The sales funnel is the process by which you pull in and weed out prospects until you arrive at the consumers who convert. These are the people who move through your entire marketing process and end up making a purchase.

As a home improvement pro, your sales and marketing goals should be to widen the funnel and make it efficient enough that a good number of people are reaching the bottom on a regular basis. But you can only do that if you know how the sales funnel works.

The sales funnel can be broken into four major sections: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action (AIDA). You need content that speaks to consumers in each.

Awareness

During this stage, consumers become aware of your business or products. They may or may not be actively looking for those solutions yet, but you show up on their radar with social media posts, content shared by others, or SERP links related to other things they’re searching for.

Awareness content is about brand recognition and increasing exposure to get your products and services in front of as many people as possible. Examples include social media posts and general blog content.

Interest

Consumers in the interest phase are actively looking for your products or services. They have a specific need—such as a broken window—or are planning on a future need—such as upgrading windows to improve home efficiency before winter.

Interest content should inform consumers to help them make educated decisions, position your business as an expert the buyer can trust, and help your pages show up in SERPs when people are searching for solutions. Examples of this type of content include how-to blog posts and videos and buying guides that help people understand how to research or shop for certain goods or services.

Decision

Property owners in the decision phase are ready to make a purchase but haven’t decided which business or product to go with yet.

Decision content should encourage people to choose your business. You might write landing pages that spell out exactly why your options are a good choice or comparative buying guides that show how your services stack up next to the competition.

Action

At the smallest part of the funnel, people sign service contracts or make purchases. This is where landing and product pages come in: They provide some final SEO and conversion marketing content along with a CTA or button that makes it easy for the prospect to complete a purchase or make an appointment for an estimate.