How to Build a Sales Funnel That Really Converts

A sales funnel encompasses guiding your prospects from being aware of your brand to becoming loyal customers. And it is every business’s dream to win customers loyal to their brand.

How do you build a sales funnel that helps you do just that?

Today, the competition is tough, and a new business is launched every other day. No matter how innovative your product is, you can’t guarantee that it’ll remain the only one on the market within the next year, talk less than five years.

That means converting customers is not just a matter of building a great product or offering a great service; you need to be able to sell your brand, products, and services effectively. And this article takes you through just that.

Understanding the Sales Funnel

The sales funnel is a visual representation of potential customers’ journey from awareness to purchase. The stages of the sales funnel typically include:

1. Awareness: Potential customers cannot become buyers unless they are aware of your business and what you are selling. This often occurs through social media, advertising, or word of mouth.
2. Interest: As potential customers become aware of your product, they start to research and inquire whether your products or services align with their needs. This is the interest stage. There is considerable attraction already, but not enough for them to purchase.
3. Decision: At this stage, they already better understand your products or services and are considering purchasing. They might also be looking into competitors, so this is where you need to convince them that your product is the best choice for their needs.
4. Action: This step completes the conversion, as potential customers are finally nudged into action to become buyers.

However, understanding how the sales funnel works are one thing. We still haven’t explained how you can build an effective sales funnel. And the following sections are dedicated to highlighting the steps involved.

Identify Your Target Audience

No business creates a product and expects its customers to find them. Such a business would suffer for a long time. Rather, every business owner wants to position their products and services so that everyone who needs them can easily notice them and be attracted.

However, this would not be possible if you first don’t identify those needing your products and services. This is your target audience, and the following factors should be considered when determining your ideal audience:

• Demographics: age, gender, location, income, education level, etc.
• Psychographics: personality, values, interests, lifestyle, etc.
• Pain Points: the problems your target audience faces that your product or service can solve.
• Keywords: what kind of words do customers use to search for your product? If unsure, use the Eye10 Keyword Planner to conduct a comprehensive research.

Creating Lead Magnets

As many marketing experts know, it is not enough for members of your target audience to notice your product once. Often, it takes accumulated attention for each person to go through the stages up to action.

Therefore, look to attract your potential customers via lead magnets, offering them a useful incentive in exchange for their contact information so that you can follow up on each lead.

Lead magnets could be in e-books, reports, webinars, free trials, samples, etc. These are often offered for free in exchange for the lead’s email address or phone number for future communication (if they consent to such).

Nurturing Leads

Don’t forget that you collected your leads’ contact information for a reason. It would be best to nurture them through the sales funnel until they reach the action stage. This is a delicate step since your main goal is to ensure that they build trust in your brand. You don’t want to open any room to doubt at all.

Some methods for nurturing leads include:

• Email marketing: Regularly emailing your leads (without overwhelming them) is an effective way to stay in touch. Occasionally provide them with special offers and discounts to nudge them to action.
• Remarketing: With ad networks, you can remarket your products to potential customers who have previously interacted with your brand, perhaps by visiting your website or viewing your product on social media.
• Personalization: During this step, it’s important that you build a loyal relationship with your leads, and personalization will help you go far. This doesn’t just mean using each person’s name in email communications. Rather, it involves tailoring your messaging to your potential customers’ individual needs and preferences.

Closing the Sale

After going through all the steps, at the end of the day, you want to close the sale and convince your leads to a purchase. This is also a very delicate stage, and some clever tactics you may employ include the following:

• Creating a sense of urgency: You have to make your leads feel like they have to take action now! Therefore, offering a limited-time discount, for example, will encourage them to purchase immediately.
• Providing social proof: Social proof, such as customer reviews or testimonials, can build trust with potential customers and convince them to purchase.
• Offering incentives: Incentives, such as free shipping or a gift with purchase, are strong factors that motivate potential customers.

Retaining Customers

This is where many businesses lose the script. Once they close a sale, they discard those customers and start looking to convert new leads. However, retaining customers is just as important as attracting new ones.

To retain customers, you must continue to provide value to your customers. Some methods for retaining customers include:

• Providing excellent customer service: Particularly when customers make complaints, you must be there for them, being professional and ultimately building trust with them.
• Offering loyalty programs: Loyalty programs, such as rewards or discounts for repeat purchases, can encourage customers to continue to do business with your brand.
• Staying in touch: Staying in touch with your customers through email marketing or social media can keep your brand top of mind and encourage repeat business.
• Monitor your competitors: Tools such as Eye10 Competitor Research help you identify how the leaders in your industry are getting ahead and how to stay on par with and even surpass them.

Conclusion

Building a sales funnel that converts is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that requires constant testing and optimization. Following the steps outlined in this article, you can create a sales funnel that attracts, nurtures, converts, and retains your prospects and customers.

Also, using Eye10 tools enhances your efforts by a great deal, especially in keyword planning, competitor research, and industry analysis. $3 is all you need to enjoy a trial of all Eye10 SEO tools. Sign up right away, and don’t miss this opportunity!