It’s possible to make one or even multiple sales without any roadmap in mind. However, if you want consistent sales and satisfied customers, the key is a strategic sales funnel that guides customers through the buying process- every step of the way. That’s basically what a sales funnel is: It’s a road map of the journey you want your customers to take – from their first interaction right until their purchase is in their hands.
Before you go over the sales funnel tips, please make sure that you have a solid amount of quality leads. Not sure? Here are few solutions that will boost your contact list with verified emails and phone numbers.
It’s not always a simple trip either and every customer might not take the same route, however, they will all end up at the bottom of your funnel. As paying customers. If you’re not quite sure if you have a proper sales funnel, or you need a little help hashing one out, here’s a little help.
Decide on how many funnels you need from the number of points your customers can engage with you.
To keep it simple for this concise blog post, let’s assume that your sales funnel only has three steps that customers can take. How they find or first engage with your brand (the first step) will slot them into one of perhaps multiple funnels your business might have. Distinguish how you are marketing to your customers. Are you using pay-per-click ads? That’s a sales funnel. Blog posts? Sales funnel. Keep track of how your customers are already finding you, this will help you pinpoint the funnels you’re already using.
Pinpoint where you want your potential customers or leads to go and keep them interested by providing them with the information they want to read.
Once you’ve engaged with your customers at the top of your funnel, you need to have somewhere for them to go to continue the journey. This can be a call to action right off the bat, such as a “buy now” button, or it can lead customers to a landing page to learn more about your brand. Whatever it is, make sure you’re clear about where you want them to go next. This will decrease the likelihood that they will leave the funnel.
Offer your potential customers something of value to keep them interested and help them decide to buy.
By this point, you’ve already gained interest from your potential buyers, so you can nurture that curiosity for more information even further by offering them something of value before they’ve committed to purchasing, such as a blog, discount, trial video, etc. You can often switch your point of view to the customer’s perspective to find out how they want to interact. What would work for you? This will help you really solidify what works and what doesn’t so you don’t lose leads or overwhelm them with content. You want them to make that critical decision: whether to buy from you or not.
Lead your customers into taking action before they get distracted.
Once your customers have decided to purchase from your brand, it’s important to make the action of actually buying as simple as possible. If you’re using a landing page or blog post to generate interest and help nurture the decision to buy, including a “buy now” or even a shopping link right within the page. The fewer steps or “hoops” your customers need to go through, the less likely they will be distracted by alternatives, competitors, or even just something else you wanted to get done.
Some extra help if you’re still a little nervous about building your first sales funnel
Don’t forget to gently point out the problem within the buying process. What problem does your product solve or have customers recognizing that they need what you have to give? If you’re selling shampoo, let customers know that product solves the problem of dull, dried-out hair often caused by sulphates used in other shampoo products. If your leads can recognize that they have a problem, they’re more likely to skip to the next step in your sales funnel, which is learning more about the problem and possible solutions.
It’s important to understand that your customers won’t all have the same journey, even if they start in the same funnel. For example, you may be using sponsored posts on Facebook to drive traffic to your website and take advantage of a sale on one of your products. One customer may directly go to your site and purchase – easy, right? Another might not be able to make up their mind. They might come to your website and then get distracted. One week later they see the same ad again retargeting them to return to their abandoned cart where they then finally purchase.
When building the first step in the funnel, try to capture the interest of multiple types of viewers. For example, you may have potential buyers see your ad and have never heard of your brand, so you will need to give them a little more information about who you are. On the other hand, you could have some viewers who are previous customers or have heard of your brand already. The awareness of your audience is important because it lets you know how much and how little you need to give away within that first step.
Customers may even hop between funnels until they finally make it through their journey. The most critical part is that you were there every step of the way to nurture that relationship and help them through the buying process.
Sales funnels, if created effectively and properly, can greatly increase your sales and decrease the number of people who fall off your radar. Remember to keep communication avenues open for the times that customers need a little more information and to keep and analyze data about your customers so you can make the buying journey even shorter next time as well as keep it as personalized as possible.
Interested in learning more about how OutlastedData can help you scale your business and increase your brand awareness before the end of the year? Reach out for a conversation with a member of our team today. s
