6 Reasons You Need a Sales Funnel & How to Create One
When selling just about anything, you have to know exactly how to appeal to your customers, you have to offer them something that they need, and you have to know which stages they’ll go through before deciding to pay for what you’re selling. This last part, i.e. knowing the stages they go through, has to do with the sales funnel. A sales funnel is actually a set of stages that your prospects go through only to become paying customers in the end.
Imagine a funnel wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and now imagine the number of people able to slide through it and reach the very bottom. It is clear that the pool of prospects will be widest at the top, and narrowest at the bottom, meaning that you’ll have a huge number of people to address at the first stage, and a much lower number in the end stage, i.e., the conversion stage. Warming up those cold prospects from the top level, as explained at ClickFunnels, will help you increase the number of overall sales, i.e. the number of people reaching the bottom level. This is why paying close attention to the sales funnel is important.
Why You Need a Sales Funnel
Why do you actually need to create your very own sales funnel? Well, the truth is that, if you are running a business, you already have a sales funnel, but you just have not clearly defined it yet. All companies work towards increasing sales, and all customers go through those stages before buying. It is much better, though, to clearly define the funnel than to roam around in the dark. Let me give you some important reasons why this strategy is necessary for your business.
- The Buying Cycle Is Not Instant.
As mentioned, a few times already, all customers go through certain journeys before deciding to buy something. Unless you are new to the business world, you understand already that the buying cycle isn’t instant, and that you won’t get to sell something the moment you offer it to someone. Buyers are much more sophisticated than that, and they do a lot more thinking before making the final purchasing decision. Sure, the time necessary to complete the sales will depend on numerous factors, including what you’re selling and what kind of audience you’re targeting, but the point is that this will still take time. You cannot expect instant results.
- You Have to Understand the Journey
Since you cannot expect instant results, you will be in a much better position if you understand your potential customers’ journeys instead of hoping that they will somehow make up their minds and buy what you are selling. You are the one responsible for helping them make up their minds, i.e. for nudging them into the right direction, subtly, but effectively. Naturally, creating a sales funnel will lead you towards understanding that journey perfectly, meaning that you’ll know how your audience behaves and what they need to behave in the way you want them to.
Here’s a guide that can further help you comprehend this strategy: https://www.business.com/articles/sales-funnel-complete-guide/
- Your Team Will Know Which Steps to Take To Improve Conversion
So, as explained, by understanding the journey and your audience’s behavior, you’ll also understand how you want them to behave, and you’ll know which actions to take towards it. In different words, your team will know exactly which steps have to be taken to improve conversions or, to be more precise, so as to get your prospects to finally take action and convert. At certain stages, the conversion will involve giving you their contact information, and at others, it will involve actually buying what you’re selling.
- And Those Conversions Are Bound to Increase
Conversion is the ultimate goal of every business. But, if you are just hoping that those will happen while not having a clearly defined strategy on how to get your prospects there, you will not see that many great results. Or, better yet, you will not make that many sales. With a clearly defined and strategized funnel, though, and with your team knowing exactly which steps to take at which stage, you will definitely increase the conversion rate, meaning that you’ll basically be more successful at selling your products or services.
- You will Build Trust with Your Audience
People want to trust the companies they are doing business with, but that trust will not just happen overnight, and without you putting any effort into it. Once again, with a sales funnel, you’ll know exactly what to do to build trust with your audience, and that trust will lead prospects to become loyal customers. Loyal, i.e. returning, customers will pick your brand over your competitors, which is already a pretty great achievement.
- And You’ll Identify & Improve Any Weak Points In Your Selling Strategy
Most sales strategies, including yours, will have weak points, especially in their initial stages. Plus, things change over time, so what was once a strong point can easily become a weak point after a while. By choosing and building a great sales funnel for your business, you’ll get to easily identify those weak points and improve them to once again increase your conversion rate and practically sell more. Working on improving your strategy is rather significant, so do not think you’re done with it once you first make it.
How To Create One
The above should have clearly underlined some of the most significant reasons why having a great sales funnel is significant for your business, and the next thing to do is figure out how to build one. There are crucial steps to take, such as defining your target audience, building perfect landing pages and compelling CTAs, generating and nurturing leads, reminding your prospects of your brand regularly, offering discounts, and similar. All in all, it is a very comprehensive strategy that you’ll have to put a lot of effort into, and the good thing is that there are tools that can help you create it. So, get informed, figure out what to do, and start creating the funnel one step at a time.
