While ecommerce has certainly boomed over the last decade, 85% of sales are still made offline.
This demands that you have a robust offline sales funnel that filters your prospective customers into your digital marketing funnel.
By diverting offline leads through your online sales processes, you streamline your offline to online sales funnel. This increases conversions and speeds up the selling process.
Need to create an offline to online sales funnel that increases your conversion rates? Follow this step-by-step guide with helpful tips on offline-to-online sales tactics that work.
What is your Offline to Online Sales Funnel?
In sales, the purchase funnel refers to the sales process you put in place to capture, qualify, and convert leads.
In the digital era, businesses will find that the lines between the online and offline sales funnels have blurred.
The offline sales funnel procedures that you use to generate and manage leads, undoubtedly collide with the tactics you use online. Learning about different marketing tactics and frameworks will help you understand how to start an online business.
This consistency in messaging and procedure is how you boost brand awareness and demonstrate your expertise, authority, and credibility to potential customers.
For your sales funnel to be effective, the sales strategies that you implement should aim to move leads through this process. Use the ABC sales funnel process:
- Acknowledge the customer’s problem using lead capture mechanisms
- Build the buyer’s solution using lead nurture processes
- Close the sale with value-selling solutions and problem-solving products
The most effective offline sales funnels coordinate online and in-person sales and marketing campaigns to drive brand awareness and foster customer relationships across multiple platforms.
Aim to capture leads with your offline strategies and funnel these leads through your online procedures.
For example, check out how Coin Deal harnesses the empty stadium at a Wolves versus Bournemouth premiership league match during the COVID19 crisis.
As the public didn’t attend this real-life event, Coin Deal took advantage of TV advertising to build brand awareness – absorbing potential customers into the sale process.
Using a multi-faceted lead capture approach at one offline event, Coin Deal educates customers on how they can use the platform, with the message ‘Pay with Bitcoin’.
Coin Deal is leveraging offline opportunities to build an online sales funnel for their product. After all, paying with Bitcoin is an online activity.
These huge in-person banner ads convince users to Google “Coin Deal”.
Connecting the offline channel to online SEO strategy, the top search result for “Coin Deal” returns a coherent sales message – buy Bitcoin from Coin Deal.
Seeing as offline events build the most leads for the B2B sales funnel, this is a top strategy for Coin Deal to reach high-level investors and enterprise clients.
Take a cue from Coin Deal. Build a robust offline sales funnel strategy that coordinates offline and digital marketing efforts.
Explore opportunities in the customer journey where you can use offline sales techniques and marketing exposure to encourage inbound marketing lead generation for online sales.
How to Create an Effective Offline to Online Sales Funnel: A step-by-step walkthrough
To drive sales and increase conversion rates, it’s vital to create a coherent offline to online sales funnel.
This offline to digital sales funnel needs to acknowledge potential sales opportunities, build the customer solution, and close the deal.
This guide will walk you through top strategies to build a solid offline to online sales funnel that actually converts.
Build a lead capture process
While there are a bunch of offline sales and marketing tactics to drive lead generation, an effective, automated lead capture system is integral.
By creating a lead capture landing page, you can direct your offline leads to your online sales channel to open the sales funnel.
For example, you can drive offline form signups directly to an online landing page curated for them.
Landing pages are very helpful to enhancing your SEO strategy, increasing your visibility on Google.
According to Michael Yurechko, the Senior SEO Strategist for Loganix, “Having multiple short, keyword optimized landing pages with relevant SEO metadata will enhance your visibility with direct calls-to-action.”
Killer web design and a consistent social media campaign can also help increase conversions up to 23%.
Your landing page should capture data, while teaching concise benefits of your product, like so:
Check out how collaboration software, Teem, uses their landing page to move online and offline sales leads down the marketing funnels
The team app’s landing page uses lead capture, qualification, and nurture sales processes to manage online and offline leads.
If you don’t have the skills to build a landing page, try hiring an expert freelancer or teach yourself with a landing page creator tool.
