Sales Funnel
Your business needs to have a sales funnel. Business to consumer sales funnels aren't usually as complex as business to business sales funnels. Service businesses usually require more research in their sales funnels and don't always end in a sales transaction.
What Does a Sales Funnel Look Like?
At the widest point of your funnel, you have your target market. As you go down the tunnel to the narrowest spot, you have your paying customer. Inside that funnel are steps that occur that turn your target market into visitors, into prospects, into shoppers, into buyers, into paying customers.
Step #1 Convert target customers into visitors:
You'll be able to do this well if you have taken the time to identify who your target market is. Use a keyword tool like Google AdWords. Once you know who your target market is make sure that your site is visible in directories, blogs, search engines, affiliate sites, etc. In this stage of your sales funnel, your goal is to identify the target market and send visitors to your site (store). Here are some marketing tools to help you achieve that goal.
- Search engine optimization - SEO focuses on the keywords most likely to bring visitors to your site.
- Social media - Make sure you have a visible social media presence.
- Online advertising - This includes Amazon ads, PPC ads, banner ads on affiliate sites, etc.
- Marketplaces - Sell on Buy.com, Overstock.com, Amazon, eBay, etc.
- Blogs - Your blog needs to be compelling. The content needs to attract relevant traffic.
- Comparison shopping engines - Provide support product feeds to Bing Shopping, Google Shopping, Nextag, etc.
Step #2 Convert visitors to prospects:
Once the visitors have made it to your landing page on your site; you need to engage them further. A prospect is defined as someone who browses at least three pages and bookmarks your site. Here are some factors you can use to turn visitors into prospects.
- Site design - Create a design that is clean and easy to view.
- Good navigation - Build a site that is easy to navigate and has a good site search.
- Compelling content - Offer content that is both original and interesting. Offer detailed descriptions the products you sell.
- Load times - Make sure your site loads fast or people will leave. Keeping your images smaller will help.
- Security and trust - Establish trust through memberships and testimonials, and by providing a detailed about us page that tells about the company.
- Merchandising - It's really important to offer promotions within your store. However, make sure that you are clear about what these promotions are.
- Landing pages - Make sure your landing pages are tightly integrated with where your visitors are coming from and how they might search.
- Signup points - Provide links that are easy to find for your email signup, your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Step #3 Converting Prospects to Paying Customers
You are now ready to get prospects to put one or more items in their shopping care. Here are some key elements you should have.
- Chat and phone support - There should be a way for prospect to get immediate answer to their questions such as live chat. Email is too slow you will lose them.
- Newsletters - Send a confirmation email to initial subscribers. Offer them choices about what they would like to get updates on.
- Social media postings - Mix your posts up with instructions on new products, offers, how-to tips, surveys, images, etc.
- FAQs - A section on frequently asked questions is very beneficial for those looking for immediate answers to their questions. It's a good place to put info on products, pricing, discounts, shipping, and returns.
Sales Funnel
These days, there is a great deal of buzz over sales funnels and the valuable role they can play in closing a sale. But do you know how to build a sales funnel correctly? These days the term sales funnel tends to be overused but most people are aware of the sales funnel and its basic functionality. Learning the correct method to build a sales funnel is key to your business success.
Today's businesses struggle with generating adequate business into their sales funnel. Itís really about your companyís attitude. Many of the problems that arise in lead generation are the result of the way we think. There are many ways to get more referrals and lots of available information on this. So if this is one of your areas that you struggle make sure to take advantage of the available information.
Let's look at what you need to build a successful sales funnel.
Have an Attitude of Abundance
There are few industries where there is actually a shortage of prospects. Most industries actually have plenty of prospects. Where things fall apart is with the shortage in the sales funnel. So let's say you have tons of prospects, then it's time to develop a new attitude that sees your sales funnel as an important resource where those who are going to enter the sales funnel need to pass a simple test where
- The prospect has a real problem that they wish to fix
- The prospect understands the cost if they choose not to fix the problem
- The prospect understands how much money it will cost to fix the problem
When you take this attitude, you will actually be rewarded with abundance.
Monitor Your Sales Funnel
Next, you actually have to monitor your sales funnel to see not only who makes it to your sales funnel but also who stays in your sales funnel. For each pursued prospect, a certain amount of time and energy is used. Since you have limited time and energy to spend on your sales funnel you will need to control those resources in the same way you would control inventory. Embed this attitude into your brain and before long, it will become the natural way of doing things. Before long, you will be doing things correctly every time you build your sales funnel.
Sales Funnel
Not everyone is a big business with tons of resources. Many of us are small home based businesses, some are mom and pop bloggers offering single products or services, some of us run a website that offers just one product, and yet no matter how small our business we should be creating a sales funnel, because a sales funnel will attract potential customers by giving away free items or offering low cost items, and then convincing those prospects to sign up to your mailing list.
