When someone visits your website, how likely are they to make a purchase? Do you have a system in place to stay connected to leads and help them convert? What’s your customer retention strategy? Do you even have one?
A recent study showed that nearly 80% of leads never convert.
And the reason for this? Because 68% of businesses can’t identify or measure their sales funnel. In other words, the absence of a sales funnel could be costing you major revenue.
What is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is simply a way to guide visitors to your site from being interested in a product to becoming paying customers. Though it’s not just a one- or two-step process.
You can think of a sales funnel in terms of a funnel that you might use in your kitchen or garage. It has a wide brim at the top with sides that taper down, offering a much smaller hole at the bottom. Liquid (or other substances) can be poured down the funnel, allowing you to move a lot of material in a very focused direction.
Sales funnels work the same way. When leads wind up on your website, they’re like oil being poured into the top side of a funnel. Your goal is to guide those leads through a series of steps until they finalize a sale.
The elements of a sales funnel can vary, including things like blog posts, webinars, newsletters, free samples, demos, and more. The specifics will largely depend on your business and the industry you’re in. But the goal of every sales funnel is the same: connect to your leads, develop deep relationships with them, and lead them to your checkout page.
How an Effective Sales Funnel can Majorly Impact on Your Business…
Sales funnels offer a number of invaluable benefits, including…
Allowing You to Stay Connected to Your Customers
Most sales funnels begin with a way to collect your leads’ contact information. You’ll trade a lead magnet (a valuable piece of content that people would normally pay for but which you’re giving away for free) for your prospective customers’ e-mail addresses. This way, you won’t have to rely on social media or paid advertising to stay connected. You can keep them in the loop with a single e-mail.
Building Interest in Your Brand, Products, and Services
Once you have your leads’ contact information, you can begin building interest in your brand. As with every other aspect of the sales funnel, this can take place in a variety of ways. For example, you could create regular blog posts and send teasers for new posts out every week through your newsletter. Or, you could develop some effective explainer videos and send them out. Or – if you want to make a more substantial investment – you could offer an exclusive, free sample of your product or service to your subscribers.
Over time, you’ll begin developing relationships with your leads. They’ll start to learn about you and trust you. And eventually, you can move them to the next step of the sales funnel.
Developing Desire for Your Products and Services
Creating Ads that Convert
Over the course of time, your leads will learn more about the things your business offers. They’ll catch glimpses here and there of how your products and services can solve their problems. And there will likely be times when they wonder, “If this business gives away content that’s this great for free… what’s their paid content like?”
You can fan the flames of desire for your products and services through a variety of channels, including…
- By sending out an engaging testimonial video to your subscribers, you can help your leads see exactly how your products and services can help people like them. And since video testimonials are proven to increase conversion rates, with the right call-to-action, a testimonial e-mail can be just thing to boost your sales.
- Exclusive Content. By sending your e-mail subscribers exclusive content, you’re making them feel as though they’re part of an in-crowd. You’re building your own authority and credibility. And if you can tie that exclusive content directly to a product or service you offer, you’re making it much more likely that they’ll follow through with a purchase.
- Retargeting Ads. Retargeting ads allow you to connect with customers who have interacted with your site, even if they didn’t give you their e-mail address. And you can retarget former visitors on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram alongside Google Ads. By incorporating this into your larger digital marketing strategy, you can ensure that you stay in front of interested customers for as long as it takes.
Over the course of the entire process, you should include references to products that you offer. Though you should never be salesy. Instead, provide quality content and opportunities for interaction. Eventually, you can make harder calls-to-action.
And if your sales funnel is successful, you’ll see a positive response to those calls.
Analyzing and Refining Your Funnel
Sales funnels are fickle things. They require constant refinement.
That’s why we offer sales funnel marketing services that are focused on monitoring how your sales funnel is impacting your overall sales, places where people may be dropping out, and other health indicators. As these areas are identified, our team of experienced sales experts will adjust your copy, refocus your ads, and develop new lead magnets.
The more refinement that your sales funnel goes through, the more likely it will be to provide you with what you want: results.
And that’s what we intend to give every one of our clients.
If you’re looking for a sales funnel marketing service that will generate leads and convert them to sales, contact Digital RockStar Agency today. We’re one of the leading digital marketing agencies in Westport, CT.
