Before consumers dive right into purchasing goods from an e.commerce store, they go through stages of buying. Stages that consumers go through are referred to as buying funnel, where they start with being aware of your product and end up making a purchase. It is vital to understand these stages to be able to properly market your goods and services to online shoppers. After all, “if you build it, they will come” does not refer to e.commerce.
In digital marketing proper steps have to be taken to make sure the buying funnel works towards your or your clients’ advantage. That means deciding appropriate keywords, content and ads for each stage. Being the first, awareness means you have to make your products or services known to online shoppers. Consumers won’t know about your cool new product, store, or services unless you make it known. At this stage in funnel keywords and content are generalized to capture more impressions (e.g. keywords should be low converting but with high volume of impressions). As you progress working down the funnel your keywords, ads and content should become more-and-more specific. Next, you want to create interest in your product, brand, and services. Ask yourself how your products make consumers’ lives easier or better, and create the need for your product. This means introducing the specific features or tech specs in your ads, keywords and content. Afterwards, you can introduce industry-specific terms and jargons for consumers to learn and appreciate your brand, store, or services. At this point you want consumers to need your products or services more than the competitor’s. When consumers learn about your products and services, they also learn about your competitors. Now consumers are shopping around for the best possible deal by comparing and contrasting features, prices, quality and quantity. Therefore, at any given point a potential consumer might decide to go with another because they meet their needs. To help consumer make informed decisions, you should use highly specific keywords, content, and ads because consumers, who have reached this stage have certain level of knowledge about the product. Finally, when consumer has made up their mind to purchase a specific product, the only thing they have to decide is where to buy it from by comparing prices, reviews, shipping and handling costs, warranties and return policies. To help with their buying process, it is better to use product names and part numbers along with company names when deciding on keywords and ads.
