Create and set up a simple and efficient sales funnel
SOMMAIRE
Some call it a sales funnel, sales funnel, a marketing funnel, a funnel or funnel conversion, … etc., what interests us is how to set up an efficient sales funnel, for any lead or objective, we will focus on creating sales funnel but you can adapt the process to any other conversion you targuet and objective you want to achieve with this funnel
What is a sales funnel and why do you need it?
A sales funnel to simplify things, is a series of actions that you will make a simple user or prospect in order to get him to execute your final call to action, be it the purchase of a product, the subscription to something, a registration, a phone call, visit your store; book a hotel room, a flight, a restaurant table ,… Etc
A good sales funnel, is created so that when so-called “cold” traffic enters the top of the conversion funnel, some of this traffic or these users, will eventually go all the way to the end of the funnel and accept your call to final action ( click the buy button for example)
So, if you have a goal to achieve online, online seller (E Commerce, affiliation, Dropshipping …) for example, you are only looking for more customers for your sewing workshop, auto repair garage ,… etc,, or subscribers to an online program, ... etc. you’re probably going to need a marketing funnel to pick up traffic, have it sign up for a mailing list, convert it the first time or retarget it or target it again even if you have to move it to another sales funnel more suited to its or has his type personna.
What is the ideal and complete structure of an efficient sales funnel
Each sales or conversion funnel in general must be made up of a series of steps or levels, and the goal is to move your user from one level to another.
When you finish reading this article, you’ll know all about how to convert users from loyal customers that you could relaunch at any time with new offers and insert them into a new sales funnel through a simple email
We’re going to start at the top of the conversion funnel, and I’m not going to skip the most important step like most web marketing gurus do, and this first step is to choose your target
Step 1: Create Persona Type (Customer Vector)
The first thing to do when you are about to create a conversion funnel (sale) is to choose your target and this accurately
My first advice is never to underestimate this step because it is the most important if you want a high conversion rate and your funnel is a success
If you already have a mailing list, go ahead and ask questions to your audience, submit them a questionnaire, a survey, … etc offer them a quid pro quo that they can’t refuse
For example:( Web marketing area)
Send them an email:
Hi…
I’m really happy to have you as a subscriber (reader, customer, … etc)and I have the pleasure of offering you my new book (The title), and I would be really happy if you agreed to answer these few questions before downloading your book
What area do you really lack?
- The SEO
- The Web Writing
- Converting your readers
If you want to solve this problem, you would rather have it done with:
- A book
- Training (Video)
How much will you be willing to pay for? Between:
- 1 and 10 euros
- 10 and 50 euros
- 50 and 100 euro
- More than 100 euros
And after they have answered this questionnaire, give their access to the download link …
Why this questionnaire and the one you will use or any other means? simply to be able to fragment my email list and better target them then and send them back to the conversion funnel that corresponds to their interest and need, it is better to integrate email marketing in its sales funnel, you will have as well more conversions
After that, if I create a sales funnel I know in advance exactly what type persona I will target (what audience) and also with what offer or product
The first step in a sales funnel is to determine your target audience accurately:
Create the most accurate customer vector possible, for example, I want to sell my product or promote my offer for:
- Men between the age of 25 and 60
- Residents in Paris
- Who are interested in such and such a thing
- Who have already bought online
- Who work in such a field … Etc
- And above all who have the same needs and the same problem and that your offer is supposed to solve it and fill their common needs
Don’t forget it!! Choose your audience accurately to increase the conversion rate of your sales funnel, the more accurate your persona type and customer avatar is, the more your funnel will convert and the more sales and leads you’re going to have.
If you don’t have an email list, you’ll be able to look for precisely the kind of people who can’t do without your offer!!
If you have an affiliate offer for example for an electric razor, you will look to find out who really needs this trick and your type persona will be for example
- Men over the age of 17
- Who have a job
- Who are forced to shave each morning (military, bankers, police officers, newlyweds Mdr, administrators in general… etc)
- Who have fragile skin (they have already been interested at this point on the internet)
- Who have already purchased products that match your offer
- Who are allergic to shaving creams (they can’t use blades for example!) … Etc
This step of defining exactly the type of people to whom you will submit your sales funnel, is very important, you are not going to seek to sell quality beef to a convinced vegetarian anyway !!!!!
All the success of your sales funnel will depend on the choice of the right customer avatar!! so take your time during this step, make sure you target the right people with the right offer
After you have successfully defined your target and your customer avatar, we will move on to the next step in the creation of our sales funnel, this step is of course:
Step 2: The ideal traffic source for your sales funnel:
Before you even think about creating your landing or capture page that is supposed to be the gateway to your conversion funnel, you’re going to have to figure out which traffic source is supposed to bring back users likely to go by all the steps from your funnel to the final call for action
To simplify things, you’ll have to find the place online that users most frequent that correspond to your type persona (the one you created for this offer)
Which traffic source is supposed to provide the highest conversion rate for your sales funnel?