Once you have their contact information you can start to build a relationship so that once they are ready to buy they come to you. When you offer your prospects, a range of products that are at different price points you can build trust and make it easier for them to eventually spend the money on the more expensive product or service.
Mailing List
You have your large mailing list of potential customers that you have been building and gradually you build paying customers out of this. Let's have a look and break this down.
Attract New Leads
This is where you find a way to attract clients to your site that would be interested in your products or services:
- Meet potential clients through social media: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.
- Get your company mentioned in a press release or do your own press release and submit
- Begin to publish interesting and unique articles on other sites
- Post blog entries offering advice, tips, tricks, information, etc.
- Ensure that the search engines are picking up your content
Offer Free Products or Services
Potential clients are hesitant to give you contact information, but when you give them something free in exchange they are much more willing to share their contact information. You can offer a free:
- Audio recordings
- Newsletters
- White papers
- Mini e-books
- One free teleseminar
- Free consultation
Offer Entry Level Low Cost Products
You should offer a number of low cost products that show your potential clients your level of expertise without a large investment. They are much more likely to do this. Then over time, you can sell higher priced products as they come to trust you and build a relationship with you. This could include:
- E-books
- Workshops
- Video series
- Audio series
- Consulting or coaching
- Membership sites
There you have it. You have moved prospects down the funnel to potential paying customer. It's a process that works extremely well, so why not take advantage of it.
Sales Funnel
There are some essential things you need to have happen in order to convert your marketing campaign to sales funnel that's optimized.
1. You need a product or service to sell
Before you can even start to think about constructing a sales funnel, you need a product or service to sell to your traffic. There are tons of items you can sell online including software, videos, membership programs, e-books, website design, etc. If you do not want to create your own product line then you can use an affiliate program such as Amazon or Clickbank.
2. Do your keyword research
In order to determine who your potential customer and what they are looking for. Keyword research helps you identify words and phrases that searchers are using. Google keyword tool is an excellent free tool to use. There are others that you have to pay to use. Once you know what the keywords or phrases are that your potential customers are searching for you can apply these keywords in your strategies.
3. Your sales funnel, front end and back end
The front door is the widest part of your sales funnel and its purpose is to attract a large base of potential prospects. This is your initial point of capture where you use a broad range of marketing strategies that will attract visitors who then will be guided down your sales funnel.
One way to do that is to offer gifts, cheap products, or bonus items ñ these are all attractive to potential consumers. Eventually some of those prospects will work their way even further down the sales funnel into even a narrower spot and eventually to the back end.
In these deep spots of your sales funnel there are more premium items being offered to prospects that have showed a need for your products/services. By now, your products are very targeted and it is highly likely that they will buy. Now you can use product launches, targeted email campaigns, etc. to engage with these individuals.
How to Fine Tune your Sales Funnel
By now, you should be recognizing the sales funnel as a marketing framework that represents all of the stages from lead to finished sale. Optimize your sales funnel might seem complicated and difficult, but it does not have to be, just build it as you go along.
Start by identifying all the ways that visitors might enter your funnel to establish your point of origin. Then list all the things your visitor can do on your site, then make sure you set up your page stats and have the ability to analyze them, and by then you will have the knowledge you need to determine if your sales funnel is working, the strong spots and the weak spots, and then adjust.
Sales Funnel
Building a sales funnel for your internet marketing business is an important tool because no matter what your business it will generate revenue. However, not all sales funnels are created equal, so here's a sales funnel template that works.
1. Landing Page and Your List
This part one of your sales funnel. Your landing page or squeeze page should attract targeted prospects and you can do this by offering an attractive benefit. Your goal is to capture the email address of your prospect so that you can build your list. Offer something of value free. For example, a video, an e-book, etc. To get the free gift they have to opt in. The free gift should provide them with information and build trust between you and them.
2. Front End Product That's Low Priced
If a prospect opts in on your landing page this is a good time to tell them about an offer that's low priced. Because it is low priced, it will have a high conversion rate.
3. Down Selling
If your prospect say no to your one time low cost product or service offer, then reduce something about the features of the product or service and offer your prospect a stripped down version for a stripped down price.
4. Up Selling
For the prospects who accept your one time offer, you can present them with an offer to upgrade to a product or service that has lots of features for an increased price that's still a great price. You can do multiple down sell and up sell levels for each of your products to offer the most choices and squeeze out income from your prospects.
5. Exit Popup
If your visitors aren't ready to give you their contact information on your landing page, if you have used an exit splash program you can send them to yet another offer. This can be another squeeze page or another product that is still priced even less.
6. Thank You Page with Banners
Finally, your Sales Funnel needs to have a thank you page and that thank you page should have space for banners. These banners can offer links to free products.
If you use the sales funnel template for your internet marketing business this will help you to increase your profits and make more money. You can grow your leads and grow your business.
