Do you use a funnel for your online business? If not, you could be missing out on one of the best ways to generate leads that convert to new clients. Funnels are vital to any business’s success, even more now that so many businesses and transactions have gone online. Consistency with your marketing strategy is essential. Marketing experts suggest that you work on your funnel weekly for the ultimate business growth.
Defining Funnels
By now, you’ve probably heard of funnels if you are an entrepreneur that does business online. Often referred to as a sales funnel or marketing funnel, it is simply the marketing term for the journey potential customers go through on the way to purchase your product or services. Marketing funnels can be complex or straightforward, and they can adapt to any niche for an online business.
For example, someone visits your blog and they decide to sign up for your email list. They receive a series of emails from you and then get an offer for one of your products or services. The funnel is the series of steps a person takes on the journey to becoming your client or customer.
The Purpose Of Funnels
The purpose of funnels is to understand what your potential clients are thinking and doing at each stage of their journey. What you learn will allow you to invest in the proper marketing, create the most relevant messages during each stage, and turn more prospects into paying customers. A funnel report will even show you where you are losing customers.
From the moment a person first hears about your product or service until they decide to purchase, they will pass through the different stages of your funnel. You may attract different visitors to different stages of your funnel. Not everyone will take the same journey through your funnel. As they go through the funnel, they will think about the problem that they want to solve and learn how you can help solve their problem.
The Four Stages Of Funnels
There are four main stages of a sales funnel:
- Awareness Stage – This is when a person first becomes aware of your business or your website. They may find you through social media, your ads, word of mouth, by doing a Google search for what you offer, or by other means. The type of content you provide should have a call to action and encourage visitors to take the next step into your funnel.
- Discovery – Next, your visitor will start reading pages on your website or other content to learn more about you and your business, to see what you have to offer them. This is also known as the “Interest” stage. Here, they will evaluate your content based on their interest level. They will think about their problem and assess whether your offer is the solution to their problem.
- Consideration – This is also known as the “Decision” stage of your funnel. Here, the visitor will dig deeper into your packages and pricing options. They may sign up for your email list to learn more about your offer. This is why you will need to be consistent with your email list. The money is in the list. The email series you send out should entice them to keep checking your emails and consuming your content until they are informed enough to decide to purchase.
- Conversion – This is also known as the “Action” step. Sometimes this is a quick process. Other times, it can be a slow process. The goal here is for the transaction or purchase.
Optimize Your Funnels
The goal for business owners is to continue to find new ways to draw in more potential customers and engage with them. You may need to set up new opt-in offers from time to time. You might send out a weekly or monthly newsletter, adding value to your list. You should periodically create new products, or new offers for existing products, or present affiliate offers.
It’s always a good idea to audit your funnels now and then to update, edit, or fix things that need to be fixed. It’s also a great idea to test and optimize your funnels. For example, you could test two different lead magnets to see which one brings more conversions. Test what product or service you offer to your subscribers to see which ones get the most interest. The goal of testing your funnels is to always do a little better than what you were doing before. Over time you will make huge improvements that will result in a bigger bottom line.
In addition to improving your existing funnels, you should also set aside some time to consistently work on expanding and adding new ones. You could try adding new autoresponder emails to your first funnel this week. Then, create a new lead magnet that attracts a slightly different audience into your circle of influence. The point is to work on your funnels consistently, every single week. Consistency is key in all areas of your online business, and your marketing plan is no different. Keeping consistent with your funnels will help you grow, expand, and improve your funnels, which will bring consistent results.