Today, businesses are required to have an online presence in just about every possible way. Starting with the biggest companies like Amazon and Netflix, to your local brick-and-mortar shops. Online presences can be of many forms, one of which is sales funnels.
A sales funnel is something that turns a visitor, a browser, or someone just curious into a paying customer. This is important in many ways to improve your business, so today we will find out how to make one. Here is how to create a sales funnel from scratch.
What Are Sales Funnels?
To put it briefly, a sales funnel is a tool that is used to keep track of leads, as they convert from prospects to becoming paying customers. This is mostly useful in order to optimize sales and all kinds of efforts put into marketing.
Regardless of the type of business you run, a sales funnel can be great to generate more revenue. The goal here is to turn people from one step of the process to another until they are ready to purchase products or services from you.
To explain the usage of a sales funnel, let us consider a situation. If two people are walking by your store, there is a chance that they will walk in. After walking in, there is another “funneling” chance that they will buy something. Them actually buying something has now turned them into a customer.
This transition from being passerby to customers is what sales funneling is all about, just completely done over the internet. You can be browsing the web for one purpose while getting advertisements, or “sales funnels”. You will be redirected to the online stores or service stations – and if you end up buying anything, that’s the sales funnel finishing its job.
There are four stages that you have to be aware of when creating a sales funnel. We’ll discuss them in more detail in a bit, but they are:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
These steps exist in the behavior of a customer, in every situation imaginable. It involves more psychology than anything regarding marketing. So it makes it easier to explain how to create a sales funnel.
Creating a Sales Funnel: The 4 Stages
It is important to remember that each of the steps involved in a sales funnel requires a different approach from the marketer. As the marketer, the message should be clear and precise to the potential customers. The idea is to attract the individual’s interest and then play the cards right till they are convinced.
Enough with the vagueness, let us dive in deeper.
Awareness
The first step of creating a sales funnel is all about catching the attention of the consumer. A simple tweet, an advert on Facebook, a pop-up on a blog, or a Google search are all examples of how you can do this. It is important to note, however, that all of these are valid, viable options.
You need to be absolutely clear about what it is exactly that you are selling – be confident about it. If the cards are played perfectly, the consumer might be sold on your services or products right there and buy away.
This is rare, however, as this usually happens when the consumer has already done the background research. They are already convinced and you are not really doing much aside from giving them a way to buy your product – which is great, but it does not factor much into the awareness here.
Awareness is also a part of courtesy and courtship. You are to try and subtly convince potential customers into understanding why they should spend money on what you offer. Essentially, that is how all businesses work. However, it seems often that marketers forget that this is a standard rule in business – to not wear out the consumer.
Interest
Once the potential consumer has been made aware of what you offer, you need to inform them more. Their interest needs to be piqued if you are going to succeed in making that sale. However, this can be easier said than done a lot of the time.
Interest usually has the customer conducting research and comparing your offer with what else is available in the market. They will be thinking over the options that they have, so it is up to you to give them the incentive that separates your product or service from the rest. You have to dive in deep with incredible content, but not necessarily try to sell it yet.
Once the customer is viewing your advert or funnel, they are free to learn more on their own. On the other hand, you can also provide the information necessary for their interests right away.
Do not push customers into buying anything from the get-go, it is very demeaning as a marketer and it puts consumers off. The idea is to establish your offers and product or service. You need to let them know about what you have in the market, and why it is better than whatever else is available.
Decision
Now comes the third stage of a sales funnel, known as the decision stage. Here, the consumer has done their research and is well informed about what their options are. This is when they will compare the prices, packages and eventually come to – the decision of buying. How should you handle this?
To deal with the decision stage, you have to play your best offers. You can use a discount code, free shipping, or provide the user with a bonus upon order placement. You can also add future incentives such as a discount on their next purchase from you.
Regardless, if you successfully can convince the consumer of this, you have finished the decision stage. The key here is to make the most irresistible offer for the consumer so that they simply cannot say no to it. Sales pages and webinars are a good way to implement the decision stage.
