Sales funnel is a very important tool that helps you to understand and discover how to refine the process of your sales. Sales like every other thing that exists don’t just happen immediately, even magic takes a couple of processes to achieve the results you want.
If you have ever been stuck on what you can do as a small-scale business owner to increase sales and get more customers, there are a couple of things you may be doing wrong.
- You don’t know what is a sales funnel.
- You don’t know how it will be of benefit to your business.
This is why in this article, I will be sharing with you comprehensive knowledge on the following:
- What is a sales funnel?
- Importance of having a sales funnel
- The stages of a sales funnel
- How to create one for your business
In digital marketing, using a sales funnel is strategic if you want to achieve your business goals. It is instrumental as it helps you to measure your growth and discover what you need to improve on.
This is why in our 90% practical digital marketing course, we teach our students and they also get to learn and practice how to use the stages of a sales funnel to achieve their business goals.
According to salesforce, 68% of companies have not attempted to measure a sales funnel and this same survey also shows that 79% of the leads they generate from marketing never gets converted into sales.
It is very impossible to convert the leads you generate into sales if you don’t have a working sales funnel for your business.
Another thing I want you to know is that a sales funnel doesn’t only work for large scale businesses, it also works for every kind of business as long as the goal of the business is to get customers/clients who will buy from them or offer to pay for the services rendered.
Before I show you the importance of having a sales funnel for your business, I want to share with you the definition of a sales funnel so you will be able to understand and comprehend what we will be sharing in this article.
Meanwhile, in our 90% practical digital marketing course, we have digital marketing experts who are willing and available to put you through and supervise your practical learning in our 90% practical digital marketing course.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is the buying process that a business owner/ companies lead customers through to purchase a product. It also refers to the process through which a company or business finds, qualifies, and sells its products and services to buyers.
Another definition of a sales funnel is each step a person has to take in order to make a purchasing decision on either your products or the services you offer.
For instance, if you want to buy a pair of shoes, you found a store, you stepped in, looked through the shelf, pick the one you love, and then you head down to the checkout point and you make the payment. The process outlined for you is what is called a sales funnel
Sales funnel are very useful and strategic like I said earlier on because they actually show you stages of your efforts and you get to see those that are being converted and also for you to identify why conversion is not happening and what you need to do for it to happen.
It also helps you as a business owner to forecast sales by knowing the average conversion rate and also estimate the amount of revenue that would be generated.
In other words, the sales funnel is each step that someone has to take in order to become your customer.
You might want to wonder, how does a sales funnel impact my small-scale business? I want you to know that the large-scale businesses you see out there started from being small, and if you want to achieve results that would bring about growth, you must be willing to put in the effort and the required energy.
This brings us to the next part of this article, which is, the importance of having a sales funnel for your business and the relevance to the growth of either your small scale business, medium scale, or large scale.
Importance of a sales funnel
[bctt tweet=”A sales funnel actually allows you to gather hundreds and thousands of qualified leads from your implemented marketing strategy, and you can also get to weed out those who don’t have the possibility of becoming your ideal customers and client until you only have those who are ready and willing to buy and they will eventually buy from you.” username=”dmsinstitute”]
The importance of this sales funnel to your business includes the following but not limited:
- It allows companies to visualize each step that their prospective client/customers take on the path to getting converted to a paying customer. When you can see ahead, you know what you need to put in place to achieve your goals.
- It helps you as a business owner to identify and select the marketing strategy that will work for you. You will get to understand which marketing tools or business models would be needed to help you achieve your marketing goals.
- You generate more sales. You already know what to do and you are already putting in place what needs to be done, you will drive more potential consumers to take action, and this will, in turn, generate more sales for your business.
- It provides the opportunity for you to improve on what to do to grow your business. With a sound understanding of how the sales funnel works, you will have a high rate of feedback on strategies you can use that will help you to increase sales and apparently grow your business.
For example, if you notice your potential clients or customers are dropping off at the decision stage to purchase an alternative product because of the price of your product, you can recreate the process that could influence the buyer’s decision to buy from you.
One good thing about knowledge is that the more you practice what you know the more you get better at it. The same applies to the sales funnel, as you continue to learn and how to identify every level in the funnel. you will gradually become a master in generating leads and more sales for your business.
This is why in our 90% practical digital marketing course, we teach our students how to practically use a sales funnel to drive more sales for their business and you also have access to well-seasoned digital marketing coaches who are available to provide you with the support you need while you take the course.
The stages of a sales funnel
When you can accurately understand how a sales funnel works, you will be able to find the holes in the funnel, the point where your prospect drops out and doesn’t get to the conversion stage.
[bctt tweet=”When you can accurately understand how a sales funnel works, you will be able to find the holes in the funnel, the point where your prospect drops out and doesn’t get to the conversion stage.” username=”dmsinstitute”]
I will be sharing the specifics of a sales funnel and how they work in the paragraphs below, you should also know that you have the power to influence the movement of your visitors through the funnel and ensure they convert.
1. Awareness
The first stage in this funnel is the awareness stage. At this stage, strangers are not aware of the product you sell or the services you offer.
