A sales funnel is a multi-step process that helps you convert visitors into buyers. A sales funnel represents the path a visitor, to your website, takes before converting into a customer. Getting a grip of and channelizing your sales funnel can help you its strengths as well as find the gaps in it to identify where a prospect drops out and does not convert.
A sales funnel represents the journey of an individual from visitor to becoming a customer in a visual manner – it describes all the steps taken by the customer starting with the first contact right up to the point of making payment.
Advantages of an Optimized Sales Funnel
Some key advantages of an optimized sales funnel are:
- Find out the actual number of steps a potential customer must take and possibly reduce/merge them.
- Find out who are qualified or interested leads from the subscribers of your emails, posts, and feeds.
- Save mass marketing and cold-calling costs by directly contacting more interested users.
- Improve the precision of campaigns by analyzing where leads drop from the process.
- Offer subscribers promotions and special offers exclusively and generate more conversions, and cross-selling.
Also, Read Ecommerce: Optimize Your Mobile Application To Boost Your Sales
Understand the Sales Funnel
You need to build a person of different kinds of visitors who will visit your website or app. It is a set of characters created to help your sales team understand the needs of each type of visitor and should be no more than 3.
The conversion journey has four stages of evolution: awareness, interest, decision, action. Each persona will the same journey and expect different things at each step.
- State of Awareness: The visitor has a query or need and undertakes a web search; your business is listed as one of the best providers and the visitor comes to your site for the first time, becoming aware of your solutions, products, or services and most important you. At this moment you must have the full attention of the visitor. Generally, the awareness stage requires more effort on your part where you engage your visitors.
- State of Interest: When the visitor has expressed a real interest in your products or services by actively submitting a query, or directly contacting you. Here, they are researching and comparing options. You may highlight your USPs and testimonials from satisfied customers. Do not make an active effort to make a sale or you might chase them away. Establish your expertise, offer help, and resolve queries.
- State of Decision: Here the visitor is on the cusp of hitting the buy button. They are considering the final two options and making a conscious effort to reach a conclusion. It is the time to make your final and best offer – in terms of enhanced product, additional services, future discounts, free shipping, etc. Make it irresistible and contingent to time-bound action to nudge your visitor into buying.
- State of Action: Final decision is executed by signing a contract or clicking the buy button. The visitor is now a client and becomes part of your ecosystem. Your work is not done after conversion; actually, real work starts now, especially in the service industry. Your quality of service will result in good word of mouth and bring you more customers and clients.
Also Read: How Mobile App Can be the Smart Solution to Boost Sales During Holiday Season?
Sales Funnel Design
For each stage of a sales funnel different actions are required to make the overall sales funnel optimized.
- TOFu –Top Of FUnnel: At the stage of awareness offer free and relevant content and ask the visitor to fill a simple form to assess their needs. The visitor now becomes a lead and advances in the funnel.
- MOFu – Middle Of FUnnel: The stages of Interest and Decision of the visitor where you must help them solve their problems and not make a sales pitch directly. Provide very specific content, qualify the lead, and advance it in the funnel.
- BOF – Bottom Of FUnnel: The final step of Action where the purchase decision is made. The sales team must make a final and time-bound offer to nudge the potential to convert. With the trust built previously, show that you are offering the best solution.
Hope you find this article helpful. Please connect with us for any further questions.
