You’ve spent a lot of time developing your product or service, and now you’re ready for people to buy it. But your customers have a long way to go to get from mild curiosity about your business to purchase your product or service. You can guide them on their journey by designing a sales funnel to guide them on their way.
Sales funnels aren’t anything new. They’ve been around since Elias St. Elmo Lewis designed the process in 1898. Sales funnels today look much different than they did a century ago, but the general idea is still the same.
What is a sales funnel?
Your sales funnel shows the steps that customers need to take to go from initial awareness of your company to purchasing (or deciding not to purchase) your product or service. There are many steps between these two stages, and ensuring your customers stay engaged with and interested in your company helps ensure they make it from the beginning stage to the end.
There are four stages of the sales funnel:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Decision
- Action
Every customer starts at the awareness stage, but only some customers make it to the action stage. We’ll explain more about each of these stages below.
Why are they important?
Most customers won’t purchase because they see an ad or end up on your company’s website. They need to learn about your products and services, see how they work, hear about other people’s experiences, and more. They may need some time to think about their decision. You can lose them if you don’t keep them engaged.
When you understand your sales funnel, you can design the funnel to maximize your chance of closing sales. You control each step of the journey, and you can adjust it when you find out certain parts aren’t working well. You can keep customers engaged throughout the process so you lose fewer leads and convert more prospects.
A dedicated sales funnel saves you time and effort because it gives your customers the information they want at the right time. If you were building a home, your builder wouldn’t ask you to choose your paint color before you selected your home style. In the same way, you shouldn’t ask your customers to buy your product when all they know about you is from a 5-second ad they saw on YouTube.
The four stages of the sales funnel
You can remember the four stages of the sales funnel by using the acronym AIDA to remember the steps: awareness, interest, decision, and action.
Awareness
Awareness is the initial stage of the sales funnel. Awareness can happen in many ways. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, awareness may occur when a customer walks by your storefront. It can also occur when a customer sees an ad for your business online when they see something a friend posted on social media, or when they find you through an online search.
While some buyers may purchase at this stage, it’s much more likely that they’ll continue to the next step of the sales funnel. Just like all relationships, sales relationships usually take time to nurture.
Interest
When your customer reaches the interest stage, they are beginning to research your product or service. They’re going to be reading the content you have on your website, such as blogs and newsletters. This content helps them build trust in your company and your product or service and deepens the relationship.
Decision
At the decision stage, your customer is ready to make a decision. However, they may still compare you to your competition and evaluate your products and prices. They’re reading your blogs and checking out your reviews.
They may be ready for more in-depth content such as white papers and ebooks at this stage. This is also where you can help them decide to choose you over the competition by offering perks such as free products or a discount code.
Action
The final stage of the funnel is where your customer takes the action of either buying or not buying from you. When your customer reaches this stage, your job still isn’t done. If they purchased from you, you want to retain them so they come back for more. And if they decide to purchase somewhere else, you may still be able to contact them occasionally and end up converting them eventually.
How to build a sales funnel
Here are the steps to take when you’re ready to build a sales funnel of your own.
Get information
The first step in your sales funnel isn’t about you – it’s about your customers. What do they need? What problems are you solving for them? Where are their pain points? Once you have solid customer information, you’ll be well-positioned to launch your sales funnel.
Check out your customer reviews. If you don’t already have this information, that’s okay! You can learn it by looking at patterns from your previous or existing customers. You can even learn information by looking at what people say about your competitors. Once you have this information, you can use it to guide the type of content you create.
Get attention
How will people find your company? You’ll need to reach your customers where they are. Create interesting, informative content for your customers to get them into your sales funnel. Depending on your product and your customers, this could include blog posts, videos, ads, ebooks, or more. You can also use search engine optimization (SEO) to grow your audience organically.
Build your landing page
Your landing page is where your customers can go all in on your offer by taking the next step in the process, such as signing up for your email list. Some tips for building a successful landing page include grabbing the visitor’s attention with a headline, giving customers an offer they can’t refuse, showing social proof such as reviews, and including a clear call to action so your customers know what to do next.
Make an offer
Your offer doesn’t have to be the product or service itself, but you need your prospects to stay engaged. This could mean offering a lead magnet such as a free ebook, a guide, or access to a webinar when they sign up for your email list. You could also let them try your service for free for a month before they decide to buy it.
Nurture the relationship
Now that you have their email address, you can begin nurturing your relationship by sending out regular emails, also called an email drip campaign. These emails can educate them about your product and even drive them back to your website to read more blogs or case studies. These emails aren’t necessary to make the sale, but rather, they inform customers so they’ll stay engaged with your company and eventually make a purchase.
Your email nurturing campaign needs to be personalized to the individual. That doesn’t mean you need to write each potential customer their special email, but it does mean you should segment your email list into different categories. New sign-ups should receive different emails from repeat customers. Once your new sign-ups are through your initial drip campaign, give them your best offer to make the sale.
Keep communicating
Did you make the sale? Awesome! You’ll want to keep communicating with them to be sure they come back again. You can run promotions by giving them coupons. Other options include continuing to educate them about your product or services, keeping them up to date on new products, and giving them referral codes to share with their friends.
And if they didn’t buy anything yet, you can still keep communicating with them. Some customers may need more time to make a decision. Or, maybe the time isn’t right for them to buy your product or service. But that’s okay because you can keep sending them emails to remind them of the value you offer them.
Track your results and adjust as needed
Once you have your sales funnel in place, you can begin keeping track of your metrics. How many people are clicking on your landing page and then signing up for your emails? How many people are opening your emails? How many are purchasing by the time they get to that last email in your initial nurturing campaign?
Once you have your metrics, you can begin to see holes in your sales funnel. If you notice a big drop-off from one step to the next, that can be a good sign that it’s time to look at that step and see what you can do differently.
It’s always a good idea to A/B test your emails. To do this, you’ll send an email with the same content but different subject lines to a portion of your email addresses to see which one gets opened more. You can also A/B test different parts of your offer. For example, do more people prefer a discount code or free shipping? Do more people prefer a case study or an ebook when they land on your landing page?
Final thoughts on creating a sales funnel
Building a sales funnel is a unique process for each business. And, once you build it, you’ll need to continually tweak it until it becomes a lead-generating, sales-closing machine. You may also need multiple sales funnels for different products and services your company offers.
Marketing is a never-ending job, and sales funnels are just one part of it. Learn more about how to create a great marketing plan to create a big-picture plan for your business.