Action
In the final stage of how to create a sales funnel, now the customer has the option to pay you and receive the product or service. The amusing thing here is that by doing this they have entered your company’s ecosystem – but their contribution is far from over.
This means that this is a never-ending process. Theoretically, the consumer must be kept in a never-ending loop to make sure that you are able to maximize profits through one word – returning customers.
To put it simply, you are trying to turn a single purchase into many. Customer retention is key in any business, and the best way to do this is to let them know of your availability. How easily will you be available in case they need to buy something from you again? As easily as you can be!
Things to Look Out For
Firstly, the landing page is the official term for where the customer is sent when they encounter a link somewhere else from your business. Your landing page must be filled up with what opportunities, products or services are being provided for the customer.
Next, the important part, whatever you are offering must be of value. You can communicate with the consumer through email or text, but whatever your consumer is getting must be intriguing for them. For example, if your business is about providing furniture, you can offer a money-back guarantee for the customer for up to one year.
Incentives like these are essential to keep the customer engaged with you.
A common piece of advice for cases like a sales funnel is to go and look at some templates. Try to understand what is missing, and what is not. Fill the gaps in the next time you are designing your sales funnel system.
Optimizing Your Sales Funnel
While we have explained the basics of how to create a sales funnel, there is actually a lot more to do here. You have to optimize your sales funnel accordingly with your customers. Their behavior toward your services or products is going to be unique, regardless of what others say.
This is where your individuality as a company must shine. Keep an eye on the analytics, look for the success of the sales funnel. Change it up if it is not working the way it should. If you have invested a lot into a sales funnel and still see no success, try to understand why that is.
Optimizing your sales funnel is actually the difficult part of running a sales funnel in your business. Otherwise, the question would arise – what was the point? If your sales funnel is not generating any additional revenue or traction as it should, you probably could have put that money to better use.
However, let us not think that way. Optimization of a sales funnel can be carried out in a plethora of ways. The most common ones are to focus on the area where the customers are more likely to focus. Facebook ads are a good option when it comes to sales funnels but think about variety here.
Delivering Variety through Funnels
More often, consumers will despise it if they see the same repetitive ad flooding their screen when they use Facebook. Variety is great, even in advertisements. Run ten different advertisements and add your own flair to keep the chances up.
The most important way, one we have already talked about, is to keep an eye on the analytics and results. It is of the utmost importance to make sure that you are letting your figures talk. More often than not, businesses ignore these statistics during their slower stages and it creates chaos later on.
For example, if you remember all we said about customers, know that you should try your best to get as many sales out of one customer as possible. It is evident from studies that the more returning customers a company has, the more likely they are to succeed in the grand scheme of things.
Your goals should stay focused on your analytics. If you are failing to meet the desired revenue for one month, change up something that might lead to a different result in the next. All in all, let the math do the talking. In the end, it is what decides your success and potential of success.
Disadvantages of Sales Funnels
While we have mostly talked about the good of the sales funnel, let’s talk about some of the negatives. A sales funnel is a great idea in both concept and execution, but viewing from the eye of a consumer, this might change.
A sales funnel keeps things very static from the customer’s end. They are only viewing what you are letting them view. There is no way for them to do much research on how valid what you are stating there is, not unless they are contacting you directly.
Many customers choose to go for websites for this reason, instead of following sales funnels. The issue is simply in the flexibility and the lack of transparency from the seller’s point of view. It is asking far too much from a consumer for them to buy your offer, and then understand what they are actually getting.
An open to all website makes it very easy for consumers to do their research and learn what the positives and negatives are. Without the need for the sellers doubling down on what they should buy and what is good for them, it is a great alternative for a lot of customers.
Conclusion
Creating a sales funnel is quite easy with so many platforms that offer them in today’s day and age.
One of those is ClickFunnels, here you can read our full ClickFunnels review.
However, implementing them properly requires a lot of research, understanding, and intricate actions. A well-made sales funnel can help a business go quite a distance.