There are 3 phases of advertising: Awareness (audience building), Consideration (lead generation and obtaining authority), and Conversion (nurture and sales). Most people want to start out with the Conversion phase (also known as the Close phase) to sell their goods and services without properly warming up their audiences. This is too much too soon. It would be similar to walking up to a perfect stranger and asking them to join your $3,500 mastermind.

Think of the digital journey as a real customer journey

Imagine having a storefront. How do you get foot traffic there? You can rely on surrounding stores to bring traffic, put up flyers, advertise with billboards, use Facebook or Instagram ads, etc.

These methods of advertising are to cold traffic or audiences, those who may not know anything about you.

To translate this to digital relationships, these would be the people who are just seeing your Facebook ad for the first time or coming across your website somehow, either by you sending them there through social media or by their search on Google or Bing for specific keywords that you have optimized your website for.

This first touch is just that: a wave or a hello or even just a meeting of the eyes.

'WHY' Content for the First Meeting

When you first meet someone, do you tell them about your offers, what you're selling, or do you tell stories about why you love what you do? Stories, of course!

People love stories. They want to hear the passion and reasons behind what you do. How did you get started? What in your life happened that made you want to create a solution for someone who may be struggling with something that you also struggled with and overcame?

Consider using your 'WHY' story in your advertising for the first phase by creating a video or slideshow story. You can use case studies as well to tell other people's stories. The reason you want this in video format is that Facebook allows you to create an audience of people who watched the video. Once you've created an audience inside Facebook Ads Manager, you can then select that audience to send a NEW ad to.

Tempt Your Follower to Consider Your Business as a Solution to a Problem with a Lead Magnet

The next phase of advertising is the 'HOW' phase, the Consideration phase. In digital marketing, this phase is where you offer a solution to a common problem that your potential clients have. A symptom of someone who needs your services is what you are trying to placate.

For example, in my business, I love to help people get traffic to their websites, build leads, and make sales digitally with Facebook ads. One of the main ways to develop a relationship with someone digitally is to get their email address and send them valuable information regularly so that they think of you when it's time for them to find a solution to their problem. In this case: digital lead generation and sales.

One of my free lead magnets is a Facebook Ads Checklist that walks someone through all the steps that need to be given attention when running ads. This solves a problem quickly for those who think that doing Facebook ads is a simple step-by-step. What people quickly realize when they are going through the checklist is that they may not understand all the steps.

They need more information.

Nurture Your New Leads

I present my new leads with a mini-video lesson on the thank you page. (The thank you page is the page someone lands on after they sign up on your list.) Then I nurture them with more Facebook ads education in my sales funnel, so that they know that I know how to solve problems in this field.

Each step in this lead magnet and nurture sequence is in the Consideration phase. Note that I still haven't asked them to purchase anything.

Finally, Tell Them 'WHAT' You Are Selling

If your audience is still paying attention, they are obviously interested in what you are doing, so it's time to let them know what you're selling. Most likely, your email marketing has sent them to your sales page already, and if they looked at it, you can create an audience of people that visited your page. Just make sure you have the Facebook pixel on your website in order to track them.

You can now send content such as objections that need overcoming, testimonials, case studies, and explanations of who your program or product is for or not for.

Stick a time limit on this offer, and you're likely to overcome the objection of "not right now".

What content will you create for your funnel?

Now that you're familiar with the 3 phases of advertising, it's time to get started creating the right type of content for your own advertising funnel. Tell us your ideas below in the comments. We want to know!