Sales funnel can be defined as the process through which a customer passes to purchase your product. The purpose of the sales funnel is to finally make your prospect buy your product. Each stage carries a certain significance as each stage brings the prospect a step closer to you. Here we have discussed in detail the stages of a sales funnel are and what benefits you can achieve from it.
Stages of Sales Funnel
Here are the four stages of a sales funnel.
Awareness
Awareness is the first step of the sales funnel. At this stage, you need to grab the attention of your potential customer. It could be through anything that is, your post they saw randomly at their feed, or it could be through any influencer on social media. Potential customers get familiarized with you.
If your product attracts them enough, there are chances that they will make the purchase right away. If such a case occurs, it means that the client already has enough knowledge about the product you offer. This stage is all about convincing the prospect through your words, visuals, or anything else to increase their engagement. There are many ways you can employ to increase awareness about your business:
- Choose a logo and packaging
- Participate in a brand awareness campaign
- Guest blog for other sites
- Begin a referral program
- Increase social media presence
- Use personalized hashtags
- Sponsor local events
Interest
This is the stage where people usually start thinking about buying your product. They compare your products with your competitors. This is a sensitive stage where you need to be really careful. It might be a make or break for you to finally attract the customer. The smart thing to do here would be to act cool and make the best endeavor to fulfill the needs of the potential customer so that they could make an informed decision. Here the prospect will need a proper guide, advantages, and disadvantages of the product, and other information.
Here you need to focus on the following factors instead of compelling your prospect to make the purchase:
- Email campaigns
- Blog posts
- Lead magnets
- Chatbots
- Retargeting campaigns
Decision
This is the stage where your prospects are almost at your threshold. There are more chances that they will make a purchase from you. Here is a list of things you can do to finally buy your product:
- Testimonials
- Pricing pages
- Bonus product
- Case studies
- Discount/promo codes
- Live demos or tutorials
- Product comparisons
Action
At the last stage, the customer finally makes the purchase. What you need to do at this stage is that you pay gratitude to the customer and ask them to provide you honest feedback. At this stage, you can focus on the following factors to convert them into your permanent clients:
- Referral programs
- Upsell campaigns
- Re-engagement email campaigns
The Value of the Sales Funnel
Deliver Right Message at the Right Time
A sales funnel helps a salesperson deliver the exact information that the prospect wants. For instance, when a customer thinks about buying a product, he is more likely to get know-how about the pros and cons of the product or certain features or models. At this time, instead of telling them other things you are offering, just answer their queries. The sales funnel does half the work for you. It allows you to determine what exactly your prospect want and you can directly answer those questions.
Alignment between Marketing and Sales
A potential customer might approach you with his queries at any time. So it is important to maintain alignment between your marketing and sales efforts so that the customers could resolve their queries at the right time. Additionally, when the prospects see you undertake their concerns, they build a sense of confidence which increases the chances of them converting into your permanent client.
Saves your Time
A steady sales funnel helps you to approach your real prospects. It saves a lot of your time by separating your serious prospects and the non-serious ones. That way you can save a lot of your time by focusing on the potential customer who you think is actually interested in your brand.
How to Create a Sales Funnel
Create a Landing Page
A landing page is a page on any website where the potential customer land to gather the required information. The main purpose of a landing page is that it motivates the visitor to take his next step and become a customer. The design of a landing page should be attractive enough to encourage the visitor. Here the visitor could sign up for your webinar, get a free trial and download your eBook.
Offer Valuable Content
The content that deals with the pain point of the customer are considered the most valuable. It should directly address what a prospect might demand. You can just share your subscription option or your email to send your deals to them.
Nurture the prospect
Once the visitor has subscribed to your page, your next step should be to provide them with everything that might interest them. Tell him about your deals, offers, and developments that will occur in your brands.
Close the deal
To close the deal, offer your prospect the best deal possible. You can provide them with a big discount, a complementary product or a free trial for a month.
Keep the process going
There are chances that the prospect will be converted into your customer. However, if he decides not to buy from you, you still have to continue educating them about your brand and make them a part of your email campaign.
If the visitor makes a purchase, build customer loyalty by providing them with valuable service.
Optimize your sales funnel
Creating a sales funnel is not the end of the game as there is always room for improvement. Keep examining where you are unable to grab the prospect, so timely optimization will be a smart thing to do.
Final Thought
Creating a sales funnel is the most significant part of every business strategy. Each step in the funnel carries the same importance for the conversion of prospects into customers. It might be a bit tricky to come up with the right strategy in the business. So the smart idea is to connect with the experts. Lamar G Marketing Tree has a great team of experts to help you make the right and informed decisions related to your business.
