Sales funnels are one of the most important tools for any business. They help you track and convert your leads into customers and keep them coming back for more. But how do you build a sales funnel? In this ultimate guide, we’ll show you how to build a sales funnel from scratch, including setting up your funnel and optimizing it for conversions. So let’s get started!
How to Build a Sales Funnel from Scratch
Creating a sales funnel takes time and effort. But it’s a necessary evil in today’s competitive environment. Luckily, we’ll show you how to build a sales funnel from scratch.
It’s important to take the time to build a sales funnel that accurately represents what you want and what your audience wants. By taking the time to cultivate it over time, you can make necessary adjustments to various sales funnel stages, which can help improve your overall effectiveness. If you do not see the results you want, it’s important to find out why so that you can make changes as needed.
Understanding Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is every step a prospect must go through to become a customer.
Let’s look at how a brick-and-mortar business might handle their sales.
Some people walking by your business decide to enter, which is the next step in the sales process.
A shopper browses through a store’s sale section and is now at the next stage in the sales funnel.
The customer has selected their four t-shirts and is now making their way to the check-out. They are at the final stage of the sales funnel.
If all goes according to plan, the customer will finish their purchase and reach the bottom of the funnel.
The same concept applies to every business. Your sales funnel could be a Retail store, sales team, website, Email, or personal consultation.
Any marketing strategy can be a part of your overall sales strategy. And your sales process might span across several strategies.
Each stage of the funnel affects consumer behavior. You need to understand them thoroughly.
By understanding each part of the sales process, you can employ strategies to increase the likelihood of a prospect moving from one stage to another.
This can have a massive effect on your revenue.
If you increase the number of contacts in your pipeline by 2, you will increase your number of qualified sales opportunities and your overall close rate.
That’s 4 times as many customers as you’d get from just 1 customer.
How Sales Funnels Work
Your sales funnel illustrates the path of your prospects.
Knowing your sales funnel can help identify where your prospects are dropping off.
To optimize your sales funnel, you must understand how it works. We’ll go into the specifics below, but generally, you can influence the flow of prospects through the funnel and whether or not they convert.
While there are several different ways to describe a sales funnel, there are four common terms that we’ll use here: visitor, prospect, lead, and buyer.
A visitor lands on your website after finding it through a Google search or social media link. This person is now a potential customer or prospect.
Visitors might check out a few blog posts or browse your product listings. If they’re interested in what they see, you can offer them the chance to sign up for your email list. This way, you can stay in touch and continue marketing to them outside your website.
If the prospect completes your contact form, they become your “lead.” You can now contact the prospect via other channels, such as Email, telephone, or text message — or all three of them.
When you contact leads with special offers or information about new blog posts, they are more likely to return to your website. You can also offer a coupon code to incentivize them to return.
As visitors move through the sales funnel, the number of prospects decreases. This is because there are more prospects at the top of the funnel than buyers at the bottom. Additionally, your messaging must become more targeted as you progress through the funnel.
The 4 Stages of a Sales Funnel
The AIDA model, which stands for awareness, interest, decision, and action, is a simple way to remember the four sales funnel stages.
As a marketer, you need to be aware of the different sales cycle stages to tailor your approach accordingly. It would be like a waiter asking you what you want for dessert before you even order drinks and appetizers. You must ensure that you’re sending the right message at the right time, or you risk losing potential customers.
Let’s take a closer look at the sales funnel stages.
The Awareness Stage
This is the moment when you first catch a consumer’s attention. It might be a tweet, a Facebook post shared by a friend, or a Google search. Whatever it is, this is the moment when you have the chance to make an impression.
Your customer learns about your business and what you offer.
When the timing is right, some customers will buy right away. It’s usually a “right place, right time” situation.
The consumer has already researched and knows that your company is offering a desirable product or service at a reasonable price. Engaging with your business makes them more likely to become paying customers.
More often, the awareness stage is more of a courtship. You’re trying to woo the prospect into returning to your site and engaging more with your business. You want to be helpful and informative without being too pushy. The end goal is to get them interested in what you have to offer so they’ll come back for more.
Interest Stage
When consumers are in the “interest” stage of the sales cycle, they research, compare, and think about their options. This is the perfect time to offer them valuable, non-salesy information.
To succeed in sales, it’s important to remember that consumers need to feel like they’re in control. Pushing your product too hard from the beginning will only turn prospects away. Instead, focus on establishing your expertise and helping them make an informed decision. Offer to help them in any way you can, and you’ll be more likely to succeed.
The Decision Stage
The decision-making stage is when a customer is weighing their options. Hopefully, you’re one of them.
This is the time to make your best offer. You could include free shipping when most of your competition charges, a discount code, or a bonus product. By making your best offer now, you can increase the chances that the customer will choose your product over others.
What makes your offer so irresistible that your lead can’t wait to take advantage of it?
Action
At the bottom of the sales funnel, it’s time for the customer to take action. This is where they purchase your product or service and become part of your business ecosystem.
Just because the consumer has reached the end of the sales funnel, it doesn’t mean your work is done. The action is for the consumer and the marketing.
You want to make as many sales as possible, and to do that, you want to turn each sale into 10, 10 into 100, and so on.
