Lo4 - Sales funnel

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is an advertising concept that demonstrates the journey a customer goes through when making a purchase. The model is in the shape of a funnel in order because a large amount of potential customers may consider buying the product, but only a few of those customers will actually end up making the purchase. Each stage going down represents a deeper commitment towards to product and purchase. The 4 basic Sales Funnel stages are: Awareness, Interest, Audience feedback, Decision and Action.

Explanatory model and video:

Social media sales funnels

SALES FUNNEL EXAMPLE

Everspace 2

Awareness / Identify opportunities

This brand recognized the fact that their previous game was a huge success and therefore wanted to create a second one however didn't have the funding. Therefore the brand turned to the idea of crowd funding, they wanted to reach a target demographic of ABC1 25+ year old males, not only because people of this social grade stereotypically have a high disposable income and can therefore contribute to the crowd funding, but males of this age typically also still play video games as they're still young. Therefore, Everspace 2 set up Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to promote the crowdfunding and advertise the game, they also made a website as a place for the audience to donate through. 

Build creditability 

All three Everspace 2 accounts on different social media platforms used synergy by making the background banners, profile pictures and wording all the same in order to help create brand identity and a strong memorable product. 

Stay top of mind

All posts across the three different social media platforms were of the same content, captions and house style in order to create synergy and strong brand identity. Everspace 2's twitter account posted their live stream links - on these live streams creators would talk about the progress and journey of the game in order to allow followers to keep up to date with the game, this would be especially important for those considering donating money, Post's especially on Instagram were very inclusive as they asked the audience what they'd prefer to see in the designs and so on. Emails were sent to audiences that signed up to receive news and updates from Everspace 2. Each post used folksonomy by the hashtag #Everspace2 allowing users with a shared interests to talk about the game, reflecting an electronic agora. Staying top of mind was particularly important for Everspace 2 as the game couldn't be created without funds from the audience meaning they had to make them feel overly involved and updated with constant crowdfunding points and further goals. 

Audience Feedback 

Social media aggregation tools would have been used in order to measure and monitor audience engagement regarding traffic / click through rates, reach, shares, likes and follows in order to see if they're gaining enough attention to reach their crowdfunding goal and see whether creating the game is worth it. Audience feedback is also particularly important as they creators can see what their audience do and don't like in order to cater it towards their preferences hopefully making them want to buy / donate to the game. Everspace 2 often posted questionnaires across all platforms asking the audience their options on preferred designs and narrative ideas  which allowed them to gain a better understand on what the audience want.

Decision

All of the above will have most likely helped the primary target demographic realise whether they want to donate or not, this decision will need to be reinforced though multiple more posts and updates in order to finalize their decision. Everspace 2 accounts started releasing demos of the game after the game had been nearly fully crowdfunded in order to show the audience what they're missing out on and really push them. 

Action  

The audience will have donated their money at this point and the game will be released as a demo as a temporary alternative until the actual finalized game is released. 

PLANNING GEMINI FILMS CAMPAIGN

Breif

Gemini Films are an independent film company based in the UK. The company wants to promote the opening of its new film ‘In Static’. The genre of the film is a gritty thriller with a BBFC certification of 15. The film will be released in July 2018. The film is expected to generate interest from a variety of TV magazines and review websites because the lead actor is soap star ‘Harry Sparkie’. The narrative is centred on friendship and homelessness. Gemini Films wants to promote the film six months before the release. The trailer is complete.  

Campaign planning using sales funnel model:

Awareness / Identify opportunities

Gemini films will need to set up social media accounts over platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as these are the platforms that have a large user demographic of teenagers, befitting Gemini films as there film's primary target audience is of 15-25 year olds.