Encourage user-generated content
User-generated content increases your click-rate by 400% and reduces the cost of clicks by half.
To increase conversions and reduce lead costs, encourage users to post content about your products.
To synchronize your offline to online sales funnel, focus on user-generated content that shows customers using your product in their everyday life.
Start a social media hashtag to inspire your audience to join in.
Look how Gili Sports (above) promotes its paddle boards by harnessing user-generated content through its Instagram social media strategy.
Targeting yoga fans, this post encourages engagement from @scottbauer79’s audience and shows who is using Gili Sports products in real life.
To enhance this offline to digital marketing strategy, Gili Sports should promote the hashtag #ILovePaddleboarding or #ILoveGiliBoards on its Instagram page.
Accelerate this sales funnel by offering a giveaway to the best user-generated post.
Harness the power of the testimonial
Seeing as the average consumer reads 10 reviews in the consumer awareness phase, your audience demands social proof of your success early in the customer journey.
Consumers are constantly comparing and contrasting. Case in point, this post:
Consumers are searching increasingly for “product vs. product” keywords. Offline, the behavior remains the same: they browse products and offerings until one fits their needs.
Demonstrate in-person offline satisfaction with your products to show off your benefits.
Ask customers to show how your products provide value in solving potential customer problems.
Offer real-world discounts or add-on products in return for online testimonial content from existing customers, such as testimonial videos.
See how sports mattress brand, Zoma, leverages Seahawks’ linebacker, Sutton Smith, as social proof of its product quality.
To enhance this social media sales funnel, Zoma should have tagged Sutton Smith’s Instagram profile (@suttonsmith1) in this post.
In doing this, Zoma could channel the athlete’s 7000+ Instagram following down its sales funnel.
Try adding testimonials to your sales landing pages and social media as this type of social proof can increase conversions by 34%.
And, how do you get your customers to leave great testimonials? One way is to provide them with excellent customer service from services like SupportYourApp.
Increase online engagement with video advertising
80% of marketers agree that video boosts sales. What’s more, video content is 200% more likely to be shared than any other form of sales and marketing content.
With this in mind, it seems wise to leverage video marketing in your sales funnel to teach your customers the benefits of your product.
Use video to nurture leads in your offline sales funnel through TV advertisements and real-world video placement. This includes big productions, like product videos that can demo your brand, services, and offering:
Even through offline marketing, you can redirect offline leads into online video content, too.
Connect this to your online marketing strategy by uploading the videos online so they become shareable among your target audience.
Take camping supplier, Kelty.
Kelty has designed a robust video marketing campaign that uses explainer video to show customers how and why to use its products in real life.
Since 96% of consumers watch explainer videos to learn more about new products, this form of video marketing works wonders to capture leads.
To use this campaign as a seamless offline to online sales funnel strategy, use explainer videos at events, during sales meetings, as TV adverts, and more.
By posting these videos online, Kelty enables potential customers to share this footage with family and friends that they feel would be interested.
Coordinate online and offline sales events
As two-thirds of marketers believe that in-person events are the most crucial sales tactic for generating high-quality leads, you need to consider your online and offline sales event strategy.
With event marketing, ensure you have consistent branding and documentation to increase brand recognition.
Equally, make sure that when speaking to your target audience, your in-person sales reps follow a standardized process with a harmonized sales message.
Coordinate these events with online events for those who can’t attend, as well as creating opportunities to share these events online.
You need to create a route for in-person event attendees to convert from an in-person sales discussion to a tangible online lead. Do this by:
- Creating a ticketed event (even if it’s free)
- Produce a lead capture page for your target audience to sign up
- Market this lead capture page on your social media channels
- Run a Facebook ad to the landing page
- Run an email campaign to nurture and qualify those leads
- Run a direct mail campaign with invitations for attendees
- Reward online attendees that share and refer your online event
Encourage social shares with giveaways, offer business cards with your details, link leads to the online event, or schedule a sales call.
