Supercharge Your Sales Funnel

Ok, so let’s first start by defining a sales funnel. For the layman, a sales funnel is the path a prospect (potential customer) takes to gain the information they need in order to make a purchase and become a customer. Every business is different. An e-commerce site is going to have a much more complex sales funnel than an offline business. However, both can profit from defining their sales funnel.

Common Errors

Some common errors are misunderstanding the top, middle, and bottom of your sales funnel. Just like when building a house, you have to set the foundation before you can put on the roof. If you have ever paid for online ads (top of funnel) and not received the expected conversion (sales) results, then you may know what I am talking about.

Set Goals

Start by setting your customer interaction goals. You may find that this is not as easy as it sounds. Your goals, in fact, need to align with how customers behave and interact with your website. You can start by asking yourself a few questions:

Do you know how your customer gets to your page? If not, find out! It is important to understand who your customer is that is entering your site.
What steps does a customer typically take in order to gain the information needed to make a purchase?
Do you want to drive more calls, get more traffic to your site, or increase foot traffic to physical location?

Once you have these questions answered, you can begin to choose the type of goals that will help your business grow.

Types of Marketing Goals

Get more calls

Choose this goal if you primarily get new customers over the phone. You want to talk to customers before setting up appointments or bookings.

Get more visits to your physical location

Choose this goal if your first interaction with customers is usually at your storefront, and you have a physical location you want customers to visit.

Get more website sales or sign-ups

Choose this goal if most of your business is conducted online and you want customers to complete a trackable action (such as a purchase or sign-up) on your website.

Define Steps

Defining the steps in the buying process may be helpful and add insight into how difficult it is to for your customer to make a purchase. The exercise is used to determine if your business goals are in line with online goals.

In other words, what do you want your customer to do? Now the easy answer is — buy something! But you have to think like a customer and the steps required for them to be comfortable to make a purchase.

Validation of Product

Do they need to validate your product? Then maybe more information is needed. Can they find it on your website or on a social media page with reviews? Is the goal to make a purchase, request more info, sign-up for email list, or maybe is it all three? The decisions made will define how to set up the top of your sales funnel.

You have a website, but what is its purpose? Is it informational, a lead generator, or e-commerce?
What is your ideal sales process?
What is your customer’s ideal sales process? This is a tough one. In many cases, your ideals may not match with your customer’s.

Bringing prospects to a website with undefined goals, a poor customer experience or an unclear call to action (CTA) is like throwing money into the gutter. You have their attention, now what do they need to do next?

Take the below example: This coffee house spent the time, effort, and money on a Google ad to entice visits to their site, but when the ad is clicked, prospects are sent to the homepage with no CTA. This is a lost opportunity because the coffee house was not clear on their sales funnel process.

Top Of Sales Funnel

Marketing your business through advertisements is feeding your top of the funnel. To move prospects through your funnel, you will need to have a landing page in mind and determine how you will measure leads and sale conversions. Not sure how? Contact me now!

Facebook and Google are great places to advertise. They have massive reach and the cost is affordable, but diving in without a plan can be detrimental to your budget.

What most small business owners don’t know is how to leverage the data these ads produce. Ads will increase traffic to your site, but what happens after a prospect clicks on the ad is the most important part. You have started a conversation and need to be confident on where you want the conversation to end up. A good night kiss or proposal.

Selling Is Like Dating

Not all customers are ready to buy the first time they come to your site. As a customer moves through the sales process, their level of commitment does too. Depending on where they are in their buying process, a presumptuous CTA might spook them.

Take the below example: At this point, the lead is likely brand new to Joss & Main. They’re perfect strangers, and yet, the CTA is commanding them to “JOIN NOW”? Talk about intimidating.

Think of it as a first date. Your intentions are going to drive how the conversation goes. Are you wanting a one time buyer or someone who will make a second purchase and become a loyal customer who shares their relationship experience with their friends?

I hope the answer is loyal customer or your business might be set up for a trip to the free clinic. One and done customers are great, but don’t help your business grow. You have invested your time and money into bringing in new customers, so the smart move is to keep them coming back.

Middle of Sales Funnel

The middle of the sales funnel is where you will begin to qualify your prospects and continue the conversation. By giving prospects a reason to come back, you will ultimately keep your business top of mind. The hard sale is off putting, gentle reminders are the key to success.

Is the prospect ready to buy?
What information does your prospect need to make their purchase decision, and is there a place on your website to get this information?

Each time they come back is a win for you as you are building that relationship. It gives you an opportunity to ask them questions and find out more about them. Successful relationships are built on trust and remembering the little things makes the other party feel comfortable. Nailing this part of the sales funnel will make sure you have strong qualified leads and customers that will sing your praises on social media. A automated email process and CRM is key for this process to work.

Bottom of Sales Funnel

Just like in a relationship, if your customer finds out they have been lied to – well you better get your divorce papers ready, because they are taking half your shit.

If your ad promises 50% off, you have started a conversation with an expectation and you better darn well deliver. Customer’s do not have time to jump through hoops, so get to the point. The bottom of the sales funnel needs to be simple and easy.

Below is an e-commerce example of what not to do. The photos look crisp and it is easy to see what the products are, but the text color of the “Add to Cart” button blends in with the background and the text size is extremely small and hard to see.

Successful relationships are built on trust — if your customer finds out they have been lied to — you better get your divorce papers ready, because they are taking half your stuff.

Don’t set yourself up for failure. In today’s fast paced world, your customers are viewing your page on their mobile devices and making their purchases while waiting in line at the grocery store. They are distracted! It is your job as a small business owner to set them up for a successful purchase and make it easy. If your customer’s struggle on your page then you will struggle with your sales.