A winning sales funnel is essential for any business looking to drive conversions and increase revenue. But how do you build a winning sales funnel?
First and foremost, it’s important to understand the concept of a sales funnel. A sales funnel is a marketing model that outlines the journey a customer takes from awareness of a product or service to the point of purchase. The funnel is divided into different stages, starting with the top of the funnel (TOFU) where the customer is first introduced to the product or service, and ending with the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) where the customer completes the purchase.
Here is the ultimate guide to building a winning sales funnel:
Determine and Understand Your Target Audience
There are times the customer profiling is rushed in favor of more daunting tasks of running a sales funnel. But if you don’t think about your customer profile thoroughly, your next efforts would be for naught.
For example, your product is chocolate. Everybody loves chocolate, especially kids. You can even say your demographic consists of children. But upon looking closer, are children the main decision-makers in buying chocolate? No, it’s their parents who are concerned about their dental health.
This is why, in any industry, customer profiling is an important first step to a sales funnel. Which demographics of chocolate lovers would willingly buy chocolate in high amounts? It could be patissiers who need large amounts of chocolate for their chocolate layer cakes. Or amusement parks that need a constant supply of snacks for their visitors. Now the question is, which of these demographics would you market for? Upon choosing, you can then continue to understand their pain points, needs and buying behavior (such as at what occasion would they have a huge demand for chocolate).
Your Ultimate Offer and Promise
In this digital age, we are in competition with many others who sell the same product or service as you. The question is, how would you stand out in the short span that you have their attention? This is where your offer and promise comes in. What utmost benefit can your potential customers expect with your product or service with the least amount of their pain points? If you can answer it all in one line of a sentence, you’re in for a good start.
Back to the example of chocolates again, suppose you chose patissiers as your target audience. What utmost benefit can you give them in relation to your chocolate with the promise of the least amount of frustrations? We can say your ultimate offer and promise can be, “Our 72% cocoa-solid chocolate melts in 288 seconds for fast-paced production.”
Once you have your offer and promise packed in one sentence, you can use it in every content that you make: your ads, your opening line to your every landing page, headlines to the main page of your website and more.
Make Your Website Mobile-friendly
More people are using their smartphones to be online and make purchases. Some big corporations even give discounts to mobile users to encourage using their online store app to rank well in Google Play Store. As a business with an online presence, you too must adapt.
Back to the patissier chocolate example, a patissier may need an emergency order of dark chocolate as they are running out of supplies. They may not be able to access their desktop for any reason. If your website is easy to shop in by mobile, not only do you get a sale, you also get customer loyalty for having a reliable site.
Therefore, your website and landing pages should respond to mobile visitors and accommodate their screens for easy navigation. By doing so, you increase engagement for your website and get higher chances of conversion. Test the user experience of your website in both mobile and tablet to ensure that your sales process in those devices are streamline and frustration-free with less bounce rates.
Funnel through Social Media
Social media platforms are a great opportunity to drive large amounts of potential customers into your sales funnel. It increases brand awareness and exposure. Choosing a social media platform depends on 1.) which platform does your target audience frequent the most, and 2.) which platform would showcase your product more effectively?
Social media platforms can be a powerful tool for driving traffic to your sales funnel. Use social media to share your content, engage with your audience, and direct them to your website and landing pages. This will help increase brand awareness and exposure.
In the chocolate example, Instagram can effectively showcase short videos on how good their chocolate looks like when melted and stirred. They can even make simple recipes that patissiers can serve in their establishments with tasteful photos.
Social media can even help you engage and build relationships with potential customers. It helps you give shoutouts for those who mention your brand in their accounts, encourage interactions by holding contests with discounts as rewards and even answer questions your target audience may have regarding your product or service.
Retarget with Ads
Retargeting ads re-engage potential customers and retain customer loyalty. They increase conversions by making them return to the sales funnel. Some potential customers may be interested in your product or service but may not be ready to commit yet for whatever reason. Retargeting ads remind them that they can claim pleasure or avoid pain points which may be the final push they need to take action.
Going back to the chocolate example again, a patisserie owner may not need your dark chocolate when they have become aware of your brand. But while browsing Facebook at a different time, they may come across the retargeting ad and remember your brand and offer. Especially when they realize the ad says that it now has a discount that they can’t miss.
Doing A/B Tests
You can test different versions of your sales funnel to get maximum results. A/B testing helps you understand which one performs better in converting potential customers. You can test different headlines, offers, CTAs, layouts and images. After some time, you will have a deeper understanding on what works better for your business.
For example, you can test which headline works better: “Get special discounts this Christmas” or “Get 20% off this Christmas.”
Tracking and Analyzing Your Sales Funnel
This is the measuring stick for your sales funnel performance. Google Analytics and other tools allow you to see where web visitors come from, where do they bounce off, which landing pages convert the most and more. By being informed with all this date, you can fine tune and adjust your sales funnel as needed.
For example, you may want to consider if you should focus all your efforts on Facebook ads than in Instagram ads. You can use Google Analytics to find which social media campaigns work better and make your decision from there.
Building a Sales Funnel that Converts
An effective sales funnel is important in the sales process of any business. By identifying your target audience, you can make a compelling offer. With a compelling offer, you make targeting content to attract more customers. Optimizing the material in social media and ads for both desktop and mobile users extends your reach. Then it can be further strengthened by testing content and analyzing the results. RocketFuel can help you further by creating a predictable and proven sales funnel for you. Schedule a call with us today.
