The journey from prospect to customer happens in stages. The digital marketing funnel represents these stages, which your business can use to drive your marketing efforts.
Here’s a closer look at what a digital marketing funnel is, what its benefits are, and how to use it to guide your digital marketing strategies.
What is the Digital Marketing Funnel?
A digital marketing funnel is a visualization of the process by which visitors become leads and leads become clients. The funnel encapsulates the steps that prospects take on the buyer’s journey.
While the digital marketing funnel applies to all businesses, the specifics of the real estate marketing funnel are unique.
Picture all your website visitors entering the broad top of a funnel. Depending on the action they take or don’t take, they will either lose interest and exit the funnel OR they’ll continue to make their way down through the funnel as it narrows until they reach their final destination: a sale.
In many scenarios, the digital marketing funnel consists of three phases:
- Awareness: The point when visitors learn about the existence of your business, products and services.
- Consideration: The point where leads start to consider your services as an option for solving their pain points and problems.
- Decision: The point where leads convert by deciding to use your real estate services instead of another’s.
So how do you get visitors to take the actions that will progress them through the funnel? You provide them with exactly what they need for the stage they’re in.
The Real Estate Digital Marketing Funnel
While the digital marketing funnel concept is applicable across all industries, it has unique applications in real estate.
For example, a real estate sales funnel may start with a prospect visiting your website. From there they may do anything from subscribe to your newsletter to schedule a showing to “bounce” from the page.
Each of these actions can lead to a different action, some of which will continue to move a prospect through the funnel and toward conversion.
It’s also important to note that the real estate advertising funnel is much longer than many other funnels. Using the sales funnel to target visitors can ensure that your real estate business will still be top-of-mind when prospects are ready to buy or sell.
Conversely, failure to use the funnel can lead to less effective results. It’s easy to want to target the “hot leads” who are already at the bottom of the funnel. However, not only will you be up against all the other real estate agents with the same idea, but you’ll also be going in “cold” without having established your business and brand as the best solution for their unique wants and needs.
The Real Estate Digital Marketing Funnel Stages
Now, we’ll take a closer look at where visitors are at each stage of the funnel.
The people at the top of the funnel are at the very beginning of their journey to becoming clients. Your goal at this point is to make them aware of your business, products, and services, and to start building trust and familiarity. This is so that when they are ready to buy or sell, they’ll already feel like they know and trust you.
Common top-of-funnel content may include the following:
- Your website and blogs
- SEO
- Social media
- Video marketing
- Online ads
- Influencer outreach
The people in the middle of the funnel are further along the buyer’s journey. They are aware of your business, products, and services, but they haven’t yet decided that they’re the right solution. Your goal at this point is to remain visible by delivering valuable content that nurtures these leads into potential customers.
Common middle-of-funnel sales funnel examples may include the following:
- Blog posts
- Case studies
- White papers
- Comparisons
- Lead magnets and gated content
- Social media
The people at the smallest and bottom-most portion of the funnel are primed and ready to act. The goal here is to help them decide to act with your real estate company. This is your opportunity to give them a nudge in your direction by providing them with exactly what they need at this moment.
Common bottom-of-funnel content may include the following:
- Case studies
- Customer stories
- Testimonials
- Product pages
It’s also important to keep in mind that home buyers and sellers have different wants and needs and will therefore require different content to move them through the funnel.
The Benefits of Using a Real Estate Marketing Funnel
While marketing funnels may sound complicated, they offer many benefits for your real estate business. These include helping you:
- Establish connections and cultivate leads by providing the right information at the right time
- Identify what strategies, such as content marketing, will benefit prospects the most at whatever stage they are in
- Recognize the factors that influence your target customer’s research and buying process
- Understand why some strategies, such as white papers, only have value at certain phases
Making the Most of the Digital Marketing Funnel
An effective digital marketing funnel and a strong online presence go hand in hand. Unfortunately, many real estate businesses simply don’t have the resources or expertise to leverage the full power of the digital marketing funnel to generate and nurture leads into conversions.
That’s where The Light Digital comes in. Our experienced team of digital marketers can help your real estate business build a digital marketing funnel and use it in the most effective way. To start putting the marketing sales funnel to work for you, contact The Light Digital today.
