Which content should you use across the purchase funnel?

1 Feb

2023

Written by

Louise McNutt

Duration

min

Which content should you use across the purchase funnel?

Media like videos, images, 3D and 360º digital assets play a crucial role in helping businesses increase the conversion rate of their purchase funnel and improve media performance. And depending on what stage of the funnel the customer is in, some media will perform better than others. So in this article, we look at how to understand media performance across the conversion/purchase funnel. We will look at the best-performing type of media and factors that can affect media performance. We also look at statistics and research that highlight which kind of media converts best.

Let’s get started.

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Best performing type of images for each stage of the funnel

The images you use at each stage of the purchase funnel play a crucial role in helping you maximize conversions. People are easily drawn to images and research also shows that at least 65% of people are visual learners. So if you want to catch customer attention and increase engagement across the purchase funnel, you need to use images.

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But note that depending on the stage of the funnel, some images will be more effective than others. So in this section, we will look at the best-performing type of images for each stage of the funnel, in order to understand media performance.

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#1 Awareness stage

A purchase funnel initiates when prospective customers first become aware of your brand, product, or service. At this stage, the prospects are looking for products or services that will help them solve their pain points. So to encourage prospects to move to the next stage of the funnel, your marketing strategies would focus on making them aware that you have solutions to their pain points.

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Your main goal at this stage is to improve the visibility of your brand so you can start collecting leads. This means that the images you use here should answer the question “Who are you and what you do”. They should inform and help prospects answer questions without being overly salesy.

Here are some of the images you can use here:

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Branded infographics: Infographics are a great way to educate your target audience. Customers also prefer infographics. Studies from the Nielsen Norman group show that people are more likely to share infographics than any other type of content on social media.

Here is an example of a branded infographic from Web data security company Incapsula (Now called Imperva):

Why their infographic works: Incapsula used infographics to educate prospective customers on how factors like site uptime, mobile optimization, and site security can affect business growth. The infographic does two main things:

Educates their audience
And also introduces their brand to the reader. At the bottom of the infographic, they let the reader know that they have solutions to their existing problems.

For a web security company, understanding how web threats affect people and their businesses are crucial. For that reason, Incapsula conducts regular research to both identify issues that people may be unaware of and assess how those issues affect businesses.

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Most importantly, they turn their research into interesting and unique data stories, told through infographics. This helps them share their insights in an engaging way.

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Simple branded images: Use branded images to create awareness for your product or service.

You can even use the image to show prospects how you can resolve their issues. A brand that consistently gets this right is Casper. They creatively use branded images to create awareness for their mattresses on social media.

Why the image works: A pain point that most mattress buyers have is transporting it. With this image, Casper shows their prospects how easy it is to transport their mattresses. Prospective customers in the market for a mattress and who love this feature will be happy to move on to the next stage of the funnel; the interest stage. Even in the example above, you can see a prospect signifying their interest by commenting and reaching out to Casper in the dm.

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#2 Interest and evaluation stage

At this point, you’ve piqued the interest of the prospects. However, they are not yet ready to make a purchase. They are still evaluating your business and probably several others to find out which one will be the best fit.

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At this stage, you should focus on building a relationship with the lead while establishing your brand’s product or service as the best solution for them. And the best way to do this is to create content that shows off your unique selling proposition (USP). It is important that you emphasize your USP in the places that prospects normally go to when researching. Like your website's homepage, product page, and pricing page.

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Ultimately, your marketing content at this stage should be geared toward helping you collect email addresses from prospects. With email marketing, you will be able to nurture leads into customers. The types of content you can use at this stage are guides, gated block posts, tip sheets, ebooks, squeeze pages, etc. And at this stage, you can use images to serve as illustrations for your content to make it more engaging. For example, you can use images to capture the attention of the reader on your squeeze pages or landing pages.

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Here is an example of a squeeze page from GQ.

Here is an example of how to effectively use an image in a landing page from SugarCRM:

#3 Decision stage

At this stage, the prospect is one foot into the door. They like your product or service and are considering making a purchase. Your job here is to give them more reasons why they should buy from you and not your competition.

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It is at this point that you show social proof by sharing testimonials, reviews, and user-generated content from other customers.

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Why?

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Using social proof in your marketing content will help boost your conversion rate. For instance, a study from Power Reviews showed that customers interacting with different elements of user-generated content such as reviews, testimonials, and ratings can double the conversion rate. So at this stage, you should share client images and user-generated photos.

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Here is an example from Monsoon. They share images of real customers wearing their products on their on-site gallery and in emails.

This UGC image works because it allows customers to see how the items will look on real people.

Other types of images you can use at this stage include:

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Product images
Images that feature your product's use cases
“Before” and “After” images: Including a comparison image will show customers how your product will benefit them after using it. Here is an example.

#4 Action

At this stage, the prospect has decided to purchase from you. Your main goal here will be to fulfill the customers’ needs and ensure that the new customer has a good user experience when using your product or service. You can do this by providing support and educational materials that will help the customer use your product effectively. So use images that illustrate the best ways customers can use your products.

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Another effective strategy at the action stage is offering promos, discounts, and bundle packages to customers. Doing so will allow you to make more sales and increase revenue. You can use images here to upsell products and promote special offers.

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Best performing type of videos for each stage of the funnel

Videos are powerful tools to help you convert customers as they pass through your purchase funnel. Stats also show that using video can improve conversions by 86%. So in this section of the article, we will look at the best-performing types of video for each stage of the funnel.

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💡 Since we have explained the different stages of the purchase funnel in the previous heading, we will go straight to look at the types of videos you should use for each stage.

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