How to Create a Sales Funnel that Converts

How can you create a high-converting sales funnel? The sales funnel is one of the most important concepts in the digital marketing world. It can transform a small business into a global multimillion-dollar company within a short time, as well as provide scalable, sustainable growth for companies at any level.

Generally speaking, a sales funnel is a multi-step process that converts your site visitors into buyers. It has multiple stages that act as steps that a potential buyer takes from the point of an anonymous user to the time they decide to purchase your product. Why do companies need sales funnels? Few people will purchase your product with only the first glance at your website. It takes time for them to know you and trust your credibility. That is what the sales funnel is about. It helps you to gain trust and build a productive relationship with your prospective buyer so they can press the purchase button. 

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel refers to the steps someone has to take to become your customer. For example, if you own a physical store, many people will pass by it, and some will decide to walk in. The people who walk in make it to the next stage of the sales funnel. A prospective customer then sees a rack of shirts at the corner of the store and decides to check them out. This customer is now in the next stage of the sales funnel. The customer takes out 3 shirts and observes them. At this point, the customer is in the last stage of the sales funnel. If impressed by the shirts, then the customer will buy them. 

Your sales funnel demonstrates the path that your prospective clients take to purchase your products. Understanding your funnel helps you detect the stages where your prospects leave and never convert into buyers. You can then create a formidable marketing strategy to counter the problems at those stages so that more prospects turn into clients.

What are the advantages of using a sales funnel?

Using a sales funnel will help you achieve your business goals fast because you get a better understanding of the behavior of your potential customers. A sales funnel has multiple stages where prospects either leave or move on to the next one. By learning the stages where prospects leave your funnel, you can learn when you need to use particular marketing methods that improve the customer journey. So, here is a quick overview of the advantages of using a sales funnel.  

Better conversions

A sales funnel reveals the holes in your marketing strategies where prospects leave and never convert. After learning these problems, you can improve the strategies to ensure better conversions at a scalable rate that improves business growth over the long run. 

Improve customer journey

Understanding your sales funnel enables you to create better offers and value-driven content at the different stages to better persuade a customer to buy your product. A customer buys from you, because they enjoy something about your products, services, or brand. So, a sales funnel helps you make that experience for customers as enjoyable as possible.

Enables optimization

Creating your sales funnel improves your marketing strategies and positions you to achieve your business goals. You become aware of the marketing channels that should be replaced or intensified to retain more prospects at the bottom of the sales funnel (where users convert). You can optimize this process so that it consistently improves and grows your business. 

Sales Funnel Stages

There are 4 typical sales funnel stages: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. You can easily remember them using the acronym: AIDA. These stages represent the prospective customer’s mindset so you know which type of message to send during each stage. It is similar to the scenario where a waiter can’t provide dessert before you even order the appetizer. Am I making any sense? 

1. Awareness

This is the stage where you catch a potential customer’s attention for the first time. It can be through a Google Search, a Linkedin post, a tweet or any other way. This prospective buyer gets to know your business and the products you offer. If prospects are highly impressed, then they can purchase your product immediately at this stage. This can happen when the prospect has initially done research about products similar to yours and considers your price to be the most reasonable. Most often, this stage is about wooing the visitor to return to your website again, engage them with your content, and encourage them to move further down the funnel.

2. Interest

If your prospects reach this stage, then they are doing research and comparing prices of similar products from different sellers. This is the moment to provide valuable content that helps them make the best choice for the products. You must avoid selling at this stage because it turns off consumers. Instead, establish your expertise and provide help in whichever way that you can so they make an informed decision. Be a guide, not a pushy salesperson.

3.  Decision

The decision stage is when the lead is ready to make a purchase. They have already done their research on the products with the best qualities and are maybe considering two or three options. Hopefully, your product could be among them. This is the moment to make your best offer, something like a bonus product or even free shipping when most of your competitors charge shipping fees. Whatever the offer may be, make it so attractive that the prospect will choose you over your competitors. 

