Hello there now if you’ve been to any internet marketing seminars or workshops the “sales Funnel”
principal has definitely been mentioned and possibly explained but I thought today just a quick refresher might just be useful to some of our less experienced visitors because however you look at it – the Sales Funnel is the backbone of your entire sales strategy or it should be anyway!
What Is It & What Does It Do?
The sales funnel is an important concept when you’re selling anything whether online or off. It’s basically a process that starts with casting your net wide for prospects. Once you get these prospects into the sales funnel, you start weeding them out at every step until at the end; you’ve got only the most qualified purchasers. If you’ve done it right, they’re hot to buy.
This is why it’s called a ‘funnel.’ It starts out wide and eventually narrows down until all you’ve got are the folks that are primed to buy your products and services.
How Your Sales Funnel Helps
For you, the sales funnel shows all the steps along the way in your selling process. For example, you start with a free report. Then, you get them on your list. You mark all the different steps that lead to the eventual sale. This helps you see how it actually works.
You can also monitor your sales funnel to make any necessary changes. Over time, you’ll get to know how many sales you’ll get per X number of unqualified prospects. You can also see which steps in the funnel are losing you the most and tighten it up.
Creating Your Sales Funnel
There are lots of products that offer plug-and-play IM sales funnels. The squeeze page is the end of the funnel and it all starts with a free report, an opt-in list, videos to drive traffic, etc.
A pre-packaged sales funnel might help somewhat, but it’s much better to create your own. Every product and every market works slightly differently. If you understand how a sales funnel is supposed to work, it’s not hard at all to create your own.
Start with the sale and work backwards. What action do you want your qualified prospects to take? For example, you want them to buy your course. Maybe you want them to hire you for your services.
Keep it simple. A really simple sales funnel would be something like:
Traffic > Sales Page > Sales
You drive traffic to your sales page and that’s where the sale is made. Something a bit more complicated might be like this:
Traffic > Freebie > List > Sales
You drive traffic to your site and offer them a freebie if they subscribe to your list. Then, you market to them using email to build trust and then make your offer.
Filling out Your Funnel
Now, fill out each of these steps. When filling out each step, envision your ideal customer. What do they want at each stage? Provide this for them and it will weed out the prospects who aren’t interested in your offer.
The wide part of your funnel is called the ‘front end.’ This is where you’re going to have the most variety because, remember; you’re casting your net wide. In the first example above, you’re going to try all kinds of different traffic strategies to get them to your sales page.
The cool thing about the sales funnel is that it can be applied to any kind of business. It helps you to visualize the process your customers are going to go through when they buy from you.
Tony
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