What is a Sales Funnel?
Updated: Feb 15, 2020
A “Sales Funnel” is essentially a series of steps or the flow of the sales and lead generation process. It usually starts with an offer, valuable information, a giveaway or anything that attracts your target audience to your service, product or business.
For example, the food sampler, Ms. Jones, at your grocery store is a type of live-action sales funnel. She attracts you with a yummy food enticement and you pay attention. You sample the food, maybe you’ll buy, maybe you won’t. But when you’ve entered her area to sample, you've basically entered phase 1 of a sales funnel, and the food sample is a “Lead Magnet.”
What happens next depends on how well she nurtures you, engages with you, or how much you like (or think you need) that breakfast sausage.
Creating a sales funnel online is just like the example above with the food sampler. It's an essential process of almost every business, and crucial in your digital marketing campaigns. Without it, you are probably missing out on a huge portion of your targeted customers and leads.
What are the Steps to Create a Sales Funnel?
#1. A Lead Magnet - This is something that you create to draw attention, or entice your customers to lean in further (See ad example above ☝️)
#2. An easy to follow, Opt-In Landing Page - Your opt-in landing page can be as simple as a MailChimp pop-up for a newsletter subscription, or a full-page ClickFunnels page complete with video and fancy photos.
#3. An E-mail Sequence, Call-back or an e-mail Follow-up - Whether you create this step as e-mail automation to let them know you got their message, or a personal follow-up with each customer to answer questions, you'll want to make sure you include this step! You can't have customers if you don't nurture them or communicate.
#4. Create a Service Landing Page with a CTA. This will be your redirect page after they opt-in. This service page highlights or outlines your products or services with a clear CTA (Call to Action) such as Contact Us, Visit Us or Schedule an Appointment form.
#5. Set up Data Insights and Track Conversions. You MUST know the data and stats behind your funnel system. How else will you know if it’s working?? You have to plug into Google Analytics and use insight tools to determine who is landing on your page, how they got there and what they do after they get there.
#6. Amp up your traffic game! At this stage, you have set the foundation of your funnel system. Now it’s time to get that traffic count up. We do this with PPC (Pay per Click) ads through Google Ads, Bing Ads, Social Media Marketing, or Facebook Ads, for example.
Social Media Marketing covers everything from creative to copy, placement and promotion.
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