You may have heard of the marketing (or sales) funnel before. This funnel is essentially the continuous journey that a potential customer, or lead, takes with your nutrition business — from learning about you, to signing up for services, and continuing services. This journey may also include customers leaving and coming back.
The customer journey is important to understand because you can identify where a potential customer is and then adapt your message to appeal to where they’re at. And the more you can relate to your leads, the better you will be at closing the deal and turning them into customers.
So buckle up! We are going to walk through the first stages of the customer journey — until they become a customer — and share how you can optimize your nutrition business each step of the way.
Awareness
Awareness is the broadest step in the customer journey. At this point, individuals may not have heard about you at all. This is their first exposure to you, and they learn who you are and what you do. It’s the first impression — and you want to make sure it’s a good one!
Leads in this stage don’t want to be overloaded with information, but instead just need a taste of your business and what you do.
Marketing activities in the awareness stage could include:
- Email outreach for new nutrition offers
- Events for your ideal client
- Webinars to promote brand awareness
- Advertising that promotes your nutrition services
- Direct mail for services offered
- In-person introduction
- Website content that speaks to your ideal client
- Word of mouth from existing clients
- Social media that educates on nutrition and speaks to your services
These activities will help you introduce your brand to more people, and the more people who hear about you, the more people who will proceed to the next stage of the journey.
Interest
During the interest stage, potential customers want to learn more about you and your services. They heard about you and your services resonated with them. These individuals are thinking that they might need your services but they still aren’t quite sure. Now, they want to learn a little bit more. They might do preliminary research on your brand to learn more about what you are about. Maybe they sign up for your newsletter or a free resource to get additional information.
Marketing activities in the interest stage could include:
- Introductory email campaigns
- Newsletters
- Free resources (like recipe bundles, pre-recorded webinars, nutrition guides, etc.)
These marketing activities should dive a little bit deeper into your services and provide more background on your mission. However, they should still not push a sale; you don’t want to scare leads away at this point. You’ll also want to refresh your introductory email campaigns and freebies a few times a year so leads who aren’t progressing don’t receive the same content from you over and over.
Consideration
At the consideration stage, potential patients are considering choosing your services to meet one of their needs. They’ve now decided that they do have a need. Maybe they want to lose weight or better manage their diabetes. They’ve realized that they need help to take control of their health and are looking at different businesses that can help them achieve their goals.
Marketing activities in the consideration stage could include:
- Targeted email campaigns to build trust
- Case studies
These marketing activities are more specific now. Instead of talking broadly about your company, you should speak to the goals and obstacles of the leads in the considerations stage. During this stage, you can introduce some of your services and talk to how these services can help leads achieve their goals. You might even want to highlight the things that set you apart from the competition since leads may still be considering other companies at this point.
Intent
At this point, potential customers intend to sign up for your services. This is where the funnel shifts from marketing to sales. Leads may still have some other options and will be gathering their resources before making a final decision. The good news is that you’ve made it to the top of the list, so the sale is yours to win or lose.
Sales activities in this stage could include:
- Product demonstrations
- Discounts (like a reduced rate for signing up for a year of service instead of monthly)
- Case studies related to a lead’s needs
These sales activities should be 100% tailored to the individual. So, your messaging should change depending on who you are talking to. During this stage, you can provide a deep dive into the services that can help this lead. You should be open and honest about pricing and what your packages do and do not include. It’s better to lose a lead at this point by being transparent than to gain an unhappy customer.
Evaluation
The evaluation stage is a stage in which potential customers make their final decision to choose your services. This is mostly an internal evaluation, but you can work with your lead to help them pull the trigger.
Sales activities common in this stage are:
- Discovery calls
- In-depth product demonstrations
Some people may skip this stage entirely and move from intent to purchase. But some individuals need a little bit more hand holding. The best thing you can do here is be as helpful as possible while not being overbearing.
Purchase
At the purchase stage, a potential customer becomes an actual customer! This is a turning point for your relationship with the customer. But don’t think that this is the end of the journey. As long as customers remain with you, their journey will continue. You will need to nurture your relationship and support your customer as you deliver your services. EatLove makes it easy to keep track of your customers and give them the individualized attention they need. Start a free trial today to see how it works!
As you understand this customer journey from awareness to purchase, you can better determine where leads are at in their journey and adapt your marketing and sales strategies accordingly. Of course, this is just a general funnel, but you can always adapt this structure to reflect your customers and their interactions with your business.