Table of Contents
- What is Sales Funnel
- How Sales Funnels Work: The Different Stages
- How To Build A Sales Funnel That Converts More
- 3 Sales Funnel Optimization Tips
- Why Are Sales Funnel Important
- Conclusion
What is Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a step-by-step process that enables you to bring your potential customer one step closer to your offer and a buying decision through a series of marketing actions like automated emails, videos, articles, and landing pages that will do the selling for you.
The definition also refers to the process through which a company finds, qualifies, and sells its products to buyers.
Everyone who has an online business needs to create a sales funnel to convert their website visitors into paying customers. If you fail to do that, you will hardly make any money.
Your main goal with your sales funnel is to move people from one stage to another until they are ready to purchase.
You must meet their needs at every stage of the buying process. It is also important to keep track of your visitors websites and know at which point you’re losing them. It’s about time you build a powerful sales funnel.
A sales funnel is a strong means to scale your business — if done right. A clear sales funnel template delivers accurate targeting, measurable impact, improved conversion rate, and increased revenue. And because you’re reading this, you’re on the right track to creating one for your team.
By optimizing your sales funnel, you can drive revenue growth by pushing a higher percentage of prospects through each stage, thus making your marketing efforts do more and work harder.
And, the better you understand what a sales funnel is, how it works, and how to optimize yours, the easier you will find converting new leads into paying customers.
- 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure a sales funnel, and the same survey showed that a whopping 79% of marketing leads are never converted into sales. (Salesforce)
- 69% of marketers feel their top priority should be converting leads into customers. (Hubspot)
- 73% of consumers report feeling frustrated when your website offers content (ads, promotions, etc.) that has nothing to do with them. (Marketingblunder)
How Sales Funnels Work: The Different Stages
To begin to understand how a sales funnel works, let’s look at the acronym AIDA which makes it simpler for you to recall each stage.
There are generally four stages which exist within a sales funnel and represent the different mindsets which a prospect goes through on the journey to becoming a customer:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
Let’s look at each of these stages in a little more detail.
1. Awareness
This stage occurs at the top of the funnel. It is when they become aware of who you are as a business, learn about the products or services you offer, and learn why you are different from your competitors.
Awareness could be a result of a variety of things, like:
- A Google search and landing on your website.
- The prospect saw your content shared by a friend on social media.
- An offline action.
2. Interest
This is the stage in which prospects demonstrate an interest in a product by conducting product research.
This is very much a research phase, where you have got a real opportunity to educate and inform as to what the perfect solution looks like and how your offering could meet their need.
3. Decision
By the decision stage, the customer knows that they are going to buy but is likely still considering more options than just yours. You can check search engine optimization san diego companies for more info.
They’re already considering your product or service. But they may also be keeping their options open. Some factors that can affect them are pricing, product/service fit, and value for money.
4. Action
When a prospect gets to the end of the sales funnel, they take action and are ready to purchase from you.
Your prospect has their hand on their wallet, and they are ready to open it; you just need to give them that final push to convince them to do so.
How To Build A Sales Funnel That Converts More
Understanding how to create a sales funnel template for your business can explain the direction for your entire digital marketing strategy, including content and paid ads. It can boost you better align marketing efforts with your potential customers’ buying journey.
The following steps don’t just tell you how to create a sales funnel, but they also drive you to build one that converts.
Step 1: Analyze Your Audience’s Behavior
The more you know about your audience, the more effective your sales funnel becomes.
Where do they click? When do they scroll? How much time do they spend on a particular page? All of these data points will help you refine your buyer personas.
These user behavior reports help you monitor site activity and figure out how people engage with your site.
Step 2: Capture Your Audience’s Attention
This means putting your content in front of your target audience.
If you’re willing to spend more cash, run a few ads. The ideal place to run those ads depends on where your target audience hangs out. If you’re selling B2B, LinkedIn ads might be the perfect solution.
Take the organic route and post tons of content across all of your platforms.
Step 3: Build A Landing Page
A landing page should push the visitor toward the next step.
Your ad or other content needs to take your prospects somewhere. Ideally, you want to direct them to a landing page with a can’t-miss offer.
You need a bold call to action that tells them exactly what to do, whether it’s downloading a free e-book or watching an instructional video.
Step 4: Create An Email Drip Campaign
Market to your leads through email by providing extraordinary content. Do so regularly, but not too frequently. One or two emails per week should be sufficient.
Build up to the sale by educating your market first. What do they want to learn? What barriers and objections do you need to overcome to convince them to buy?
Step 5: Keep In Touch
Don’t ignore your existing customers. Rather, continue reaching out to them. Always thank them for their purchases, offer additional coupon codes, and include them in your social media sphere.
3 Sales Funnel Optimization Tips:
1. Provide Social Proof:
Building trust can go a long way. After all, this morality is one of the foundations of human relationships. It only makes sense that business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships follow suit.
So, don’t be shy to share testimonials and reviews on your site. If you won awards in your industry, include those as well. These will boost your credibility once potential customers start pouring into your website.
2. Create Compelling And Supporting Content:
Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes. In the decision stage, what can help them decide to buy your product or service instead of the competitors? What will make them choose you?
Think about what could build their confidence in you, such as:
- About us/team page
- Shipping and returns policy
- Mission statement
- Frequently asked questions
3. Use Strong CTAs:
It may sound obvious, but a CTA has to move the reader to act. It’s a simple, yet often overlooked, factor when optimizing for your sales funnel, conversion rate, and content.
Try the following action-oriented announcements to make your potential customers click:
- Try for free!
- Join us!
- Book now!
- Request a callback.
- Sign up and reserve your spot today
Why Are Sales Funnel Important
Understanding your funnel can help you find the holes in the funnel — the places where prospects drop out and never convert.
Understand that you can influence how visitors move through the funnel and whether they eventually convert. If you don’t understand your sales funnel, you can’t optimize it.
Creating and optimizing a sales funnel takes time. It’s easy, which needs hard work. But it’s the only way to survive in a competitive marketplace.
Believe it or not, a detail as small as font choice can impact conversions. And if you ask people to buy from you too quickly, you’ll chase them away.
Optimizing your sales funnel is something every business needs to be doing. If you don’t, you will unnecessarily lose prospects to your competitors.
Conclusion
By taking the time to understand what a sales funnel is, what yours looks like. and how you can improve it, you can make your marketing work harder for you and improve your conversion rate, hence generate more revenue.