leads and closing deals
The customer acquisition funnel combines the two by taking you from the moment a potential customer lays eyes on your product right up to the purchase point, and into the future (if applicable).
In closing
Whether you're a SaaS startup or a well-established retail brand, developing effective customer acquisition strategies can be challenging. We hope that our guide provides you with a clearer understanding of how you can design your own customer acquisition funnel with the support of your sales team and marketing team.
Sarah Chan Rejante is a digital marketer and social media coordinator based in Toronto, Canada. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Public Relations from Humber College and is passionate about marketing and getting in front of customers in the right way.
About Glass.io
With Glass.io, you can reach across the screen and help visitors make a buy decision. See exactly how visitors use your website in realtime, trigger a notification to the right sales rep when they show buying intent, and start a personalized conversation (chat or video) at the perfect moment.
Plug your leaky sales pipeline by engaging with your website visitors while you have their attention. Sign up for an account here.