The following article is part of a new series presented by Jewish Content Network which will discuss business ideas, marketing advice, and feature new business technologies, in an effort to help small business and organizations thrive and succeed. 

Advertising is just one part of your marketing strategy.

Anyone can throw money into ads. Lots of people can use the Jewish Content Network to generate clicks. The question is, what happens next?

We’ve spoken about this in the past, but the importance of planning all the steps of your campaign cannot be understated.

Let’s focus in on your funnel. When someone clicks on an ad, what happens next? Where does fit into your broader strategy?

Here are some ideas for that  next phase that comes immediately after the click. Each of these will be different, depending on your industry and the specific type of client you are targeting.

An insurance agency might have a different lead acquisition strategy or sales pipeline than a real estate brokerage or a newspaper selling ads.

Website – the most common place you’ll probably be driving people to is your website. But is the homepage of your site the best place to send visitors? The more focused you can be towards the specific person you are driving to your website, and the more direct your call to action is on that page, the more effective your campaign will be.

And with that in mind, your homepage might very well not have enough of that type of customization to be effective. A customized landing page of your site that simplifies the content, has a strong call to action, and is geared specifically to the niche you’re targeting, will be much more effective.

Google forms – The power of google forms should not be over looked. Whether you are driving people to a dedicated form link, or embedding it on your site, a Google Form simply does what a lot of advertisers forget to do – collect a user’s info.

Send someone to your homepage, and you  hope they’ll decide to give you a call. Send them to a Form, and you can deliberately ask them for information you need – not just contact info, but additional info that can help you close a sale as well.

eCommerce – do you have an online store? Are your ads geared towards getting people to make a purchase right away? Make sure all the parts are there for maximum effectiveness. Don’t just send them to your homepage, send them to a specific product or a niche product collection. Make sure you have google analytics properly integrated, with UTM tags built in to your links. And don’t forget a retargeting pixel to help you more effectively reach people who showed interest but weren’t ready to buy just yet.

Email – many more complex or expensive sales are not made instantly, you need to nurture your leads. One of the best ways to do this is via email marketing. You collect an email and slowly nurture the lead over time, by sending them quality content. This could be monthly newsletter updates that deliver real value, or a drip campaign that sends a pre-defined series of emails to educate clients.

To implement this effectively, you’ll need to embed an email collection form on your site, or use Mailchimp’s landing page generator to quickly create a separate one.

Phones – even if you’re trying to get people to call you, there’s ways of being more effective. Start by making sure someone actually answers the phone. I can’t say how many businesses I’ve contacted – after seeing a paid ad – that never bothered to answer my call or call me back even after I left a message. Don’t be those businesses. You can also get dedicated lines  for the ads you’re running, to gauge whether a phone call (and subsequent profit) came through a paid ad.

These are just some of the specific examples of things you might need to think about and implement to create an effective funnel.

This entire conversation would not be complete without mentioning a good Customer Relationship Management platform, a CRM. Pipedrive is particularly effective for monitoring the stages of your funnel (we use it ourselves) – how many leads have signed up for emails? How many of them have you already called? Insightly is another good one for small businesses, and of course Salesforce is considered the industry standard but is often unnecessarily complex.

Chaim Chernoff is the Chief Marketing Officer at the Jewish Content Network. Always on the lookout for latest digital marketing trends, Chaim aims to help businesses expand their presence and grow their business in the digital world.  Do you have marketing questions? Send an email to: [email protected] or chat on WhatsApp