- Direct traffic? if your blog or website … is pretty popular
- Organic Traffic? If your SEO is good and your content is well optimized for the keyword that corresponds to your offer..
- Paid traffic? you will simply bid on Google ads and bring traffic back to your sales funnel and capture page…
- Social media trafficking? Which social network is supposed to attract the most people who correspond to your customer avatar and who make sense and can afford to access your offer? …
- Traffic from your email list, you will thus target your own prospects which is even better because you segmented them, so you will send them directly to the second level and the second stage of your funnel (we’ll see about that later)
So you’re going to determine where your future prospects or future customers will come from and what’s the best source of traffic for your offer, that way you’re not going to look for who to sell harvesters on Facebook !!! Mdr but rather on Google using paid ads or organic traffic thanks to a well optimized content that you will create in this regard like a Youtube video , showing the machine (the harvester) and its operation as well as its usefulness … Etc
You are looking instead for traffic from facebook for example an affiliate offer for a dating site, beauty products, pet products, … Etc
Determining the right source of traffic is therefore essential to create an efficient sales funnel, take your time, focus where are supposed to be your ideal customers? to go and bring them back and fold them back to your capture page and your door and first level of the conversion funnel
It’s simple and important to pass this stage of creating a conversion funnel, prospect in the right place, do not bring back traffic that will lose interest in your offer especially if this traffic is paid !!!
A popcorn vendor would probably park his van in front of a movie theater or at the entrance to a public park and not in front of a church !!! Mdr
Your traffic could also be leads who went through another sales funnel but didn’t go there until the end of the funnel and didn’t access the offer, such as those you targeted with another sales funnel , they accessed your online shop, added a product to their basket but they left before you bought it, you will retarget them with a new sales tunnel, offering them a discount for example or something else for them to buy this time …
You will pick them up and submit another sales funnel with another offer that would be more likely to interest them (we’ll come back …)
After you finish Steps 1 and 2, determine your target audience and where it’s supposed to be online, we’ll take the next step:
Step 3 The top or entrance to the funnel
We will now look at the front door of your conversion funnel (sale) or the landing page of your automated conversion system
Generally, this step will consist of one, content that you will create in order to welcome your visitors (your traffic), educate them about what they really need, give them information, … Etc
This step could well be a blog post, a youtube video, a landing page, an email capture page ideally (or other contact details), a Podcast, a webinar, a product sheet, … Etc
The purpose of this content and at this stage of the funnel could be:
- Capture emails and contact information
- Segment your email list (already existing)
- Capturing new emails
Or make them transit directly to the next stage of the conversion funnel (sale) by having them click on a link or button … Etc
If you are promoting a product (affiliation or your own shop), you will create for example a blog post or a landing page or you will talk about the product and the problem it solves, make it discover to your readers … Etc
You will then redirect your traffic to the next step, which is:
Step 4 The middle of the conversion funnel:
You will then send your readers back to a capture page by encouraging them to access a first offer free or cheap but attractive and this in return for their email for example or other contact information
You can give them a choice of several products to organize them according to their respective interests to better target them and then send each prospect back to the pay offer that suits him (to segment your email list)
It is during this stage that you will seek to capture the interest of your readers and their confidence by offering them offers that will seem very interesting compared to what you are going to ask them to do
Who would not give his Email against a discount coupon, or a free T-shirt, a free month, a free trial, a free book, … Etc
Take advantage of this step to assert your authority, give value to your prospects and you will immediately get their attention, show them that you know what they need, and if they have to pay to solve their problem, you are best placed to show them what is the best product for them and which offers are most likely to help them
You will have prepared them for the next stage of the sales funnel which is:
Step 5 The Bottom of the Conversion Funnel
Here we are finally on the sales page and itself (order order) , and at this level of the sales funnel, your prospect must be really close to making a conversion, including the purchase of a product or any other Lead, provided you help it a little well on , with a conversion-oriented and efficient sales page.
Your objective at this stage of the sales funnel is to generate maximum conversions and could also be to increase the value of the conversion by selling other ancillary products for example through Upsells (other products complementary to the product but at a lower cost); request a subscription to the place of a single use of an offer for example … Etc
Once your prospect has arrived on this stage of the funnel and bought your product for example or completed a conversion in general, you must not make the mistake that the majority of web marketers make, who let their customer go outright right after he finished his order !!!