Thank you for your purchase! We’re grateful that you’ve chosen our product and hope you’re satisfied with it. If you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re also available for tech support if needed. Thank you again, and we hope to see you as a satisfied customer for years to come!
How to Build a Sales Funnel
Now that you’re pumped, it’s time to create a funnel.
Sending a call straight to your prospect’s phone doesn’t have to be as complicated as you might think.
Step 1: Study your target audience
The more you understand your target audience, your funnel will be more effective. It’s not about targeting everyone.
Your marketing efforts are targeted towards people who will be interested in what you offer.
Where do they click? When do they scroll? Crazy Egg is a great tool for understanding how users interact with your site. The snapshots feature provides valuable insights into where people click and scroll. This information can help you optimize your site for better engagement and conversions.
Where do they click on your site? When do they scroll down?
By tracking the time spent on each page, you can better understand your buyers’ behavior.
Step 2: Grab the audience’s attention
Your funnel will only work if you can put the right type of content in front of the right people.
If you want to take the organic route and post tons of content across your platforms, that’s great! Make sure you diversify with infographics, videos, and other types of content. This will help keep your audience engaged and coming back for more.
You can run a few advertisements if you want to spend a bit more money. The best places to advertise depending on where your audience spends their time.
If your target audience is other businesses, then using paid advertising on LinkedIn could be a great way to reach them.
Step 3: Create a landing page
Your ad or other content is designed to take your prospects somewhere specific – a landing page with a can’t-miss offer. By providing value upfront, you increase the chances they’ll stay on your page and convert into a lead or customer.
Because these people are still in the awareness stage of the funnel, you should focus your conversation on collecting their information rather than trying to sell them something.
A website’s landing pages should guide visitors towards taking the next action.
You need a strong call to action that tells your visitors what to do next, whether downloading a free e-book or watching an instructional video. By taking this next step, you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals!
Step 4: Start email drip campaigns
Provide your leads with awesome, relevant content via Email. Do this regularly, but not too often.
Sending one or two marketing email blasts a week should do the trick.
Educate your prospect before trying to sell them anything. What do they want to know?
What objections do you need to overcome to convince your customers to buy your product?
What if we told you that you could get an incredible offer at the end of this drip campaign that would inspire you to act? Wouldn’t that be something worth checking out? Stay tuned to find out more!
Step 5: Stay in touch with your customers
Don’t neglect your established customers. Continue to reach out to them.
Thank you for your purchase! We hope you’re enjoying your new product. Here are some additional coupon codes that you might find useful. And don’t forget to follow us on social media for the latest news and updates!
Measure the Success of Your Sales Funnel
As your customer base and offerings grow, your funnel might need to be tweaked. That’s fine.
A good way to track your funnel’s performance is by tracking your conversion rate.
What is your conversion rate for people who click on a Facebook ad and sign up for your email list?
Pay attention to each stage of the sales cycle.
Are you getting enough people to read your content? Do people trust your messages enough to give their information? Have you made sales from your email drip campaigns and other marketing efforts? Do your customers come back for more?
Answering questions like these will help you figure out where in your sales process you need to improve.
Why Optimizing Your Sales Funnel is Important
Your potential customers have many options. You want them to choose your products, but you cannot force them to.
Instead, you have to market efficiently.
You’re just shooting in the dark if you don’t have a tight, well-optimized funnel. You’re just hoping that your prospect wants what you’re selling.
Watch how visitors interact with your pages with CrazyEgg recordings.
What confuses them, and where do you want their attention focused?
This is especially important for landing pages. If they are not optimized for conversions, people will click away.
Sales Funnel Optimization
Optimizing your sales funnels involves focusing on the most important parts of the process, such as when a consumer moves from one stage to another.
We talked about how to run Facebook ads.
Create 10 or 20 variations of the same ad, but target them to different groups of buyers.
AB Test your landing page. It’s worth it, but it takes time.
You can also AB test your email marketing campaigns to see what type of language, imagery, offers, and layouts your audience responds to. This way, you can make changes to optimize your sales funnel more effectively.
The surest way to optimize your sales funnel is to monitor your results.
Start at the top of the marketing funnel. Your content is being created to drive people to your website and encourage them to click your call to action.
If your content isn’t working, try something else.
Your landing page is the key to your sales funnel. Make sure the offer and CTA match your blog post or Facebook ad’s content. This will ensure a higher conversion rate and more leads moving further down your sales funnel.
1. Test your headline.2. Test your body copy.3. Test your images.4. Test your CTA.
When you try to convince people to take action, AB test it, does offering free shipping on orders work better than a 5% discount on them?
These small tips can have a huge impact on your sales.
Finally, track your customer retention rate. Do customers come back to buy from you a second time, a fifth, and a twenty-fifth?
Do they refer you to friends?
Your end goal is to keep your brand top of mind. You can do this by always delivering what your audience wants and needs. If you never disappoint them, they won’t have a reason to look elsewhere.
Conclusion
Now you know how to build a sales funnel from scratch, this guide is for you. By following these steps, you can create an effective sales funnel. Remember, the best way to optimize your funnel is by keeping track of your results and taking actions where needed.
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