A comprehensive Quick Guide on How to Build Powerful Sales Funnels
When you’re selling a product or service, the last thing you want is for your potential customer to get lost in the process.
That’s why it’s so important to understand the process of your sales funnel – this will help you control the way your customer interacts with you, leading to more leads and more conversions.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the basics of a sales funnel and answer some of the most common questions about it. By understanding the stages of your funnel and the factors that influence customer behavior, you’ll be well on your way to shaping customer retention and generating more leads that convert!
What is a sales funnel?
Creating a sales funnel is vital for any business. It’s a process or a journey that customers take when they buy a product or service. sales funnel helps you increase your business’ revenue by converting leads into paying customers.
For example, let’s say you own a cloth store on a busy street, you have few items on sale, so you place a board advertising sale outside your store. A customer walks by, sees the advertisement board, walks in, and discovers a great deal on clothes they like, so they decided to purchase the clothes, later when they are checking out in the store, you mentioned a great discount on hats that is also happening, and you upsell your customer on buying a hat this entire journey sales funnel.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll be discussing what a sales funnel is the different elements that make it up, and the goals and objectives for each step. We’ll also provide tips on how to create a sales funnel that works for you, based on your business and objectives. So, keep reading to learn how to create a sales funnel that will help you achieve your business goals!
Who uses sales funnel
So now that you have understood that any process that engages a prospect in a buying decision is actually a sales funnel. Now to answer who uses the sales funnel? The answer is simple: anyone who sells a product or service.
However, by understanding the process of the sales funnel, you can have more influence over customer behavior, driving more leads at the top of your funnel and generating more conversions at the bottom.
Now, if you are a digital marketer or acquire customers online your sales funnel may refer to a specific set of clicks customers may take, from advertisement, to opt-in form or to purchase your product
In this blog, we will cover exactly how you can build a high-converting sales funnel and craft the entire purchasing journey for your customer.
Importance of a sales funnel
A sales funnel is a powerful tool for generating leads and warming up potential customers to the idea of buying from you.
There are a variety of options available, so it’s important to choose the right one that fits your business model and targets the audience best. Once created, test it by running split tests to optimize each step in the funnel for maximum results.
The more complex your sales funnel, the faster you’ll reach your goals. So don’t wait – get started on creating a sales funnel that works for you today!
4 stages of the sales funnel
Every sales funnel has four basic stages that your customer will go through. They are
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
It is called a funnel because you will have more people at the top of the funnel who are aware of the product or the service than you will at the bottom of the funnel, where you will convert prospects into paying customers.
The sales funnel process looks like this
Awareness
The first step of the funnel is all about getting into the minds of the target customer, making them aware of the product or services you are offering, If the target customer doesn’t know about your product or service you are offering, they will never become a buying customer, no matter how good and compelling your product or services are
Therefore, in the awareness stage, the more people you can get at the top of the funnel, the better
However, you will have to make sure that you are getting qualified leads into the top of the funnels, not just anyone.
Say, for example, you sell car repair services for people who live in Chennai, but you are advertising to people who are living in Bangalore then you are not reaching the right target audience. Even if the entire state of Chennai knows about your car repairing services, you are unlikely to get any sales.
Therefore in the awareness stage, the most important factor is to get as many qualified, potential customers to become aware of your product or service as possible.
Interest
Interest is the stage of a customer’s journey where they are actively engaged with your content, services, or products. In this stage, they are doing things like research, comparison, and generally thinking over their options, they are sure that they will be making a buying decision, but they need more information.
Decision
This is the stage of the buying process where you will have to help them to make up their mind by giving them useful and amazing information – but not to sell them.
You don’t want to be pushy at this stage, because your potential customers are not ready to buy yet. They want to feel as if they are going to get the best deal and they want to know all of their options. Always remember that the goal at this stage is to help your customer in any way you can.
Maybe you are included in their option, and they are considering your product or services. This is usually a great time to push them over the edge with a great incentive or a discount, that will make them want to go with your product or services.
Action
Finally, at the action stage, your customer will make the purchase. At this stage of the funnel, you will have to focus on making sure that your customer is happy and satisfied with your product or service, so they keep coming back for more.
Types of Sales Funnel
There are many types of sales funnel that you can use depending on the needs of your business. Let’s discuss a few of the popular sales funnels.
The lead magnet funnel
Lead magnets are one of the most popular kinds of the funnel because it is easy to set up and gives amazing results in terms of opt-in rates.
The lead magnet funnel is an opt-in page where you offer the person some kind of giveaway in exchange for their email address.
This type of funnel is very effective and useful when you are growing an email list, and you want to create brand loyalty. People love free content whether it be a free ebook, access to membership or an information product.
It is a great way to convert cold leads into eventual customers. Once people start getting your emails and consuming your content, they will be ready to make buying decisions with you in the future.