Which brings us to the next stage of our sales or conversion funnel:
Step 6 Retain your customer and retain him
Once your customer has ordered the product, for example, it is better to retain him for a future offer, and the best way to do so and give him some sort of Go Online, offer to sign up to be notified when you are live on Facebook for a free course to show him the right, how the product in question works for example, offer him to receive an email as soon as a new version of the product is available, … Etc
Turn around households and find a way to stay in touch with your customer, invite them to join your community or private Facebook group… etc. this way, you will always have access to your former customers and you will take advantage of it to know their next needs, and problems in order to target them again with other sales funnels for new offers…
The final step of the sales system:
It’s not really a step and it doesn’t necessarily come last
I really want to add it as a step to get your attention because it is really important
It consists of data collection and testing
You should always keep an eye on every step of your funnel, have the number of users who arrive on each level of the funnel, try to find out and detect why they don’t move from one step to another, make changes and tests in order to get the maximum number of leads entering the sales funnel, to the last stage and to the end of the funnel
Test A/B , even if you create two parallel conversion funnels and send half of the traffic worms each and the other half to the funnel and detect everything that works well in the two sales funnels in order to create a third that will this time have a better conversion rate than the other two … Etc
You need to specify your goals on Google analytics and track the Passing Urls from one level of the funnel to the next to find out where the weak point of your sales funnel is and fix it
You can also use the Funnelytics tool, to keep an eye on your conversion funnel, this tool is very powerful too
Schematic showing how a sales funnel works
Here is now an infographic, showing all the levels of a conversion funnel and how this system works automatically to convert users or even cold traffic into loyal customers that you can relaunch whenever you want
NB: You can use this infographic on your site if you indicate the source with a link to this article
What tools to design an efficient sales funnel
You can create a sales funnel just with the free version of Mailchimp and WordPress pages (with the Elementor plugin) but the best way to create an efficient conversion funnel, fully automated and and most importantly that you can follow in real time is to use software or a tool like Click Funnel, paired with Google analytics or Funnelytics to have all your data and statistics and track the conversion rate and detect what’s not working in your conversion funnel to make corrections to try to improve the CRO (the conversion rate of the marketing tunnel)
Case study of a Sales funnel[exemple]
I will now show you an example of sales funnel based and active, it draws its traffic from Google Adwords among others, I slipped into this conversion funnel to show you and explain the steps, pages and conversion techniques used by the person who designed it
You have here screenshots for the first three levels of the conversion funnel, I did not access the offer itself, I did not buy the product but what interests us most in the process, these are the first level of the sales funnel , because they are the most critical
The first step would be to capture your attention and your click (traffic to the funnel), in this example, the traffic comes directly from a Google ad
Once the user has clicked on the ad it will be redirected to a landing page, with the call-to-action button above the waterline as you see in the image
We see here that we are interested in our profile in order to refine the persona type and create a more accurate customer avatar to adjust the offer and thus optimize the conversion rate of the sales funnel
Once they have collected some data in order to know exactly what is the urgent need of the user, it is now time to view the capture page itself, here a registration page, and the offer for this example is to receive iun program free staff to lose weight
E t of course, they’re not going to let you go without them having an idea about your financial means, and to do this, after you’ve signed up for their mailing list, you’re going to be redirected to a first sales page
The offers are as I explained in the previous chapters are not expensive and not to lose you outright and keep you within the funnel conversion, there’s even a free offer and a 50% discount on an already affordable offer
They are trying to give you value to capture your attention and confidence and submit you further into the sales funnel of more expensive offers
After you click on the free offer, you will be redirected to the download link, an application for this example, and believe me it’s not innocent at all, because with an application, you will be exposed to several conversion funnels
At the same time you will receive the same offer via email since you are now in their mailing list and exposed to their emailing campaign, retargeting and this until you access one of their conversion funnel
A simple first email, with an image optimized for conversion, a title and a clearly visible call-to-action button with an optimized color too
And it’s not over!!
I went to unseal the email list, and there, a surprise!! I am invited to join another conversion funnel with two calls to action and a small paragraph that plays on emotions
You see how a conversion or sales funnel is built and well prepared to react to all probabilities and deal with any choices and decisions the user might take for specific and essential objectives such as:
- Keep it in conversion funnels for as long as possible
- Move the maximum user from one level of the conversion funnel to the next
- Make the most of sales
- Selling the maximum, products
Conclusion
The best way to promote an offer and have more conversions and sales and use a sales funnel
Create a sales funnel tailored to your audience and type of offer and avoid copying the winning strategy of others
Avoid overly complicated sales funnels, make it simple, clear, understandable and effective
And finally, remember that the goal of a funnel is not only to sell but also to generate other conversions, and your goal at every step of the funnel conversion and to move the most user from a level of the funnel to the next level and finally create a list of loyal customers who are interested in all your future products and offers, you would just have to bring them into a new funnel every time you have an offer to offer them and this by contacting them via a Email
