What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel simply a process that illustrates how your prospects turn into your customers. The ones who are highly engaged with your business travel to the bottom and bring sales.
It starts with a wider opening at the top, where the customers come in contact with your business proposition. It goes further where the qualifying and non-qualifying prospects are filtered, and the ones who need your service reach the bottom, where they close the deal.
How does it work?
It works like an actual funnel, and the stages are classified with the acronym AIDA.
(A) Awareness: It is the initial stage when the customer becomes aware of your business. Here he comes to know what you serve, how you deliver your products or services, and how you are different from the competitors. It is just an introduction phase where there is no buying or selling motive as of then.
It can happen in any way:
- Through a google search, when you appear on the SERP
- By clicking on a promotional ad
- Through an email
- Through word of mouth by a friend
- Through online means
(I) Interest: At this stage, you have made the customer interested in your service. Now, they start to determine if your products would be able to fulfill their needs and expectations. In other words, it is a research phase where you have the opportunity to guide the customers about your product as much as you can and show how you can fulfill their demands. The only two ways you can take your prospects from this stage to the next one are by satisfying their needs and by standing out from your competitors.
(D) Decision: Coming to the decision stage, the customer decides if he will be buying the product/service or not. Here they evaluate the prices and quality in detail and compare it with the competitors to figure out if they are choosing the right product or not. Strong actions are required here to take the customer to the final stage of the funnel.
(A) Action: This is the end of the funnel where the prospects finally turn into your customer. Here, they are ready to make the purchase. You just need the right persuasion skills that can make them checkout out your product/service. The action here might be a free trial or a first purchase discount, or a coupon that is valid when you purchase again.
Top 5 ways to increase conversions!
- Getting to know your audience
- Setting up a good landing page
- Creating an informative content
- Collecting email addresses and doing the marketing
- Showcasing reviews and testimonials
1 Getting to know your audience: Knowing who to target and when to target is an important task. Your product features say a lot about who your target audience should be. If you are targeting the wrong audience, your efforts are of no use. You need to gather insights into your and your competitors' traffic sources and figure out the top-performing content to understand what works for your competitors and what resonates with their audience. For this, you may use google analytics and check out various personas.
2 Setting up a good landing page: A landing page's only function is to promote a product by means of an enticing offer that piques the interest of the buyer. Here you can collect your prospects' contact information so that you can begin a relationship with them. It is observed that you can get more than 72% conversions with a good landing page.
3 Creating informative content: During the initial stages of the sales funnel, your prospects are highly interested to know what you can offer them and how your services are better than others.
Thus, the key to improving conversions in the awareness stage is to create informative content that presents your company as an expert in its field.
This can be done by:
- Quality blogging
- Demo videos
- Reviews and reports
This is how Variance Marketing uses articles and videos on their website, where they add knowledge to customers and help them get to optimize their marketing.
4 Collecting email addresses and doing the marketing: Nowadays, no one is willing to share their information unless they are receiving anything of value or interest in return. If you want to share your content with them, you need to build a relationship and earn their trust. For that, you need a part of their information where you can send them the required info.
You may use a visible sign-up form on the side of your content that can be highly impactful. If they're already engaging in your content, there is a likelihood they won't hesitate to sign up and give their email address.
5 Showcasing reviews and testimonials: The audience demands trust, and you can build this with a simple strategy. Showcase them your best work, your featured work, which acts as social proof that your service is up to the standards.
Stone Marketing Group is a Denver SEO company that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) services. They provide comprehensive SEO services such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and more to help businesses increase their visibility online and drive more organic traffic to their websites.