The lead magnet funnel can work for any type of business, not just online marketing. Let’s take an example, suppose you own a car cleaning business. How will you use a lead magnet funnel, well you can run ads targeting people who are looking for a car washing in your area, and send the traffic to an opt-in page where you give away a free e-book on the best way to maintain your car in exchange for an email address, now they are subscribed, you can send them useful information, and offer for your service.
Once you develop a customer relationship, the next time they need your service, they will be sure to think of you first.
Two-step tripwire funnel
This funnel is one of the most popular to convert cold leads into buying customers.
This works in almost any market but is very effective in eCommerce. The idea behind this funnel is to offer a low-end product at the first stage in the funnel. The secret is to make the low-priced product absolute irresistible offer so that they feel compelled to purchase it
In the first stage of the funnel, your customers opt-in to purchase the hard-to-refuse product and enter their payment information, then they move to the next stage in the funnel, which will be a more expensive upsell or down-sell
.
One of the amazing features that are offered in the system.io is the ability to make one click upsell or downsell, this means that after your customer has entered the payment information, in the first stage all they have to do is click a button to place additional orders.
As you can see this is a powerful tool for increasing conversion because the customer has already made a purchase from you.
If you set up your upsell or down-sell properly and offer products and services that complement their first purchase, this amazing tool can really help you increase conversion and overall sales.
The squeeze page funnel
The squeeze page funnel is also one of the best ways to grow your email list
The idea behind the squeeze page is to get traffic to a single opt-in page, same as the lead magnet funnel, with the script, however, the opt-in page compels people to enter their email address, with an attention-grabbing headline or hook.
This headline can be something that arises curiosity, something that targets people emotionally, usually around either fear or desire. so that the potential subscriber feel like they have to know what’s on the next page
Another way to get people’s attention is to engage people with a short video, on your landing page. You can also use social proof as part of your squeeze page narrative with testimonials, reviews, case studies, or ratings
The Webinar funnel
A webinar funnel is one of the best ways of showing your prospects about the product or service you have to offer.
A webinar can be a video, which explains exactly what is the product you are offering, why your product or service is important and how it can benefit them.
A webinar is usually the second step in the funnel after an opt-in landing page, where people can enter their email to gain access to the video in the next step in the funnel.
A webinar should include details about you and your experience, with the subject matter, examples of information in action, and a call to action such as enrolling in a course
How to build a sales funnel
The landing page or the opt-in page is the most important page of the online sales funnel pages, because it is at the top of the funnel, and this is what people are going to see, this is where you have to grab, their attention and convince them to make a decision to continue through the rest of your funnel.
The better the landing page or the opt-in page is, the more people you will end up converting into customers. Let’s have a look at the key elements of a great landing page.
The four elements to an amazing landing page
Trust: trust is one of the most important factors of a landing page. You have to make sure that you are giving a good customer experience for your customer by letting them know that you are trustworthy and that they can rely on you to give them a positive experience with your product or service.
People are careful about online scams, and they are suspicious that online scammers might rip them off. So how are you going to provide a sense of trust right off the first bat?
You can do that by providing a consistent, brand experience for your customers. Well-designed graphics, consistent color and logo can help in reassuring your customers that you are trustworthy. You can also make your landing page SSL secured. You can include social proof such as testimonials or reviews, which will help the customer understand that your brand is proven and trusted.
Connect: the next element you can include to make a strong landing page is the element of connection to the potential customer
In other words, you want to make sure that you understand your customers, where they are coming from, why do they need your product or service, and how your product or service can improve their life? And when you understand exactly what they are going through, and their perspective. It will be much easier for you to convince them to make a purchase decision.
To truly increase the connection element you need to focus on why and connect with them on an emotional level.
Excite : you also want to excite your customer about the product or service, make sure to give them as much information as possible about the product or service, that will give them an idea of what it will be like to have it.
To do so, you can list some of the exciting features or benefits of what they can expect, if you are selling a physical product make sure to include product photos and information features and explain why the product is unique. If you are selling an information product, make sure to include social proof like customer testimonials or reviews and also explain what they will be able to achieve with this information.
Impulse/ call to action
The last element of a great landing page is a strong call to action. Always remember that you have a limited time to grab customer attention, so you will need them to make a decision as soon as possible.
Some of the ways you can do this are by giving limited-time offers, providing coupons, or offering a discount. You want your customer to know that this offer is not going to be there forever, and they need to take action immediately and not miss out on the opportunity that you are offering.
Always keep these elements in mind when creating a landing page for your sales funnel, because this will help increase your conversion rates.
Conclusion
A sales funnel is a powerful marketing tool that can help you reach your target market in a more efficient and effective way. By understanding the four stages of the sales funnel and the various FAQs associated with it, you can create a funnel that works specifically for your business. Make sure to use this guide to help you design a sales funnel that fits your unique selling strategy. Thanks for reading!
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