Check out Salesforce, who use its yearly events to tie together online and offline sales mechanisms.
Salesforce creates both an in-person and online ticketed event. This means potential leads all over the world can access the sales event without having to pay high prices for door fees or travel.
This also means that in-person attendees who enjoyed the event can share the event marketing content across their online social media channels.
Harness podcast marketing
Google search algorithms now consider more than just text. Searches cover audio, video, imagery, and more.
This connects your real-world events and conversations to your digital funnel.
As half of Americans listen to podcasts monthly, it’s important to link your real-world discussions to online audio marketing strategies.
Podcasts are the ideal format for enhancing your offline to online sales funnel. Podcast marketing ties together online audio advertising and in-person word of mouth marketing.
Understanding that word of mouth marketing is the most effective form of offline marketing, Art Grind Podcast host, Tun, explains his art podcast marketing strategy.
“Some of our guests have huge social media followings so we use their fans to get more listeners. It’s not an exact science but when we invite guests, we check how many followers they have on their social media accounts sometimes. We alternate guests that will help us grow our audience base with other guests who provide quality content but don’t have much social media presence.”
For example, by interviewing painter Edward Minoff, the Art Grind Podcast gains listeners from Minoff’s offline fans.
Simultaneously, Minoff benefits from online listeners checking out his offline work.
This isn’t the only way to use guerilla podcast marketing tactics to accelerate your offline to online sales funnel.
Try these podcast marketing ideas:
- Create real-life merchandise such as tote bags or t-shirts
- Generate a QR Code and print it on stickers, posters, and flyers
- Attend podcasting conferences and events
- Host radio shows
- Give in-person keynote speeches on your industry topic
- Advertise on industry-specific podcasts
- Appear as a guest on industry-specific podcasts
- Share relevant podcasts by other thought leaders with your social media channels
- Host pop-up events at music festivals
Jump on influencer marketing
As we noted before, social proof is key to accessing your target audience, both offline and online.
Influencer marketing helps ease the flow of your offline to online sales funnel by boosting your brand credibility and broadening your reach through their online following. Influencer marketing plays an important role in improving brand awareness and acting as an additional channel for lead generation when you’re looking to build an online business.
This widens your target market for lead generation, increasing conversions.
Influenced marketing also generates brand awareness and places closed-loop call-to-action links to new markets.
Equally, your influencers automatically generate high-quality content for you, saving you the trouble, cost, and time.
See how Nyakio uses influencer marketing to promote its make-up line.
Rather than simply posting an advertising video, Nyakio shows its products in action, leveraging Shayla Mitchell’s platform and following to boost views.
A top beauty influencer, Shayla Mitchell models for print media and works alongside make-up artists.
In these circumstances Shayla transfers her influential marketing to offline sales mechanisms by both wearing and using these makeup products in real life.
To use influencer marketing to streamline your offline to online sales funnel, use The Rule of 900 Touchpoints:
- 3 x Social Media Channels
- 5 x Hashtags
- 5 x Influencers
- 3 x Interactions
- 6 x weeks
- Equals 900 online sales touchpoints
To implement this social media strategy into your sales funnel:
- Identify your top three social media platforms
- Find the top five hashtags or keywords on those platforms
- Look for five top influencers on those social media platforms using those tags
- Interact with each of those influencers twice a week for six weeks
To generate an offline to online connection, offer free products to influencers to test out. In return, ask for user-generated posts to use for influencer marketing.
Ask top influencers for:
- Photos and videos of them using your product
- UGC that highlights the influencer’s favorite features of your product
- Explainer videos
- Testimonial videos
- Recommendation posts
- Quotes
- Reviews and Ratings
Wrapping up,
Hopefully, this article has given you the steps to create a high-performing offline to online sales funnel that converts your leads every time.
Remember that an effective offline to online sales funnel coordinates content across multiple platforms, while funnel leads through robust lead capture mechanisms. Consider using landing pages to aid this.
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