A sales funnel has four stages: awareness, interest, decision, and action. So while building the sales funnel, you need to make sure you cover all these stages for the desired outcome.
The primary purpose of a sales funnel is to guide users through the different levels of their purchase journey. Companies create sales funnels to attract, interest, and convert prospects into customers. So if you own an online business, creating effective sales funnel is crucial for driving sales and earning revenue.
The gifographic below explains, in depth, the method of creating a sales funnel. But before that, let’s get a basic idea of the different steps of building a conversion funnel.
Step #1. Begin with Researching Your Target Audience
To identify your target audience, and understand them better you need to conduct research based on:
- What interests them the most?
- Where to find them on social media?
- What do they like the least about online purchasing?
- What are their pain points that you need to address?
Step #2. Incorporate Buyer Personas
Buyer personas represent your ideal customers. By creating different buyer personas, you will be able to personalise your approach towards the different segments of your audience who’s buying journey may vary. Base your buyer personas on:
- Why will they purchase a product?
- What motivates their buying decision?
- How will they use the products they buy?
Step #3. Work on Your Lead Generation Strategy
There are several ways in which you can drive the audience to your website and generate leads. These include:
- PPC Campaigns
- Influencer Marketing
- Social Media Advertising
- Guest posting
- Search Engine Optimization
- Landing Page Optimization
Step #4. Develop Strategies to Engage Your Leads
It is time to educate your audience about your products or services. They need to know why they should buy your products and how they will benefit from buying them. Your audience engagements strategies can include:
- Creating blog posts that offer value
- Creating engaging and useful videos
- Promoting your content on the social media platforms
- Having relevant influencers to review your products and also offer tutorials on them
- Sending out newsletters and updates on your latest blog posts through emails
Step #5. Take Steps for Lead Conversions
The buying journey of your audience ends when they convert from prospects to customers. Make sure all your previous efforts do not go in vain buy facilitating the checkout process. Provide for an easier purchase experience by:
- Decreasing the form fields
- Reducing the number of steps for completing a purchase
- Providing for one-click sign-in and sign up options
Now that you have a brief idea about the different steps of building a sales funnel, you can learn more about it in detail in the following gifographic.
Image courtesy: Shane Barker
Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant that specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.