The sales and marketing trend is greatly influenced by digital media. Hence, the existence of digital marketing. Today, sales are completed without the need for consumers to meet with sales personnel. In many instances, meeting face-to-face is not even necessary.
Digital marketing nowadays brings about better information than an actual sales person. This is due to social media. Social media is one of the most influential factors that changes the sales funnel and bridges the dissimilarity between consumers and product information.
These sales and marketing developments bring changes and challenges to both startups and established businesses today. Although the conventional marketing procedures still work, it is a huge challenge for businesses to generate and increase sales funnel by using modern digital platform – the infographics.
Infographics as Defined
Infographics are powerful digital marketing tools that present information in an unconventional way. With infographics, contents are presented in the form of visuals like objects, graphs, maps, shapes and other forms of diagrams instead of boring texts and numbers.
According to Dave Landry Jr, a journalist and small business owner from Southern California, infographics are a widely and effectively used tool to generate, invite, trade and retain consumers for all businesses. With the right approach, you will be able to reach your target customers and generate sales without having to talk to them personally. That’s how powerful infographics are.
Advantages of Infographics
Credits: NeoMam Studios
As Mark Smiciklas would put it, “A visualisation of ideas that tries to convey complex information to an audience in a manner that can be quickly consumed and easily understood.”
As almost all sensory information will be filtered out the brain, it is essential to create a lasting visual impression and sometimes through sourcing unusual details.
- People are more visual. Half of the human brain is dedicated to visual function, which means most information is filtered and interpreted by our brain better when they are in a picture or image form rather than texts. Our brain also processes visuals faster and easier.
- Social media exposure. Majority of your target market uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These social media platforms are used because it’s where information are best shared through images and texts. An average of 540 tweets are published per hour. So, imagine if these twitter users viewed a hashtag you created; the possibility that a number of them might become your customer is high.
- Lesser cost. 80% of consumers use social media today. Content marketing strategies like infographics generate 3X the volume of possible leads than conventional marketing, but with 62% lesser in cost. So, instead of funding sales personnel to talk about your business, why not create infographics and connect to your target market using social media?
Increasing your sales funnel
Infographic: 6 Steps to Nurturing the Sales Funnel Using Social Media
There are proper approaches to help increase sales funnel using infographics. The basic approach is to include awareness, interest, conversion, sales, loyalty and advocacy.
Awareness
Develop awareness about your business – be it a product or service. Let people know that your business exists and you are serious about playing the game. Establish your target audience or consumers and design a campaign that will arouse their attention. This can be in the form of a regular social media post (using a separate business account from your personal social media accounts), PR promotion and advertisement or branding campaign. Use relevant hashtags in your infographics to integrate awareness about your product or service.
Interest
Once awareness is stirred, you need to make your target consumers develop interest in your product/service. You can keep them interested in using the following methods:
- Campaign for a cause
- Freebies
- Build a community or group of target consumer with the same interest
- Regular social media postings about your product/service
Conversion
At the conversion stage, you should be able to filter and identify your possible clients. Once identified, you can start building communication through emails, follow or subscribe to them on social media and inform them about your future business engagement. If you have a monthly newsletter, you can start sending it to them.
Credits: Scott Meyer for 9Clouds
Sales
The actuality and purpose of an infographic is to create a sale. According to a marketing study, website sales conversions are 6X higher for businesses that use content marketing campaigns compared to businesses that remain using conventional marketing strategies. During the distribution of your product or rendering of your service, take note to deliver the quality that your campaign infographic has promised to provide. This includes but is not limited to quality, timely delivery, security and comfort to your consumers.
Loyalty and After-Sales-Service
The sales funnel and your business’ journey to increase sales does not end after a customer’s purchase is made. It is just the beginning. Your objective now is to manage a repeat order and many more orders after that. There are numerous effective customer service and marketing strategies to keep your customers happy and satisfied for them to make another set of orders. Make your customers feel like they are important to you. Reach out to them through emails or provide them with updates about the product or service or event that they might be interested in – as long as it is relevant to your business offerings. Through these practices, you will be able to build loyalty and generate possible sales in the future.
An infographic can be made to show how your customer loyalty has grown. You can list your clients by geographical facts and create an infographic map that reflects your most loyal customers. By the end of it, you can identify your most loyal clients and send them loyalty freebies and promos.
Advocacy
People love to be recognized for the goodness they did for someone or for a certain cause. An infographic can be made to depict the advocacy of your company. For example, your business uses recyclable products to promote care for the environment. Encourage your clients to participate in this advocacy by asking them to partake in a series of hashtags or mentions on social media whenever they avail your product.
This advance does not only promote your business’ advocacy but also puts your business on the map of digital marketing. Once the hashtags reach your target customers, you will once again stir awareness, which will then lead to targeting a new batch of possible clients and hopefully eventual sales.
The Power of Social Media
Do not underestimate the power of social media. People of all ages use it as it is an influential deciding factor on how they choose their products today. Use the hype that it creates to your advantage by creating compelling and effective infographics that will lead your target consumers to the path of your sales funnel.
BONUS!
Designs.net offers over 300 infographic designs for users to choose from.
Here are some of our most innovative and attractive infographics:
