Online funnels seem to be the new buzzword in the internet marketing world. This terms gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean?

An online sales funnel is a representation of the buyer journey through your website. It looks like a funnel because you will lose visitors through the nurturing process. This is actually a good thing because it automatically filters out the bad fits for you. You save time by automating the process instead of chasing down bad leads. So you start at the top with lots of people and filter it down to the best candidates.

The rate of change in technology, social media and online marketing trends is staggering. From year to year ideas may be thrown on their head and concepts may develop rapidly; what worked to attract and convert customers last year may not the next.

Top 5 online marketing trends that will lead to inbound marketing strategies

Web design is a complex process which encompasses many different aspects of visual and aesthetic design elements.  Another part of design relates to user experience and usability which relates to the content of the website.

Developing your value proposition or main marketing message is really about storytelling.  The science relates to how brands communicate to their audience and engages our brains.  Crafting a story for the home page can give us all we need to incorporate the basic elements we need.

Start with the buyer journey and map out the experience. Awareness, Assessment, Decision.

Your prospective buyers are searching for answers to their questions and solve their pain points.  This starts with the awareness stage, get's more detailed in assessment, and finished with decision.

So you're redesigning your website to increase your ability to market your business.  That's great.  So now what are the first steps to web design?

Believe it or not we don't start designing websites with anything visually.  We first need to understand a few things to be able to build a move effective online sales funnel.  The first step is to map out the buyer journey for your visitors.  This starts with the home page because that is the first thing anyone sees unless they are coming from a referral website, direct traffic, social media,  or other means.

INTRODUCTION:

Believe it or not, most websites aren't built to generate leads or get customers from the internet.

I see it all the time. Over and over. Your website is not generating leads or customers. Here are some top reasons for why this is true.

Internet marketing is a very wide field which is constantly growing and developing along with the growth of the internet.  In general, people divide internet marketing into outbound marketing, where you actively reach out to the consumer, and inbound marketing where you develop your own web presence with quality information and wait for the customer to come to you.  Whether you’re more interested in the former or the latter, there are certain things you should keep in mind.

Target Your Audience

It can be tempting with all the options for building a cheap website for your business.  Saving money is always a good thing when you are managing costs and budgets.  However, if you try to cut costs by having a cheap website your potential for attracting customers will be severely damaged.

Your website is the most important part of attracting new customers online.  It is the sales funnel for getting new leads and converting to customers.  If you don't invest in a professionally designed website it will make your business look unprofessional and shoddy.  

Inbound marketing is more than just a buzzword that websites are using to try to generate interest. Instead, it is a valuable marketing method that can lead a more targeted audience to your website to help you build traffic and sales. If you are interested in getting started with this type of marketing, it is important to understand the steps in the process so you know what to expect.

Buyer Personas are created to help understand who your customers are and how to market to them.

These are detailed fictional characters based on potential customers who share common problems, needs, and wants.  By developing these personas we can drive targeted prospects to the website by optimizing content for these personas.

Recently I was attending a Hubspot partner webinar in which their new feature for Social Inbox was showcased.  This feature allows me to monitor or publish my messages over my social media channels.  So instead of going to Twitter, Facebook, Google+,....etc. and making individual posts I can just publish from one dashboard as well as schedule any future posts.