How To Attract More Customers To Your Business By Building A Facebook Sales Funnel That Converts

When speaking with a number of entrepreneurs and small business owners, they all agreed that marketing is a critical element to attracting new customers and building brand awareness.
But when I dug deeper to find out what type of marketing strategies they use, many businesses admitted that they focused solely on referrals.
Some did say that they’ve dabbled with things like Facebook Marketing but got little to no return on their investment, so they stopped.
This is a common response amongst small business owners. But most times when I got down to the root cause for the lack of success on Facebook, it was usually due to two main reasons.

1. Incorrect use of the Facebook Technology
Not setting up a Facebook Pixel to measure the effectiveness of their ad. Or not selecting the best ad type in Facebook based on their marketing objective.

2. Not enough relationship building or value was given to the customer
In short, they forgot that Facebook is a Social Media platform where people mainly go to stay connected to their network. Not to immediately buy from a business they don’t even know.
Ultimately, the lack of success in many cases can be attributed to the lack of a Sales Funnel being implemented.
So, you may be asking yourself “What’s a Sales Funnel?”
The team over at Infusionsoft gave a simplified answer to help illustrate what a Sales Funnel is:
“A sales funnel is an upside-down pyramid that represents the journey cold customers go through, in order to become a new customer. Funnels are widest at the top, and begin to narrow down as the potential customer gets closer to purchasing your product or service.”

So how can you implement a Sales Funnel on Facebook to start attracting new customers?
Here’s a 4 step process to get you started.
1. Create & Promote Content On Facebook To Build Brand Awareness

It doesn’t matter if the content is in the form of a blog post, video or webinar. The goal here is to provide value to your target audience by creating compelling content that addresses an immediate need.
Also, the content should be relevant to the products and services you offer and posted on your website in order to utilize the Facebook Pixel for retargeting.

What is a Facebook Pixel?
A Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ad by understanding the actions people take on your website.
The pixel data helps ensure your ads are being shown to the right people on Facebook.
Once you’ve created your content and placed it on your website, it’s time to set up the Facebook Pixel so you can track the results of your promoted content.
Adding the pixel to your web page is fairly easy. Facebook created an Implementation Guide that you can refer to here, that will walk you through the step-by-step process of getting your pixel set up.

Start Promoting Your Content
If you have an existing fan base, start split testing your promoted content to them and analyze the data to see which content is performing the best.
It’s been said that your audience needs to be exposed to your brand 7 to 10 times before they even consider making a purchase. So make sure you’ve created several pieces of content to help build awareness .
Now, based on the results of your split testing, you can begin promoting the winning content to lookalike audiences within Facebook to attract new customers to your business.
A Lookalike Audience is an algorithm that Facebook uses to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your brand because they’re similar to your existing customers.
Facebook uses data to identify the common qualities of the people in your audience and then begins to find people who are similar to them.
2. Interest: Start Retargeting Your Audience

So, I’ve used the term retargeting a few times. But what does it really mean?
Well, retargeting is basically an online form of marketing which allows you to strategically position ads in front of the people who previously visited your website.
The goal behind retargeting is to increase brand awareness and improve conversions in your sales funnel.
When retargeting your audience, you will need a new variation of content that recognizes the viewers who have shown an interest in your brand, so you can begin to move them down the line in your sales funnel.
The content could be in the form of a thank you video, a branded image, or a written post that strategically recognizes their interest in your business. But the goal is to build a deeper connection with your audience by acknowledging their interest.

From here, you can offer your audience a new form of content that requires a sign up with an email address.
Since you are working with an interested group that is already aware of your brand, you will have an increased opportunity to convert with the email address.
The content could be in the form of a case study, a business report, etc. As long as the content provides value to your audience and is relevant to your product or service, you will have an increased chance to convert with the email address.
Throughout the process, you will have a percentage of your audience that hasn’t moved down the line in your sales funnel. You will need to create a series of content as well as an offer to encourage them to proceed.
You may be wondering,
“How do I identify which customers are moving down the line in my funnel, and which ones have stopped?”.

This information is all baked into the Facebook Marketing data.
In your ads you can identify what action to take based on what actions the customer has taken. And their actions are being tracked through the Facebook ad, as well as the Facebook Pixels you’ve set up.
So, if the audience member has read your blog post but didn’t provide their email address within a set period of time, you can trigger a specific ad that promotes the benefit of your content in the attempt to move them along in the funnel.
While the person that already gave their email address would see a different ad based on where they are in the process.
The great thing about this funnel is that it’s all automated. While you would still need to regularly review the data to implement improvements, the Facebook algorithm takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting.
All you need to do is regularly update the ad to improve the performance and continue to create high-quality content for your audience to consume.
3. Decision: Retarget Your Audience With An Intent To Sell

Now that you have an audience that has consumed your content and provided an email address, you can retarget them yet again in Facebook with an irresistible offer.
If you have a service related business, you can offer a one-time special discount in order to drive new leads. Or if you have an online subscription company, you can offer customers a free trial to try out your service.
Whatever the offer, it should be irresistible enough for your customer to contemplate a decision to buy.
Throughout the decision-making process, you will need additional forms of content so Facebook can continue to retarget your audience. The emphasis of the ads should be focused on building credibility for your product and brand.
The content could be a testimonial video, an explainer video of how your product works, or an illustration of the benefits of using your service. But the goal is to onboard new customers so you can build trust, with the intent to retain your new customers.
4. Action: Retarget Again and Ask For The Sale

At this stage in your funnel you will have a percentage of your audience that has read your content, provided their email address and accepted your irresistible offer.
But if you have a checkout page and they haven’t made the decision to buy, you will need to retarget the audience yet again with another round of content asking for the sale.
The content could be a video thanking them for accepting your irresistible offer but recognizing that they are still hesitant to buy.
At that time you could offer them additional reasons why they should use your service or even offer a follow-up call to discuss the benefits of your product.
Whatever makes sense for your business, the goal is to recognize their deep interest in your offer and attempt to further communicate with your audience with the intent of making the sale.
Conclusion
While I didn’t go in depth about the additional features in Facebook like setting up custom audiences, we can already tell that Facebook is one of the best platforms to connect with your customer.
Its lookalike audience feature has been tried and tested to attract people similar to your existing customer, so you can convert new audiences into customers.
And the Pixel and retargeting features allow you to track your web viewers activity so you can accurately retarget your audience and move them along in your funnel.
As mentioned in the beginning, one of the key mistakes business owners and entrepreneurs make when using Facebook Ads, is that they immediately place a purchase ad in front of their audience without building interest in the brand, product or service.
Advertising on Facebook requires an understanding of the psychology why people use Facebook and recognize the need for a process to move a cold customer into a new customer.
When a person goes through the sales funnel, they have gone through the multiple touch points with your brand. Also, you’ve provided them with the information needed to make a well-informed buying decision.
About The Author:

Colin Richards is the Founder of Freshboxx Group — A boutique Digital and Facebook Marketing Agency that delivers measurable and scalable results for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Freshboxx offers business owners proven marketing and SEO strategies that are designed to increase brand awareness, boost sales and deliver a return on your investment.