How to Create an Awesome Sales Funnel

How can you create a highly-converting sales funnel? The sales funnel is one of the most important concepts in the digital marketing world. It can transform a small business into a global multimillion-dollar company within a short time. A sales funnel is a multi-step process that converts your site visitors into buyers. It has many stages because numerous things happen from the time a potential buyer enters your funnel to the time they decide to purchase your product.

 

These things include marketing strategies such as emails and landing pages that are meant to persuade potential customers to buy your products. The emails can be tutorials, value-driven stories, and webinars that get sent over days or weeks. Honestly, few people will purchase your product with the first glance at your website. It takes time for them to know you and trust your credibility. That is what the sales funnel is about. It helps you to gain trust and build a productive relationship with your prospective buyer so they can press the purchase button.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel refers to the steps someone has to take to become your customer. For example, if you own a physical store, many people will pass by it, and some will decide to walk in. The people who walk in make it to the next stage of the sales funnel. A prospective customer then sees a rack of shirts at the corner of the store and decides to check them out. This customer is now in the next stage of the sales funnel.

The customer takes out 3 shirts and observes them. At this point, the customer is in the last stage of the sales funnel. If impressed by the shirts, then the customer will buy them.

 

Your sales funnel demonstrates the path that your prospective clients take to finally purchase your products. Understanding your funnel helps you detect the stages where your prospects leave and never convert into buyers. You can then create a formidable marketing strategy to counter the problems at those stages so that more prospects turn into clients.

What are the advantages of using a sales funnel?

Using a sales funnel will help you achieve your business goals fast because you get a better understanding of the behavior of your potential customers. A sales funnel has multiple stages where prospects either leave or move on to the next one. By learning the stages where prospects leave your funnel, your team can settle for better marketing methods that improve the customer journey.

Better conversions

A sales funnel reveals the holes in your marketing strategies where prospects leave and never convert. After learning these problems, you can improve the strategies to ensure better conversions.

Improve customer journey

Understanding your sales funnel enables you to create better offers and value-driven content at the different stages of persuading a client to buy your product.

Enables optimization

Learning your sales funnel improves your marketing strategies and positions you to achieve your business goals. You become aware of the marketing channels that should be replaced or intensified to retain more prospects until the bottom of the sales funnel.

What are typical sales funnel stages?

There are 4 typical sales funnel stages. They include Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. You can easily remember them using the acronym: AIDA. These stages present the prospective client’s mindset and each stage requires you to send a unique message. It is similar to the scenario where a waiter can’t provide dessert before you even order the appetizer. Do you get?

1. Awareness

This is the stage where you catch a potential customer’s attention for the first time. It can be through a Google Search, a Linkedin post, a tweet or any other way. This prospective buyer becomes gets to know your business and the products you offer. If prospects are highly impressed, then they can purchase your product immediately at this stage. This can happen when the prospect had initially done research about products similar to yours and considers your price reasonable. Most often, this stage is about wooing the visitor to return to your website again and engage your content.

2. Interest

If your prospects reach this stage, then they are doing research and comparing prices of similar products from different sellers. This is the moment to provide valuable content that helps them make the best choice for the products. You must avoid selling at this stage because it will turn off the consumers. Instead, establish your expertise and provide help in whichever way that you can so they make an informed decision.

3. Decision

The decision stage is when the lead is ready to make a purchase. They have already done their research on the products with the best qualities and maybe considering two or three options. Hopefully, your product could be among them. This is the moment to make your best offer including a bonus product or even free shipping when most of your competitors charge shipping fees. Whichever the offer, make it so attractive that the prospect will choose you over your competitors.

4. Action

Action is the bottom stage of the sales funnel. At this point, prospects must act. They buy your product and become your customers. Even though you have accomplished your goal of turning a prospect into a client, there are still many things to do. You will need to make these clients purchase more products by turning them into hyper-active buyers. You can do this by showing gratitude for the purchase and inviting them to give feedback and offer after-sales services such as support.

A sales funnel example

Here is an effective sales funnel example that you can use to create yours.

A freelance writer sells a course on how to 10X your income as a writer

Imagine you are a successful writer who makes over $10,000 per month freelancing. You decide to create an online course that teaches other freelance writers to increase their income. Probably, your target clients use Facebook 24/7 and some are on Medium.com.

 

You create awesome Facebook ads that drive traffic to a landing page on your website. On this page, you ask the leads to join an email list in exchange for a freebie that is irresistible. With Medium.com, you post a series of informative articles about how writers can 10X their income in various writing publications. You end each article with a Call to Action that also offers compelling freebies in exchange for joining your email list.

 

Over the next few days or weeks, you send out educative content to your subscribers on how freelance writers can 10X their income, share testimonials and help them figure out the steps they can take to achieve this goal. At the end of the email series, you send an offer of a 50 percent discount to subscribers who purchase your writing course. And Bang! Before you know it, more than half of your subscribers have bought the course!

 

Then, you transfer these subscribers who purchased your online course to another email list and start educating them on another product. Probably on how they can also create a successful online course like you. You are retaining your customers.

 

Here are the stages of this sales funnel:

1. Awareness: You created Facebook ads and Medium.com articles with CTAs to attract your target market to your website.
2. Interest: You designed freebies that were irresistible (value) in exchange for prospects joining your email list.
3. Decision: Your content positions you as an expert in freelance writing. It persuades subscribers to choose your course over other competitors.
4. Action: You offer a discount that your prospects cannot turn down. They purchase your online course.

How to create a sales funnel fast

I guess you’re excited and probably want to create your sales funnel immediately and fast. It’s not difficult at all.

1. Understand your audience’s behavior

The better you know your audience, the more effective your sales funnel will be. You will learn the pages they visit most while on your website and improve on the pages with high bounce rates. This information will help you define your buyer personas.

2. Capture your audience’s attention

You can transform site visitors into buyers only if you provide valuable content that solves their problems. You can do this by intensifying marketing campaigns with a high ROI such as Facebook ads or Linkedin ads. These ads should be placed on platforms where your ideal customer hangs out. You can also create infographics, videos, and other effective content that clients can use.

3. Create a landing page

The ads and other informative forms of content should take your prospect to a landing page. The landing page should offer an irresistible freebie in exchange for your prospect’s email. It should have a bold call to action that encourages the prospect to either download an ebook or watch a tutorial. It directs the prospect to the next stage of the sales funnel.

4. Create an email series for a marketing campaign

Persuade your leads using the emails by sending out valuable content that helps them achieve their goals. Do this regularly like once a day or twice a week. At the end of the email series, provide an enticing offer. It is the content that will encourage your subscribers to purchase your product.

5. Remain In Contact

Thank the subscribers for purchasing your product. Invite them to give feedback and involve them in your social media campaigns including testimonials. You can also offer other types of products to them.

Get help creating a sales funnel

Now that you have learned how to create a sales funnel including its benefits, what are you going to do next? Because we are digital marketers ourselves, we can help you come up with an effective sales funnel that ensures most of your prospects turn into hyperactive buyers of your products.

 

At IDI, our team of experts will help to optimize your sales funnel to meet the needs of your different site visitors. Instead of guessing what a site visitor may want, we will provide unique landing pages for each type of product or ad that you run. We will also identify the holes in your current sales funnel and come up with marketing strategies that efficiently solve those problems to increase your conversions. Let us help you achieve your business goals by creating effective sales funnels that transform more prospects into customers!