Are you not getting desired sales and profits even after applying all your digital marketing efforts?
If yes, you are not alone because many businesses struggle in sales.
Behind this, we can blame the lack of proper planning and wrong decision-making.
Even if we are assuming you are doing everything right from content optimization to using a call to action button, still, there are chances that your prospects might not show interest in your product.
If you are not observing sales, it means you need to work on your sales funnel.
Yes, this is something, which plays a crucial role in sales and profit-making.
We did some research and experiments on a site and it resulted in the conclusion that nurturing leads is one of the most important parts of the sales funnel.
There are plenty of things to know about this hot topic, which we are going to discuss in this guide.
And after reading this, we will come to know about sales funnel stages, sales funnel template, etc. but let us start with the sales funnel definition.
What is Sales Funnel?
The digital marketing funnel, lead funnel, marketing pipeline are alternative terms used for the sales funnel.
It refers to a framework that contains a buyer’s journey.
From knowing about the product to purchasing a product or service, every step is mentioned in the sales funnel.
And the purpose of designing a sales funnel is to convert a lead to a paying customer.
But do you know that there are four primary sales funnel stages including –
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
In case you want to remember it, use the acronym AIDA.
Stages of Sales Funnel
Each stage of the sales funnel requires various approaches for avoiding mistakes.
- Awareness– In this stage, the prospect becomes aware of your products and services. This is the first instance when they end up making a purchase.
- Interest– Prospects study your products and business that develops their interest. Using compelling content, you can keep the prospect’s interest high in your products.
- Decision– Now, your prospect is ready to decide whether it is time to buy the product or not.
- Action– At the last stage of the sales funnel, your prospects convert into buying customers.
Steps to Build Powerful Sales Funnel
1) Attract customers with Lead Magnet
It is marketing strategy where we offer FREE materials or services for the purpose of collecting leads. Example- Guide, newsletter, trial subscriptions etc.
Such as we made a Complete List of Marketing Automation Tools which is FREE for you.
You have to let them know the value you are providing.
Like, tell them the advantages of using your product.
For this, create the lead magnet according to what they are seeking.
Make sure your lead magnet is offering in-depth and actual value such as giving an e-book, a statistical report, a video course, and so on.
2) Understand your Audience
Before beginning the construction of a marketing sales funnel, you need to understand the audience and their interests.
Find out what solutions are they seeking.
You have to figure out which social media platforms they prefer, what grabs their interest, and what they hate while purchasing any product.
3) Create Buyer Persona
Craft your buyer persona using marketing campaigns but depending on the segments of your target audience.
To get help in building an effective buyer persona, you can ask some questions link “why they will purchase your product?
What triggered them to buy your product?
How they will use the same product in their daily life? Having answers to all these will help in building a powerful digital sales funnel.
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3) Planning out the Content & Generating Traffic
Creating blogs is not enough for lead generation but it will pay off in the long run when you monetize the blog.
Search and collect the blog topics that have the potential to attract your targeted audience.
- After collecting as many topics as possible use a keyword research tool like SEMrush.
- Employ the high-ranking keywords in your content.
- You can also design interactive videos, promote blog content on social media, and use email marketing for promotions and sharing newsletters.
All these develop the trust of your prospects in your business.
For running a sales funnel website or blog, you will need hosting and domain, which you can get from Nameserver.
And remember one thing that with some quality content, you can drive traffic, increase brand awareness, and do a lot more easily.
4) Running Paid Ads
To run paid ads, you have to select the right platform.
You can run as many ads as you want to test and when you find the one working and delivering results, stick to that.
- Track conversions and sign up.
- Repeat for better reach and exposure to the targeted audience. The best place is Facebook and Instagram for running paid ads.
- To monitor reach and everything else, SocialPilot is there to assist you.
5) Convert Leads and deploy CTA
It’s vital to have fewer form fields and a straightforward way to sign up/sign in or making a purchase.
These will boost up lead conversion.
Along with that, offer a referral program, reward them with discounts or giveaways.
Do whatever is possible from your side.
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6) Test the Lead generation funnel and track results
Until now, you have performed content marketing and email marketing strategy for an attractive audience.
Now, when you add the website, click on the admin URL for getting the tracking code.
Use the same on all the pages for monitoring conversions.
And don’t forget to test as much as possible.
This way, you can check what is working and what isn’t.
Bring improvement in the funnel where needed.
Keep the track of results and conversions using Google Analytics to measure the overall performance of the sales funnel.
Conclusion
Learning sales funnel management takes time and patience.
You have to experiment and keep the main focus on giving value to customers.
And, your brand has to work on content marketing and email marketing approach to build a better sales funnel.
Below are the recommended tools for BUILDING SALES FUNNEL:
For email marketing automation:
- OptinMonster
- Contactually
- HubSpot
- LeadSquared
- Campaign Monitor
Types of lead magnate:
- Checklist
- Cheatsheet
- Template
- Swipe File
- Examples
- Script
- Toolkit
- Resource List
- Calendar
- Plan/Planner
- Worksheet/Workbook