4. Action 

Action is the bottom stage of the sales funnel. At this point, prospects must act. They buy your product and become your customers. Despite accomplishing your goal of turning a prospect into a client, there are still many things to do. You will need to make these clients purchase more products by turning them into loyal followers. You can do this by showing gratitude for the purchase and inviting them to give feedback and offer after-sales services such as support.   

A Common Sales Funnel Example

Imagine you are a successful writer who makes over $10,000 per month freelancing. You decide to create an online course that teaches other freelance writers to increase their income. Probably, your target clients use Facebook 24/7, and some are on Medium.com. 

You create fantastic Facebook ads that drive traffic to a landing page on your website. On this page, you ask the leads to join an email list in exchange for a freebie that is irresistible. On Medium you post a series of informative articles about how writers can increase their income in various writing publications. You end each article with a Call to Action (CTA) that also offers compelling freebies in exchange for joining your email list.  

Over the next few days or weeks, you send out educational content to your subscribers on how freelance writers can increase their income, share testimonials and help them figure out the steps they can take to achieve this goal. At the end of the email series, you send an offer of a 50 percent discount to subscribers who purchase your writing course. And Bang! Before you know it, more than half of your subscribers have bought the course! 

Then, you transfer these subscribers who purchased your online course to another email list and start educating them on another product, probably on how they can also create a successful online course like you. This is how you retain customers.

Here are the stages of this sales funnel: 

1. Awareness: You created Facebook ads and Medium articles with CTAs to attract your target market to your website.

2. Interest: You designed freebies that were irresistible (value) in exchange for prospects joining your email list.  

3. Decision: Your content positions you as an expert in freelance writing. It persuades subscribers to choose your course over other competitors.

4. Action: You offer a discount that your prospects cannot turn down. They purchase your online course.

How to Create a Sales Funnel

I guess you’re excited and probably want to create your sales funnel immediately and fast. Although it might sound difficult, it’s actually pretty simple.

Step 1: Create buyer personas

The better you know your audience, the more effective your sales funnel will be. You can start by studying the pages that your audience visits most on your website and improve the pages with high bounce rates. This information will help you define your buyer personas. Free tools like Google Analytics are a great way to understand your website audience. 

Step 2: Capture your audience’s attention 

You can transform site visitors into buyers only if you provide valuable content that solves their problems. You can do this by intensifying marketing campaigns with a high ROI, such as Facebook ads or Linkedin ads. These ads should be placed on platforms where your ideal customer hangs out. You can also create infographics, videos, and other effective content that clients can use. 

Step 3: Create a landing page

The ads and other informative forms of content should take your prospect to a landing page. The landing page should offer an irresistible freebie in exchange for your prospect’s email. It should have a bold call to action that encourages the lead to either download an ebook or watch a tutorial. It directs the prospect to the next stage of the sales funnel.  

Step 4: Create an email series for a marketing campaign

Persuade your leads using emails to send out valuable content that helps them achieve their goals. Do this regularly, like once a day or twice a week. At the end of the email series, provide an enticing offer. It is the content that will encourage your subscribers to purchase your product. 

Step 5: Follow up

Thank the subscribers for buying your product. Invite them to give feedback and involve them in your social media campaigns, including testimonials. You can also offer other types of products to them. 

Get Help Creating Your Own Sales Funnel

Now that you’ve learned how to create a sales funnel including its benefits, what are you going to do next? Because we are digital marketers ourselves, we can help you come up with an effective sales funnel that ensures most of your prospects turn into loyal and repeat buyers of your products and services. 

At IDI, our team of experts will optimize your sales funnel to meet the needs of your different site visitors. Instead of guessing what a site visitor may want, we will provide unique landing pages for each type of product or ad that you run. We will also identify the holes in your current sales funnel and come up with marketing strategies that efficiently solve those problems to increase your conversions. Let us help you achieve your business goals by creating effective sales funnels that transform more prospects into customers and sustainably grow your business!