Sales Funnel. You have probably heard the term, but do you know what it does? More importantly, do you know what it can do for your business?
Well listen up, as I am about to answer all those questions and more.
What Is A Sales Funnel?
So what is a sales funnel? The official line is that it is an automatic system that guides your prospect towards a desired action in a non-invasive, valuable way.
The key points to note here are, delivering value in a non-invasive way. Don’t get up in the grill of your subscribers every day, being a pain in the rear. If you annoy your people then they will go away. Instead, make sure you are adding value during every step of the journey, every communication you send, every interaction you have. Value should be your main objective.
Think of it as your customer experience – what do you want them to experience between introduction and sale? Understand what their ideal journey is so that you can guide them in the right way that they will end up converting to a paying client or customer.
Keep in mind this very important fact. 80% of the leads you consider to be ‘dead’ today will be ready to buy from you within a year – so it is paramount to keep communicating with them now.
Sales Funnels Are Like Dating
Let’s continue with the dating analogy for courting your prospects into paying clients. You will begin your funnel with the many prospective fish in the ocean, all of those people you think are cute and that you might have a slight spark with. Your funnel will finish with the one and only, the one you want to marry.
But how do you whittle away the ones who don’t share your love of sausage dogs, and the ones who are just plain jerks?
Well, you begin with the ‘Attract’ phase. This is where you provide great valuable content so that you attract the right kind of people to your business. They need a service like yours and they have a problem that needs solving, but this stage might not yet be your ideal client. These are the people that find you through your blog, your SEO, and your website content.
The next phase is the ‘Interest’ one. That is when people self-identify themselves as being interested by downloading your resources or lead magnets.
Then the magic starts to happen, your sales funnel really starts to kick in with automation. This is known as the ‘Engage’ phase. It is when you are engaging, staying in touch and following up with your subscribers. Using automation is the ideal method, but there are still ways that you can do this manually in your business if it works for you. For example, if your clients like to communicate by phone, then pick it up and call them. Your sales funnel can be implemented both online and offline.
When people reach the ‘Desire’ stage, then you are cutting down the numbers to your ideal client. The people who have a definite desire for what you do and the people who need it right now. This is when trials come into play – they will try out a free offer, use the voucher they downloaded, or buy one of your less expensive items to see if your business lives up to their expectations.
Eventually you will get down to the people that will convert into paying clients. That person you want to marry.
Your ultimate aim = Attract the people you want, get them to sign up to your list, move them through your funnel and get them to spend money with you. Which is of course what you want!
Converting Those Sales
It is important to remember that you will not be able to convert every prospect to a paying client via your sales funnel. A very high performing funnel will convert at 40%, but most will convert at 5 to 10%. If you get your funnel to that stage, then you are doing well!
The pure fact that they are on your site, reading your content, and downloading your resources means that they are interested in what you have to say. They are conscious they have a problem and that they need a solution to it. If you keep working at them by providing value, then the conversions will come. So keep going!
Why Do You Want A Sales Funnel?
The main reason why is so that you can engage with interested prospects and convert them into clients. A funnel system helps you to track the stages a client goes through before they buy from you.
To achieve a successful funnel you should always add value, don’t continuously try to sell. Your first or second email should definitely not contain a sales offer, that is too soon to ask for the sale. You have not yet built the relationship of trust needed.
You know your ideal client and what they would expect from you, don’t go against that and annoy them. Treat them with respect. You know what annoys you, so don’t use the same tactics to annoy your list.
Be smart at what you do, run multiple sales funnels for all the different facets of your business. This ensures that you stay relevant to each corner of your market. Section up your list based on their interests, the more precise you can get things, the more conversions you will make and the happier your clients will be.
Sales funnels are an important part of your business as they continue to work for you even when you aren’t working! That is why you want to get at least one up and running in your system. If you need some help mapping out your funnel, or even just chatting about what it could look like, then get in touch with me. We can bake something up together.
Stay tuned for next week when we talk about what happens when Lead Magnets and Sales Funnels collide.