A sales funnel, or purchase funnel, is a device that can either make or break a business. Because of this, having one is essential to the longevity of your business.
Lucky for you, you already have one! You may just not know it yet.
Having knowledge about your business’s sales funnel will allow you to better control the flow of your website traffic from the first page of your site to a purchasing page.
People who utilize a sales funnel strategy can see sales growth right after implementation, making it one of the most effective methods to drive sales.
What is Sales Funnel Marketing?
The easiest way to think about your sales funnel is to imagine that you’re a person going through a maze. At the end of the maze, your product is waiting to be bought.
When you enter your website’s landing page, is there any direction for you to go immediately? A sales funnel optimizes your website to direct customers through a clear path eventually landing them to a product page or sales page.
Imagine your website is a maze. Sure, there’s one path that’ll take you to a sales page. But in business, you’re not looking to make a difficult maze. You want your maze as easy to follow as possible, and the best way to do this is to get rid of all the dead ends, twists and turns, and confusing layouts.
You want your maze to have a big entrance to get the most people in it, and then, you want the path leading to the exit to be as straight as possible.
Though you want your maze entrance to be big, you don’t want everyone piling into it. Sales funnel marketing looks to get a select group of people into your maze so you know they won’t just spend their time bumping into real customers.
How Does a Sales Funnel Work and the Stages?
Understanding a sales funnel is simple. No, it really is! A sales funnel has 5 main parts, and understanding those parts roles in the overall structure of your sales funnel will help you create your own.
The first stage of your sales funnel is called the “awareness stage.” This stage looks to capture the largest audience by making sure potential customers are aware of your product or business.
The second stage is the “interest stage.” In the interest stage, people who are aware of your brand will begin to research your production through their own volition.
The third stage, the one your business needs to really nail, is the “evaluation stage.” The evaluation stage is when a potential customer considers brands similar to your own. If you have a good brand, you’ll definitely be their choice.
The fourth stage is called the “decision stage.” In this stage, a person has found your brand to be more desirable than similar brands, and they have made the decision to purchase your product. They’ll begin looking at all your products and deciding which one they really want.
Finally, the fifth stage. It’s called the “purchase stage,” and you probably guessed it. The potential customer becomes a real customer, and your business makes its first sale to them!
Create Your Own Sales Funnel
You may think it’s a lot of work to start building your sales funnel from the ground up, and you're right. Even with all your newfound knowledge about sales funnels, creating one that is effective can be quite tricky.
Even seasoned business owners struggle to come up with the right website design and marketing strategies on their own.
Fortunately, Click Funnels has got you covered! Click Funnels knows the stress of building a website for your business, and they don’t want you to go through that again.
That’s why they created an easy to use and accessible website creation tool that’s focused on sales funnel creation. After you create your sales funnel website, you’ll need to understand and research your audience.
Getting to know the people who want to buy your product is key. The aim isn’t to offer your product to everyone out there. You only want to spend marketing money on people who will already have an interest in your products.
Then, you can start marketing to your specific audience. Place ads in places you know your audience visits frequently. That could be particular social media sites, certain blogs, or even television channels. It’s important to think about all the places your audience goes on a daily basis.
Now, you can start targeting ads to specific people. Once you have the information on who your audience really is, you can run email campaigns to pique their interest about your products even more. Just make sure you have a solid email and to not overdo it—no one likes spam.
After these steps, you should have a steady flow of new customers, but to really grow your business, you need them to come back to buy more of your product.
The best way to do this is to make sure they had a good experience on your website. Good for you, you used the sales funnel strategy so they loved your website!
WHY DO YOU NEED A SALES FUNNEL?
Mentioned earlier, a sales funnel will help your business convert total strangers into paying customers at a rate greater than a normal website layout.
But what makes a sales funnel truly valuable is its ability to always work. Unlike people, a sales funnel doesn’t get tired. It’ll keep working for you no matter the time of day or situation. The initial investment into a sales funnel will pay itself off quicker than you think.
Sales funnels also help to gain more reoccurring customers. By making your product easier to find and your website easier to navigate, customers will start trusting you more often. With trust, comes more loyal customers who love to support your business over and over again.
One final benefit of a sales funnel is they make your business more competitive. There could be hundreds of competitors to your product, but a sales funnel will allow you to reach more people quicker giving you the competitive edge.
