Without a system to convert your leads into customers, your business will suffer. A great product or service by itself will help you get the word out a bit, but without a proper sales funnel, you aren’t going to see the growth you want. All of the successful companies you see, from Starbucks to Adidas, use a sales funnel. Some of them don’t just have one sale funnel, they have many. First, let’s find out what a sales funnel looks like, and then see an example of a complex sales funnel system. From sales funnel examples to guiding you through the steps, it’s time to learn how to make a solid sales funnel.
Why It Works
The sales funnel won’t convert every single person who sees your adds into a customer, but it is a strategy to help people actually interested move along till they become a customer. If you don’t have a way to draw people in, you are just another flyer blowing in the wind and potential customers, leads, will find another business that is more intriguing.
The sales funnel works because of its simple concept and design. People need to be interested to even think about buying your product. Once you have them interested, what can you do to actually make them consider? The sales funnel helps you handle this question and convert leads into customers.
Step 1: Awareness
Attract potential clients through blog posts, Adwords, social media advertising, billboards, Email, Ebook, and anything else that could make your name aware to other people. This is where you need eye-catching headlines and intriguing photos to get the attention of people passing or scrolling by. Once people are made aware of your name, you need to be able to attract them down the tunnel further by interesting them in your content, ads, product, etc.
Step 2: Interest
Once people are made aware of your product, you need to give them a reason to pay more attention to you and eventually invest. Basically, turn these leads into buyers. On social media, you do this by constantly posting content that either entertains or informs the people that are now following you and engaging with them. With a physical location, the “interest step” may look like creating a comfortable, aesthetically pleasing place to sit and potentially sip on a cup of coffee. You could also create a competition or event that gets people more involved with your brand, even if they haven’t bought anything yet.
Step 3: Prospects
Now it is time to offer a free consultation, a giveaway, an affordable webinar, a test-drive– anything that gets a customer to try out a product or consider using your service. Now that you have built a relationship with your customers you can offer deals or promote specialties.
Step 4: Sales
Finally, the step you have been waiting for, sales. This is the finish line for now, though you should continue the sales funnel with loyalty and advocacy. We touched on loyalty and advocacy in our blog on brand community. Keep in mind that you should continue to build relationships with customers after they have purchased from you. No one likes a business that forgets about you and moves on to the next lead. It can also cost you around 5 times more to get new customers than it does to keep your current ones, according to The National Law Review.
Example of A Solid Sales Funnel
Groupon reaches millions of clients per month. Their sales funnel is a great example of a simple strategy that works. First, they attract leads through ads, emails, referrals, etc, which lead to their website. Their website has a pop-up on the homepage that incentivizes you to give your Email for a coupon code on your first purchase. This is a simple way to interest your leads and keep them receiving information about your business through Email. Next, the customer sees deals on the homepage to get them to consider purchasing. Before you know it, leads are in the purchase form on the website and they are now customers of Groupon.
This sales funnel did not take a lot of extra steps to reach millions of clients a month. A solid sales funnel works as long as you follow up with your leads and remember new or old customers.
Example of A Complex Sales Funnel
Starbucks is a great example of a complex sales funnel. There are the larger sales funnel, and then there are the smaller ones inside of that larger sales tunnel. These smaller sales funnels can start by a certain purchase or reward system that leads you to go back to get more or different products at Starbucks.
The VIA portable coffee cup is a great example of this. This cup has six different compartments that have to-go packets of instant Starbucks coffee. The messaging behind this product is, of course, now you’ll never have to go without Starbucks coffee.
The first step is in line waiting for a cup of coffee already in the larger sales funnel of Starbucks. While you are in line you look around you at the various Starbucks products to pass the time. You then buy the VIA cup and are now in a sales funnel to continue paying for packets to refill the cup, along with a fresh coffee for the morning, every time you visit Starbucks.
This sales funnel could potentially have a buyer frequently purchasing more packets for the rest of their life or until the day the Starbucks packets are no longer sold. This portable cup purchase now has you committed to buying more than one item at Starbucks for, potentially, years. Not to mention the muffin you need for breakfast. The VIA portable cup is only one example of the many sales funnels Starbucks has within there store.
How We Can Help
Search engine optimization, SEO, is a part of a good online sales funnel. When your website and content are highly ranked in search results, more people are likely to see and interact with your website. We can help you make sure that you are seen and that you have quality content that will lead people down the sales funnel.
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