When you start making use of marketing strategies like social media advertising, email marketing, and the likes, you are creating awareness and the strangers are becoming aware of the existence of your business.
For this set of people to move on to the next stage in the funnel and down the funnel, depends on your marketing ability. An example of individuals in this awareness stage is this.
Person A comes across your social media platforms, probably on Instagram, read your blog, or click on any of your running ads.
At this point, Person A is aware of the existence of a solution(your product or the services you offer).
All you have to do at this stage is to improve the visibility of your brand and start gathering leads by using lead generation tactics. You want to bring attention to your brand by sharing relevant and insightful content and not necessarily to push any particular product just like in the image below;
Source: Instagram
Focus on sharing ideas, solutions or advice, to get people interested and also get them to be aware of your business. You can build awareness for your brand through the following:
- sponsored Social media post
- E-books
- Webinars
- Social media ads
- Videos, etc.
An example of a sponsored social media post on Facebook.
2. Interest
Moving from the awareness stage, the next stage is the interest stage. At this stage, you have attracted the attention of a strange who is already aware of your business and can be labeled to be a leader.
A lead in digital marketing is a person who has shown interest in a brand’s product or the services they offer and this makes them a potential customer/client.
The moment a lead becomes a lead, he/she has moved from the awareness stage to the interest stage in the sale funnel, and now they are interested in learning more about knowledge, answers to questions, and concerns.
They are not prepared to consider a purchase, they need solutions, and answers.
Your responsibility is to build and enhance a relationship with your new lead to determine and identify their goals. You can achieve this by creating content to amplify the brand’s voice and also share contents that your target audience can relate to.
You can share this through the content channels you use or you will start using it for your business. For example,
- Email marketing campaigns
- Blogpost
- Free trials
- Social media accounts
- Retargeting ads
With the content you shared through these channels, you can track the links they click in the email campaign or which of your post gets more engagement. This will help you and aid your understanding of the problems they are facing and the solutions they need.
This is also a good time for you to focus on building a relationship with them as highlighted above, they may not be ready to purchase from you or take the services you offer, but they are more likely to come to you when they are ready to buy.
Retargeting ads can also help you to show up before your previous website visitors, you want to exist in their minds since you already have their interest.
As they start getting acquainted with your product, the services you offer, and how they can solve their problems, their interest rate increases and this propels them to move into the next stage.
3. Decision
The next stage of the sales funnel is the decision stage. Leads that made it to this stage are ready to buy. All your activities should be geared towards influencing their purchasing decision.
They already have information and knowledge about the product or services you offer, they are now interested in knowing how it works, the pricing plan available for them to pick from. For you, this is when you can now amplify your sales strategy.
Ranging from free shipping of your products in the case whereby your competition charges, down to a bonus product. Whichever you decide to use, you have to employ all tactics to make sure the offer is irresistible enough for your lead not to be able to wait to take advantage of it.
4. Action
At this stage, your lead has decided to become a customer, they are signing the contract, clicking the purchase button, and the money from the sales is in your bank account.
This is actually the end of the “party” we’ve started from stage 1. You are not only interested in the purchase of a business owner, you should also be interested in setting them up for success and being able to achieve the goals in their heart before they decided to purchase your product.
To accomplish this, you have to provide them with educational resources that would guide them on getting the best out of your product and the services you offer. It should also help to incorporate the newly discovered solution into their lives.
How To Create A Sales Funnel For Your Business
Like I said earlier in this article, I will be sharing the steps you can take to create a sales funnel for your business.
1. Identify your target audience
2. Create a buyer persona
3. Create strategies that would capture the attention of your audience
4. Build a landing page
Alongside identifying your target audience, creating strategies that would attract your target audience into the funnel, you should build/have a landing page for your business.
A landing page is a single webpage that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, marketing promotion, marketing email, or an online advertisement.
For the strategies you want to implement, they should lead your prospect somewhere, and a landing page is the best place to lead them to. Your landing page should be well-optimized to steer your visitor towards the next step in your sales funnel.
In our 90% practical digital marketing course, we will teach you how to create a well-optimized landing page that would bring about conversion and also teach you what you need to know either to promote your business with digital marketing or if you want to start a career in digital marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Sales funnel are very useful and strategic, because they actually show you stages of your efforts and you get to see those that are being converted and also for you to identify why conversion is not happening and what you need to do for it to happen.
Conclusion
As you have read in this article, the definition of a sales funnel, the importance, the stages, and how to create one for your business. A sales funnel is largely responsible for your business growth and so you can’t afford to ignore it.
In our 90% practical digital marketing course, we teach our students how to create and effectively use a sales funnel to grow their business.
You also get access to experts in Digital marketing who are coaches and willing to walk you through achieving great feats with the digital marketing knowledge you will be getting alongside learning about how to use a sales funnel.
More articles for you to read
5 Effective Strategies In Digital Marketing That Produce Results
Google+ Lead Generation Guide | 8 Effective Ways To Generate Leads
Landing Page Optimization: 10 Hacks To Optimize Your Landing Page For Conversion
6 Fantastic Types Of Marketing (+Examples)
7 Facts You Should Know About Content Marketing With Examples