A sales funnel describes the steps a person takes to become your customer. It consists of three parts…
The first top section is marketing that attracts prospects to your business (for example, advertising on your physical storefront or your website landing page).
The second part that happens in the middle includes all parts of your sales process before the sale (for example, people trying on clothes in your store or website visitors reading the benefits of your product page).
Finally, the last section at the bottom is the last purchase (for example, website customers enter their credit card information to make a purchase).
The takeaway: A sales funnel describes where someone is in their shopping journey, whether they have just learned about your brand or are a loyal brand customer or even an ambassador for your brand. brand.
Importance of Sales Funnels
It indicates the journey that each customer or new prospect will take to purchase your product/service. Analyzing it will help you understand how it works and where it doesn’t. It will also help you identify its problems at different stages, i.e., where prospects lose out and do not convert into customers.
Understanding your sales funnel will help you influence how prospects navigate through it and whether they convert into buying customers. It will also provide insight into what customers are thinking and doing at each stage so that you can invest in marketing activities that attract more leads, develop more relevant messages at each stage, and Converts more leads into paying customers.
Don’t overlook: Knowledge is the key to understanding your customers’ buying journey so you can identify gaps in the process and invest in the most effective marketing strategies.
4 Stages of the Sales Funnel
Prospects will go through four stages from when they first learn about your product or service, until they buy (or won’t buy) your product or service. The four stages represent a prospect’s mindset, and each stage requires you to take a different approach with your message. Using the abbreviation AIDA you can remember four steps:
- Warning
- interest
- decision
- Work
Attention
The first step is to take care of him. This is when someone “enters” your sales funnel, for example, you can register for your webinar via a destination/capture page, where he or she will enter their personal information. As with YouTube advertising or all other social networks, there are other ways for a prospect to be in your sales tunnel, where he or she can subscribe to a newsletter, or another capture page, once they’ve learned about your website. The best way and his attention is to ask him a question to which he assures himself that you have the answer and that he absolutely needs it, or to make him discover information that is of value to him. He wants to get it (awaken his curiosity).
interest
The second stage is interest. At this point, once you have their email address, you can send them a PDF, eBook, free training video detailing your expertise, specialty in your field, how this area is important, etc. Above not try to sell your paid product directly to him openly, he will risk realizing it and discontinuing it. Your content should demonstrate your expertise in bringing value and help the prospect make an informed decision, one that will show them that your product or service will bring them benefits, and that is in their personal best interest.
decision
The third stage is the decision. Now the customer is ready to buy and can consider several options before making a purchase. If you take your entire training pack for example or with upsell or downsell systems then you have to give him the best you can. You can offer them an extra bonus when they place their order. The main thing is to make the offer irresistible so that the prospect wants to go ahead and choose your unique offer by increasing the perceived value of your product on the sales page.
Work
The last step is action. The prospect becomes a customer by purchasing your product or service (or he decides to leave without making a purchase).
Although the sale is over, the process never ends. Your goal is to focus on customer retention so that the customer makes a current or future purchase. Your content should help build customer loyalty. For example, thank a customer for their purchase, ask them for feedback, offer after-sales support, invite them to sign up for your newsletter, or enroll them in a rewards program.
How to Build a Sales Funnel
Creating a sales funnel is the key to moving leads from the first contact to the last sale.
There are many ways to build a sales funnel, you have tools like System.io or ClickFunnels to build your sales funnel. Follow these steps to create a sales funnel for your business:
create a landing page
Landing pages are often a prospect’s first opportunity to learn more about your business and its products and services. Users will arrive at your landing page in a variety of ways; They can click on an advertisement or link on a social media page, download an eBook, or register for a webinar.
Your landing page should convince your prospect to give you their information in seconds. While a landing page can be the only opportunity to impress prospects, its copy must be strong and engaging. It should also include a way to capture the prospect’s contact information so that you can continue to communicate your value to them.
provide exclusive content
For a prospect to provide your email address, you have to give them something in return.
Gather valuable content in one PDF download and offer it in exchange for their contact information. Make sure your document promises to meet the needs of your potential customers to encourage them to download it. You can do the same with free training videos. 1 to 4 videos is an ideal number before offering a paid product, or an eBook as stated earlier.
Pursue the prospect of a purchase
Now that the prospect has shown enough interest to provide their email address, nurture them with content that educates them about your product or service. You’ll want to keep in touch with them regularly (once or twice a week), but not so often that they get bored or frustrated with all the material. Make sure the content meets their primary needs and removes any potential objections.
make a deal
Give your best offer, an offer that is hard for the prospect to ignore or refuse to close the deal. For example, you can offer a product demo, a free trial, or a special discount code.
continue the process
At this point, the prospect has either become a customer or has made a decision not to make a purchase. Either way, you need to keep the process of communication and relationship building going.
If the prospect becomes a customer, continue to build the relationship by educating them about your products or services, engaging regularly to retain them, and providing excellent service to retain them. If the potential customer doesn’t make a purchase, get in touch with them to convert them into customers using different series of email sequences.
Optimize your sales funnel
Even if you’ve built a sales funnel, your job is never done. To determine where you are losing leads, you must continually look for ways to improve or optimize it. Note the landing where prospects go into a phase and then stop moving between phases.
Start at the top of the sales funnel. Evaluate the performance of each piece of content with the number of clicks, the number of people who visit your capture page on average, and the funnel building software sales you can have access to these stats for sign ups.
Evaluate your landing page. Your proposal and CTA should reflect the content (such as blog posts, Facebook ads) that will drive the prospect to your landing page. Do prospects trust you with their contact information? Test every part of your landing page (e.g. title, image, body copy, CTA) to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Test each offer in the action phase of your sales funnel. Compare the results of different offers (eg free shipping vs. discounts). How many purchases do you get from your email marketing campaigns? If one offer performs significantly better than the other, use that offer to focus on converting leads and see if you can improve.
Track your customer retention rates. Determine how often customers return to purchase your products or services. Do customers return more than once and purchase other products or services? Track how often they refer others to your business. You can use other means to add credibility and social proof to your product/service.
Include customer testimonials
Did you know that 72% of customers won’t buy until they’ve read some reviews?
Reassure customers they need to take the last step by adding testimonials to your page.
You can either ask customers for reviews, or view your existing reviews on websites like Facebook and LinkedIn and ask permission to share them in your content.
Where to post testimonials?
It all depends on your audience, your brand goals and your marketing strategy. You can, for example:
- Include a positive review quote on your landing page
- Embed a widget from a website like Trustpilot on your page so shoppers can read your reviews before buying