What Is The Sales Funnel Process?

Converting a prospect into a buyer is not a walk in the park. A sales funnel process is a must-have for any business that is dependant on customers to grow.  The funnel has to be designed in a way that it properly captures your prospect’s path and keeps them active all the way until they are able to make a purchase.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is the path which your potential customers take when buying a product or service.   A sales funnel is illustrated as an inverted pyramid. The width of the funnel shows the size of the audience. The top of the funnel usually reflects your website visitors while the bottom is a representation of a buyer.

Some customers may not leave the top of the funnel while others will get to the bottom. Fortunately for you, this article will help you know how to get your prospects to the bottom of your sales funnel.

What is the Importance of a Sales Funnel?

Do I need sales funnels for my business? Here are some of the reasons why having a sales funnel is important to your business:

• Without a sales funnel, you are unlikely to deliver the right content at the right time. A sales funnel helps you fill in the gaps in the information your customers need each time they are on your website.  It simply saves your customer the agony of leaving your website unattended.
• A sales funnel helps you engage with your customers through content that addresses their problems. Your customers are likely to stick around to see what solutions you offer. At this stage, they will see how many solutions you offer and increase their chances of trusting you.
• Your sales funnel helps you streamline your marketing strategy to enable the customers to get the information they are looking for at each stage. By looking at your visitor’s behaviour on your website, you can tell what content they are looking for. You can then come up with a strategy to target them at each stage of the funnel.

Sales Funnel Stages

There are several terms that you can use to describe the journey of a prospect.  The names used to describe the process depend on your business. Remember that a customer intending to buy a product may enter the funnel but not go through all the stages. Again, your conversion rates are crucial at each stage of the sales funnel. Lets now look at the sales funnel stages:

1. Awareness

Your readers are constantly seeking solutions to their problems. At this stage, they are still unfolding their problem. They learn about a solution, service or product available to deal with their problem.  During the awareness stage, the user makes their first visit to your website for the time through the search engine, ads or any other channel.

2. Interest

During this stage, your potential customer is fully aware of their problem and is now engaged in finding a solution. At this stage, they are actively doing their research comparing brands service and products.

They search for a solution on a search engine such as Google. They are then swallowed in by your content which is valuable to them but is not salesy. Remember, creating content that has your product or service at the beginning is likely to turn off your potential buyer.

Your goal with the content should be to offer them information and room to make their own decision.  At this stage, your prospect may follow you on your social media platforms. They may also subscribe to your email list.

3. Decision

At this stage, your potential buyer is thinking of making use of the solution you are offering. They look keenly into what you have to offer, pricing and packaging.  You need to make an excellent offer at this point so that the prospect is eager to pay for your service or product.

You may choose to entice your customer through discounts,  and bonuses. The point here is to make your offer so attractive.

4. Action

During the action stage of the sales funnel, your customer purchases your service or product. They simply check out and money lands in your bank account. You are happy at this point but wait, it doesn’t end here!

5. Retention

This stage focuses on how to bring the customer back for another purchase. You can thank the customer and ask them to leave a review. Make it clear that you are available for any questions they could be having.

The retention stage simply focuses on keeping your customer satisfied so that they market your product or service and also stay loyal to your brand.

Here are some ways to keep your customer happy:

• Send them relevant content via emails
• Send them guidelines on how to use a product
• Offer an excellent customer care service
• Make follow-ups to ensure they were satisfied with your product or services

Final Thoughts

A successful sales funnel takes time to build.  Your sales funnel is like a mirror, it helps you see where you are going wrong so that you are able to adjust your approaches.  Your unique sales funnel is what you need to take your business to the next level.

Understand that nurturing your customer through all the sales funnel stages is one way to take them to the bottom of the funnel. You need to interact with your customers irrespective of what stage they are in the funnel. The A/B testing programs can help you include tests so that you are able to properly optimize your website. Tracking the behaviours of your customers will enable you to implement strategies that will eventually turn them into buyers in real-time.

Do not be afraid to make mistakes along the way, you can only learn from them. You will get better with each day until you reach your business goals. We hope we helped you get a better understanding of the sales funnel process and how you can use it to your own advantage.

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