Sales funnels are essential to your business. There is no doubt and there are no exceptions.
Your local retail stores use sales funnels and your online business uses sales funnels.
The only question is whether or not they are intentional.
Yep, you read that right. Every business uses sales funnels. The only question is if they are strategic and effective.
While we are all familiar with the term “sales funnel” many, if not most, of us aren’t aware of all the pieces of it.
Let’s take a 5,000 foot look at the key pieces of a sales funnel that you need to be aware of and take into consideration about any sales funnels that are in your business.
“Sales is an outcome, not a goal. It’s a function of doing numerous things right, starting from the moment you target a potential prospect until you finalize the deal.”
Stages
Most businesses have more than one sales funnel. A sales funnel is just a fancy way to refer to moving people through the process of being a lead to being a customer.
So each funnel you build has to take certain things into account. The first of those is what stage your customer is in. There are 5 stages of conversion.
- Awareness: This is the earliest stage of your sales funnel, where people first become aware of your product or service.
- Interest: Just as it sounds, this is where your customers become interested in getting more information about you.
- Consideration: This is where it gets exciting,your customers are beginning to consider your product or service as a solution to their problem.
- Intent: This is where your customer is about ready to buy, and take action
- Purchase: Goal achieved…your lead has now become your customer.
It’s important to know where your customer is at each stage of the funnel so you can meet them at the conversation they are having in their head.
At each stage of the funnel, whether it is an email, a web page, a sales call or any other interaction you need to tailor your copy and conversation to the stage your prospect is in.
48% of marketers are prioritizing the improvement of their sales funnel. (HubSpot)
Tools
In order to build a powerful sales funnel you will need a few pieces of software to do a great job.
- CRM: Your CRM will allow you to manage your leads and customers, track them through your funnel, set up behavior based tagging and create a highly customized customer journey.
- Landing Page Builder: Whether you use a funnel builder like Clickfunnels or FG Funnels or you use WordPress or LeadPages or something else, you will need a reliable builder to allow you to optimize the user experience.
- Email Marketing Software: While most CRMs have email marketing software attached not all of them do. If you happen to use a CRM without email marketing integrated, make sure you find a solid option to send your automated emails.
- Analytics Tools: Building a sales funnel without knowing how it’s performing is not going to allow you to make any data driven decisions. You’ve got to have ways of tracking the effectiveness of your funnels so you can improve on what’s working and change what isn’t.
- A/B Testing Software: This is the sister to analytics tools. Being able to split test options, headlines, copy, bonuses and more is the key to growing and scaling your business.
Ok, so we know what stage to talk to people in, and we know what tools to use to do that.
What about our team? Who do we need on our team to make sure that our funnels are built and maintained properly, data is tracked and things are optimized?
People
The people on your team are at least as important as your software. You need team players who take pride in their work, understand systems thinking and have experience with sales funnels. Your key players will be:
- Marketing strategist, someone who can help you develop the overall strategy of the funnel.
- Copywriter to write all of your copy for each of the stages in the customer journey
- Designer to make sure everything looks beautiful and on brand
- Web developer to bring all of your designer’s visions to life
- Analytics specialist to analyze and evaluate the data that comes in from your funnel, direct changes and optimizations and identify areas for growth
- Sales representative to follow up with leads and close sales.
This doesn’t mean you need to prepare for payroll for 6 new team members. These are the key roles that need to be filled. If you are a 1 or 2 woman show then you will likely fill several of these roles. Perhaps your right hand person will fill a couple.
Either way, these job functions need to be filled in order to have a powerful sales funnel that produces returns day after day.
“Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.”
Considerations
Ok, let’s take a look at the things you and your team need to take into consideration when building and managing your sales funnel.
- Target audience
- Value proposition
- Customer journey
- Marketing Channels
- Metrics
You likely already have each of these in place. It’s important to consider each when designing your sales funnel to ensure your message lands effectively with your audience.
570,000 sites use at least one sales funnel building technology. (Markin Blog)
Outcomes
Before setting up your sales funnel one of the most important things you can do is determine what your goal for the funnel is. As you know we have identified 5 systems that you need to have for your business to be successful, whether you are working or not.
- Lead Gen
- Sales
- Service
- Upsell
- Referral
Your outcome will dictate the funnel and strategy you decide to build. We teach all of our members and private clients to build their funnels and systems for each of these outcomes.
“FitLife.tv’s problem wasn’t a traffic or conversion problem. It rarely is. More often than not, it’s a FUNNEL problem.”
Risks
We don’t want to wrap up without giving you a heads up about the most common areas we find people get tripped up when designing and building their sales funnels. Being aware of these in the beginning will help you avoid them in the process. 🙂
- Lack of clarity – If you aren’t clear on your outcome, or the considerations mentioned above, or your metrics then your funnel will absolutely under-perform. Clarity is the path to success.
- Overcomplicating the funnel – It’s so easy to go down the rabbit hole when designing your sales funnel and make things exponentially more complicated than necessary.
- Neglecting lead nurturing – It is so easy to get so excited about new leads and building the lead gen funnel that you forget to build in your nurturing of those leads. Don’t do that! Once someone agrees to give you their info, nurture them. Give them some of your best stuff. Make them fall in love with you.
- Lack of testing & optimization – Pretty self explanatory. Test and optimize everything. That is how growth happens. That is how scaling happens.
- Poor follow up – So common, and so easy. Please, once you’ve built all these funnels, remember to include your follow up into your systems to make sure you are making the most of every lead that comes into your business.
Each of these can tank an otherwise effective funnel. Keeping them in mind is a great way to make sure you avoid these common pitfalls.
A sales funnel is an essential component of any business, and understanding its components can help businesses develop a strategic and effective approach.
Knowing the customer’s stage in the funnel and providing tailored content at each stage can make the process more effective. Utilizing necessary tools, including a CRM, landing page builder, email marketing software, analytics tools, and A/B testing software, can help businesses optimize the user experience and track the effectiveness of their funnels.
Assembling the right team and taking into consideration the target audience, value proposition, customer journey, marketing channels, and metrics can also improve the effectiveness of the funnel.
And finally, determining the funnel’s goal, building systems for lead generation, sales, service, upsell, and referral, and avoiding common pitfalls such as lack of clarity, can ensure the success of the sales funnel.
69% of marketers said their main priority is to convert their contacts or leads into customers. (HubSpot)
Action Steps
- Define your target audience: Identify your ideal customer persona and create a customer avatar that outlines their demographics, pain points, goals, and objections. This will help you understand your customers’ needs and preferences, and tailor your sales funnel to meet their specific requirements.
- Create a lead magnet: A lead magnet is a valuable resource that you can offer to your prospects in exchange for their contact information. This could be an ebook, a checklist, a webinar, or any other type of content that addresses a specific pain point or problem your ideal customer is facing. This will help you build your email list and start nurturing leads through your sales funnel.
- Build your landing page: A landing page is a web page designed to capture your visitors’ contact information in exchange for your lead magnet. Your landing page should be optimized for conversions and include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages visitors to sign up for your offer.
- Set up an email sequence: Once you have captured your leads’ contact information, you need to start nurturing them through a series of automated emails that provide value, establish trust, and encourage them to take the next step in your sales funnel. Your email sequence should be personalized and relevant to your target audience, and include a mix of educational content and promotional offers.
- Test and optimize your funnel: Finally, it’s important to continually test and optimize your sales funnel to improve your conversion rates and maximize your ROI. This may involve split-testing your landing pages, tweaking your email copy, and experimenting with different types of lead magnets and offers. Use data and analytics to track your progress and make data-driven decisions that will help you achieve your sales goals.
