Having Difficulty Engaging with Customers? It’s Time to Utilize a Sales Funnel

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel represents the process that a customer goes through to ultimately buy a product or service.

• At the bottom of the funnel – People who are ready to buy
• At the top of the funnel – People who are starting to research their problems
• In the middle of the funnel – People who have done some research on their problems and potential solutions but haven’t made buying decisions.

As a business owner, you want a pipeline representing prospects in every part of the funnel.

Engaging with customers in the funnel

When engaging with customers or potential customers, especially with your content, it’s important to realize what section of the funnel they’re in. Are they at the bottom, ready to buy, and just need a push? Or are they at the top still getting a handle on how to solve their problems? Most companies tend to focus their marketing efforts solely on those people at the bottom of the funnel and miss out on potential customers at the top of the funnel, where competition isn’t as fierce.

Get more customers by also focusing on the top of the funnel.

Targeting the top of the funnel allows you to put your name and brand in front of these people early in their sales process and create trust and authority with them. At this stage your goal is to accomplish one of two things:

1. If your content is blog content, then you want to have remarketing pixels on your website form sites like Google and Facebook. When a potential prospect reads your article, it “tags” them. You can then serve ads to potential prospects who’ve already engaged with you in some fashion.
2. If the content is more like a free report, you want to get their name and email address. You can then retarget them through email marketing.

In either of these scenarios, you are building a list of interested people to then give specific marketing messages and move them further along in the process.

Get maximum traction by marketing to all areas of the funnel.

Marketing to all areas of the funnel provides more revenue at a better acquisition price. The goal is to create a pipeline of prospects that are currently in different stages of the buying process. Email marketing and social media ads are great ways to bring potential audience members to your sales funnel. The stage of the funnel will help to determine what content to create.

Here’s an example:

• Top of the funnel – Answer questions that are on the mind of the prospect.
• Middle of the funnel – Get the user to do something in response to their initial need.
• Bottom of the funnel – Get the user to call/email you now to buy your product or service.

Critical components of a sales funnel

The Bait

Content targeted to a particular funnel stage: coupon, discount, free report, blog article, etc.

An Audience

Get people to your content by either marketing to an existing prospect list, such as an email list, or acquiring new prospects that meet your customer profile though ads on networks like Google AdWords, BingAds, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and others. Many of these platforms allow you to be very specific about the types of audiences you want to target; for example, only married people, only people who own a home, young parents, those living in a specific region, etc. Once you capture an e-mail address, you can market to these people via e-mail as well.

A Landing Page

Customers land on this page, which had the content created earlier. It could be a blog post or a page that offers a free report with a place to put in the prospect’s email address and name.

The benefits of sales funnels to your business

The great thing about sales funnels is that they create stable revenue projections – you don’t have all of your customers about to close or just browsing. Ultimately, a sales funnel allows customers to become aware of your product or service, learn more about it, potentially be swayed by an enticing offer, and make a decision to buy. They are extremely effective in keeping customers and potential customers engaged with your company. If you’d like to know more about how sales funnels can help your business grow new customers, fill out the Contact Us form on the right!