In today’s highly-competitive, fast-changing environment, it’s more important than ever for personal brands to know who they are, what they can offer and communicate it distinctively. And building a solid personal branding sales funnel is one of the essential survival skills to master the competitive (and profitable) advantage.
Social media, PR, blogging and other networking activities are about the consistent, ongoing process of building your brand and establishing credibility. Whether B2C or B2B, those efforts lead to increasing the number of individuals that you funnel into your professional and potential customer pipeline.
The process of converting contacts into fans or customers may take a month, a year or longer. A long-term strategy, however, is one that will build buzz for the personal brand and keep the pipeline full. Through authentic messaging, the power is in knowing how to motivate those humans to take action when they’re ready to make a purchasing decision.
Sales Funnels: Then and Now
The traditional sales funnel, that pushes customers to an end goal, has been gone for a long time, though it’s still hard for some people to accept that fact. Typically the stages are known as: awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation and purchase. As an outdated approach of filling the top of a funnel until someone makes a purchase, it fails to acknowledge anything beyond the conversion. Sure, it may make money quickly, but it will have a limited lifespan.
Much different from the traditional sales funnel, the personal branding sales funnel focuses on building a steady stream of consistent efforts that turn leads into life-long customers and also centers around building trust and giving current customers a superior experience that will lead to sustainable brand loyalty and retention.
Opening Doors with Trust
Trust is one of the most predominant, if not the predominant, factor to build a strong personal branding sales funnel. Even Google’s search algorithm and Facebook’s Reactions based on likes, loves, laughs, etc are built on trust. When these platforms see content that’s well received by their user base, they’ll push it out even more…opening more doors.
But, of course it’s not just about the algorithms. People need to trust you too.
And it all starts with authentically sharing your experiences and genuinely offering solutions. By sharing your passion and your own voice in the content you post, the blogs you write, the video you create… you’ll establish a stronger connection with your audience and drive more sales.
“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.” ~Zig Ziglar
Stoking the Sales Fire with Experiences
Find out what prospects want. Then, give it to them.
Experiences are where successful brands make the attack and leave their mark while others struggle and wonder why they don’t get long-term results. The center of these experiences revolves around your website and your blog. By building that traffic, you’ll not only start ranking higher on search engines, but you’ll add value by educating your audience on solutions.
Start enough small fires that will keep your brand burning hot so you stay top-of-mind with prospects. Whether it’s a blog post, whitepaper, how-to video or a personable post on social media, these experiences stand out. People will notice and more importantly, remember you when they’re ready to make a purchase.
Building Brand Loyalty That Will Sustain
Here’s what separates the traditional sales funnel and the personal branding sales funnel. Building brand loyalty that will sustain a lifetime of sales.
The relationships that you nurture (customers, in addition to other businesses, partners and peers) will build loyal followers and referral. The key is to consistently meet, or even exceed, expectations by anticipating their needs in each encounter.
Because, when they become your loyal fan, they’re not only there to buy your product or service because they need it, they’re there because they’re emotionally attached to you, as a brand. They will be the ones that recommend your brand to family and friends, giving you the priceless word-of-mouth marketing that is proven to drive the most repeat results.
Start Your Own Personal Branding Sales Funnel
Related Personal Branding Articles:
- Why Do Search Engine Rankings Matter When Building Your Personal Brand Online?
- The Fine Art of Positioning Personal Branding Campaigns Online
- How to Build a Personal Brand that People Actually Trust
- Own Your Space with a Solid Social Media Strategy for Your Personal Brand
- On Target: Build Your Personal Brand By Blogging