So, you got a flawless website with top quality content, irresistible offer, single call-to-action but still not converting. You decided to boost your traffic, bought targeted traffic from Google and Facebook but still nothing.
As a small business owner, all that matters to you at the end of the day is deal won or deal lost. And nothing hurts you more than a ‘no deal’.
So what’s the solution? Think you know my answer, yes it’s an effective Sales Funnel.
Your business needs something more that just a great layout and the perfect offer. And this something is called Lead Nurturing,which is where your sales funnel comes in.
What Is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a flipped pyramid that shows your customer’s journey from start to finish. This is the process through which a company leads its customers through when purchasing a product.
Related Topic: 7 Myths and Truths about Sales Funnels – and how to get them right!
Image source: weBOUND marketing
Marketers break down the funnel into 3 main sections which can vary slightly depending on offers and sales model – Top, Middle and Bottom of the funnel.
Customer journey and behavior within this funnel is then broadly divided into five steps.
Awareness
The top of the funnel is generally referred to as the “awareness” stage. At this early stage, customers are discovering your site for the first time and becoming aware of your presence.
Engagement
This is the stage where most businesses make it or break it., when your audience continues to visit your site and social pages.
At this point, it’s important to remember that marketing automation is crucial to successful engagement. It should enable marketers to maintain a one-to-one connection with the prospects.
Consideration
In this phase, prospects evaluate your offer and product to see if it fits the bill. At this point, they may get in touch with the customer support team, request more info, a demo or whitepaper.
Conversion
Prospect decides to purchase your product for the first time and turns into a paying customer.
Retention
After purchase, you take your customers back through steps 1-4 to turn them into repeat buyers.
Now that you understand the psychology behind a sales funnel, I want to show you how you can create your own.
How To Build Your Own Sales Funnel
Create an Awesome Landing Page
It all begins with a landing page. So, what is it? Hubspot says “a landing page is a website page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead form”.
This is the very top of the funnel and it serves one clear purpose, namely to slide visitors down the conversion funnel.
Your landing page should be aimed at a particular line of traffic. For this, you will need to narrow down on your market with a sniper’s precision. Visualize your typical target audience before you create your landing page.
Related Article – How You Can Pinpoint Your Market with A Persona and Drastically Improve Conversion.
Here, your aim is to capture your audience’s contact information in exchange for something they cannot refuse.
This can be a free download called lead magnet (example – an ebook), a free trial or an irresistible discount offer, simply be creative.
Lead Nurturing
This is where the magic happens. You worked hard to earn your leads’ contact details, now it’s time to create a relationship with them and turn them into customers.
Say ‘hello’ to an old friend – Email Marketing.
This seemingly outdated communication platform is still the most effective marketing channel, boasting an ROI of 38% in 2016. That’s 38 Euros made from every Euro spent.
This is when you need to set up auto-responders for your email list. Start nurturing your leads with regular email communication, building a bond of trust.
It’s about trying to get little nods of approval that gradually build up into one big thumbs up.
Don’t rush your emails, think twice about the content. At this point you’re trying to build trust, so make sure you DO NOT sound spammy.
Alongside trust, this is a great time to show off your authority in your field.
Here you’ll need to train your leads to consistently take desirable actions, whether that’s clicking on a link or asking for a demo. By doing this you actively increase visibility in their minds and subconsciously they start taking your lead.
Respect their trust in you or they’ll sniff you out from a mile. Do not hesitate to send lucrative offers during this campaign phase, also knows as Tripwire marketing.
Your leads know your job is to sell and they’ll be happy to receive meaningful offers.
Present Your Core Offer
Now you have built the trust, it’s time to present your core or main offer with the opportunity to buy or procure your service.
“When constructing your main front-end products and associated upsell offers, you should be engineering them with the additional mindset of . . . how will this help create more desire for the next offer you’re going to present them with,” says Todd Brown – Marketing Funnel Automation.
Give Customers an Upsell Offer
Offer your new customers who just purchased (or about to purchase) the option to upgrade that service. This means you need to present an offer that will deliver bigger benefit to the customers when they upgrade.
Domain giants Go Daddy has one of the best upsell practices in place. As soon as customers put a domain in the shopping cart, they get upgrade options like web-hosting, custom email addresses, website builder etc. And they boast a phenomenal success rate.
Keep it Going
The final thing is to keep this momentum going. Retaining existing clients cost a fraction of what you pay for acquiring new clients, in fact, studies show it’s 7x cheaper.
Make sure to follow up with your new customers and ensure that they’re happy with your service. A clever marketing ploy is to offer a membership-based reward program. This will allow you to keep in touch with them and present new offers.
Final Takeaway
Often, while trying to zero in on revenue, businesses lose focus on more pressing matters. A Sales Funnel can really scale your business but it’s not a magic pill. You will need to understand the psychology behind the process.
Once done, this will allow you to guide your leads through the funnel and increase conversions.
When networking wizard Bettina is not working on the next big idea, then she is focusing on how to constantly improve workflows, and systemizing the “stuff that is not so much fun but needs to be done”. She believes in giving and that being kind gets you a long way.
You might spot her as a keynote speaker, a guest lecturer at universities, or a mentor at StartupLive or Greenstart by Climate and Energy Fonds Austria.
Bettina describes herself as a foodie, travel addict, and her team sees her as a true leader, who always encourages everyone she is working with.
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