Most teams and companies selling a product or service will be familiar with a sales funnel. You cast a wide net out to your target demographic and slowly squeeze potential customers down the funnel until you reach the end goal — that all-important sale.
A sales funnel can be effective at converting potential customers into paying ones. However, not all sales funnels are created equal. Your sales funnel should be personalized to your market segment(s) and your business. It gives you an idea of what you need to do to gain the trust and custom of your target audience.
So how can you optimize this process? We’re going to look at several key ways to optimize conversions via your sales funnel and why this is important to your business strategy.
Why is a sales funnel an important part of a business’ strategy?
A sales funnel is a crucial element of a business’ strategy. It allows you to visualize your customer journey from the minute prospects discover your brand until the moment they make a purchase.
If you don’t optimize your sales funnel, you risk losing out on valuable customers. You have the power to influence potential purchasers at each stage of the sales funnel, which is why it’s considered a vital part of your business strategy.
The sales funnel gives you a better understanding of customer behavior, and you may even alter business practices based on data from it. For instance, if you notice customers add things to their cart but abandon the checkout once they see your shipping costs, you might consider lowering or making them free. You can automate some of these processes with RPA solutions and technology as well.
Other benefits of optimizing your sales funnel include:
Creating more loyal customers once you understand their wants and needs;
Pushing more prospects through the sales funnel;
Identifying the best marketing strategy to catch customers at the awareness stage; and
Understand your audience
To max out conversions, you need to target those who are interested in purchasing your products, so understanding your audience is key. If you are targeting the wrong type of customer, your sales funnel will be ineffective, costing you time, money and resources, and delivering very little in the way of results.
The awareness stage is at the very beginning of the sales funnel. You need to capture as many leads as possible in order to keep your reach wide. If you target too small an audience, or a niche audience, you risk losing out on customers that may have converted at the end of the sales funnel.
Build up your target audience’s buyer persona. Include age, gender, income, location and so on. Depending on how niche your product or service is, this may be quite specific. Once you thoroughly research your audience, you will have a greater chance of converting them into paying customers.
And, when you understand who you are targeting, you can then decide how you will target them — on social media, through marketing campaigns, etc.
Top three areas for audience research and personalization are 1) Content Marketing, 2) Social Media Marketing, and 3) SEO.
Analyze your landing pages
Your landing page should be relevant to your customers’ interests. You can use it specifically to promote your product or service or as a general source of information on the company and what you can offer them.
This is still in the early stages of your sales funnel as it’s one of the first interactions a prospect has with your business, especially if they find you via a Google search. Once a customer has passed the awareness stage of the sales funnel by finding your business, they filter through to the interest stage. This is where they head to your website to see whether you’re offering something they need.
Say the customer is looking for “video conferencing software.” When the search results come up in Google, they will usually be directed to a landing page.
Ensure your content is engaging and interesting, and include persuasive language to entice the reader. If a potential customer clicks away from your landing page too soon, it can affect your bounce rate.
This might be down to something fixable, such as the page loading speed. If your website is too slow, customers may give up and go elsewhere.
Be active on social media
Where is your traffic coming from? If you create engaging content on your social channels, it’s possible that the majority of people heading to your site are finding you through social media. So it’s important you stay active on your social channels.
Social media is unique because it can cover every stage of the sales funnel. You can:
Build brand awareness through engaging posts;
Drum up interest with competitions;
Direct followers to your website; and
Even sell directly from the “Shop” feature in the app.
It could be argued that social media is mainly part of the awareness stage of the sales funnel, simply because it aims to entice followers and therefore, business awareness. But don’t underestimate the ability to sell at this stage.
Hire or contract out a social media manager and feed them exciting content. Posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok will give your company significant exposure. You can get marketing apps to help with this.
Utilize reviews and testimonials
What better way to receive praise than from a happy customer? Even more so when that customer tells their friends and family about your business. This creates trust for your brand, which is an important element of the sales funnel. It also helps you build relationships with your customers. This boosts the chances of repeat purchases.
If a customer has come far enough to look at reviews and testimonials of your brand, they have made it to the desire stage of the sales funnel. They are intrigued enough to look at what others think of your product and want to see whether it’s worth making a purchase.
Sometimes you can integrate these reviews into your website and showcase them next to your products. This enables you to stand out from your competitors and gives customers a good idea of what quality of service they will be receiving if they order from you.
Take Glip compared to Microsoft Teams, for instance. Each has great features to offer customers, but the business that will have the edge is the brand that effectively reaches out and connects with them.
Create engaging content
Building a strong identity is a must. To optimize your sales funnel, you need to build relationships with your customers — both old and new. This can be done through brand tone of voice and image, and overall brand identity.
Engaging content will attract customers at the very start of the sales funnel. These prospects will hopefully trickle down the funnel and convert into paying customers.
When a customer feels connected to your brand, whether it’s your products or your philosophy, they are more likely to engage with it. This should be part of your brand communication strategy.
Content on social media should encourage customers to like, comment, share and even convert into paying customers. The content on your website should be just as engaging, sharing the same tonality and brand persona that’s featured on the social site.
This promotes consistency, which buyers appreciate. Invest in video production, graphic designers, and photographers to take your content creation to the next level.
Use strong CTAs
Calls to action are all about converting customers from the desire to the purchase stage of your sales funnel. To do this, they should feature heavily in your content. This includes phrases like “Try our demo now!” or “Contact the team today for more details.”
They should also be included in promotional emails and at the basket stage of the checkout for any last-minute offers. This encourages buyers to make their purchase or even to spend a little extra.
Ensure your CTAs are enticing, which means bold text and a pop of color. That way they’re easily identifiable and the reader’s eye is automatically drawn to them.
You can also have your CTA as a clickable button that leads the customer to another landing page, such as ‘Go Premium,’ with the option to sign up for new product launches, services and solutions.
How will you optimize your sales funnel to maximize conversions?
Hopefully, you can take some tips from this article and analyze your sales funnel for better conversions. Think about your target audience, what they expect from you, and how you can win them over ahead of your competitors. Get the team together using secure business communications tools and discuss how you can change your practices.
Remember:
Understand your audience
Create goals
Revise landing pages
Have a solid social media presence
Utilize reviews and testimonials
Create engaging content
Use strong CTAs
By checking the above against your existing sales funnel, you may spot flaws or areas in which you can improve. This can help you max out conversions and create lasting relationships with loyal customers.
For additional details on how M. Allen is helping clients, click on the 1 minute video below:
