A sales funnel refers to the series of steps you strategically set up to gently guide visitors to your platform from browsers to buyers.
It usually starts with a free offer, like a downloadable guide or a live webinar invitation. Then, through a series of nurturing emails, you help your potential customer better understand your brand and how you can help them. Eventually, they realize how much they need your business in their life, and they make a purchase decision. That’s the mark of a working sales funnel. It isn’t pushy and isn’t complicated, it just takes some strategic planning.
Follow these four steps to develop your own successful sales funnel:
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Build a great homepage
Your homepage tells your customers what your business is all about. It should communicate what you have to offer, why you’re the best choice, and how customers can take the first step with you– all as quickly and concisely as possible.
Your homepage is the most critical component of a working sales funnel. If your home page is confusing, cluttered, unclear, or boring, your site visitors won’t engage with your business!
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Offer a valuable free resource
Now that your homepage has informed your site visitor, it’s time to offer them an incentive to engage with you. This is commonly referred to as a lead magnet, because it motivates site visitors to share their contact info with you and engage with your brand.
Offering a free how-to guide, weekly newsletter sign-up, downloadable template, webinar invitation, or other resource related to your business begins to build a relationship with your future customer. You show yourself to be generous and helpful. Your future customer sees that you know what you’re talking about and how you offer the solution to their problem.
Note: put this resource offer on every single page of your website. The more chances visitors have to sign up, the more will actually take this step.
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Create a series of nurturing emails
Now that your future customer has provided their contact information in exchange for the free resource you offered, you can begin your email campaign.
There are hundreds of email strategies you can follow to teach your readers about your brand, engage their interests, and encourage them to buy. The best strategy for you depends on your industry. As a general rule of thumb:
- Start by thanking them for downloading your resource. Remind them about the product or service you offer and why it might help them solve their problem.
- In the second email, establish why you’re the expert in this field. You can include testimonials, a case study, or a success story here to show why your brand is worth their attention.
- Finally, encourage action in your third email. Offer a way for readers to click right into your sales page, add your product to their cart, or schedule their first appointment. The purpose of this third email is to build on the relationship you established and offer customers a next step.
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If it works, repeat! If not, tweak.
The final step in building a successful sales funnel is to analyze your results. Is your homepage holding viewer’s attention? Are visitors to your site engaging with your lead magnet? Are you seeing a spike in sales after you send your third sales email with the action step included? If you notice that you’re losing engagement at any step of your funnel, it’s time to make some adjustments.
It takes a bit of planning ahead to build a working sales funnel. But once you have it in place, new leads and sales will start rolling in. Get ready to get busy!
