What if you could create a seamless sales funnel that turns even the most random visitors into irrationally loyal customers?
Knowing how to build and iterate on a sales funnel is one of the most powerful skills you can master as an entrepreneur.
But the harsh reality is that most businesses struggle with one (or more) of the following aspects:
Did you know that knowing how to build and iterate a sales funnel is one of the most powerful skills you can master as an entrepreneur? The harsh reality is that most companies struggle with this. Do you experience one (or more) of the following problems:
- Lack of traffic to your website or online store.
- Low conversion rates (less than 3%)
- Limited customer engagement
- High Cart abandonment rates
- Lack of post-purchase engagement
If you’re struggling with any of the above criteria or want to take your existing sales funnel to the next level. Then this article is a must read for you!
Because in today’s juicy post, you get your hands on every single detail you must know about crafting your own high-converting sales funnel.
Let’s get started!
What is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a series of strategic actions whose goal is to transform unaware prospects into paying customers.
The funnel, also known as marketing funnel or revenue funnel, is the visual representation of the customer journey. It illustrates the idea that every sale starts with a large number of potential customers and ends with a much smaller number of people who actually make a purchase and become an advocate for your company.
If you manage to crack the code with your sales funnel, you have a proven and tested system that’s easy to scale and repeat. Here is how that works…
If you manage to crack the code with your sales funnel, you’ll have a proven and tested system that’s easy to scale and iterate. Here’s an example of how that works…
An example of a sales funnel
To give you a better understanding of what sales funnels are, here’s an example of what a sales funnel might actually look like:
Target Audience
Let’s pretend you’re interested in buying a new pair of running shoes. You’re scrolling through Instagram reels and all of a sudden you come across an Instagram ad for a new pair of running shoes. You stop scrolling because you are interested, the fact that you do illustrates that you are their target audience.
Prospect
The ad caught your attention because of the great headline, then you also think the shoes look great. You want to know more about it and the first thing you do is click on the ‘more information’ button (Now you are a prospect).
Lead
After clicking on the link you land on the site. Although the shoes look nice, you want to wait a while before buying new ones. The moment you want to leave the website you will see a pop-up: ‘10% discount if you sign up for the newsletter’. You decide to sign up for the newsletter and now you are officially a lead.
Customer
Then you receive interesting e-mails from the shoe brand every two days. And after a week you receive a reminder about your 10% discount, stating that it will expire within 24 hours. You don’t want to miss this opportunity, so buy the shoes anyway. This is the moment you buy the shoes and become a new customer.
Brand Advocate
2 weeks later, you are very satisfied with your shoes and suddenly you receive an email. In this email, you are asked to leave a review and share it on your social media.
Because you are so satisfied with the brand, you do it right away and you also bought a new pair of trousers that was promoted in the same email. This makes you a brand advocate and repeat customer. The cycle continues.
Why is implementing a sales funnel important?
You may be wondering, why is creating a sales funnel important for my ecommerce business. Here are four reasons why every business should implement a sales funnel:
Creates customers:
The ultimate goal of a sales funnel is to take your target audience and guide them through a series of steps that could eventually turn them into customers. That’s how you expand your customer base.
Generates referrals:
Apart from acquiring a base of customers, a sales funnel also encourages satisfied customers to refer other prospects to your business, even if they weren’t originally part of your target audience.
Monitors and tracks:
With a sales funnel, you can track how well each step of the sales process is working and adjust as necessary. This helps you make the most of your time and sales resources while gaining useful feedback.
Focuses efforts:
By narrowing your focus to a specific group of prospects, a sales funnel makes it easier to reach and convert target audience members into customers. Plus, it helps you weed out unqualified prospects by requiring them to go through a series of steps leading to a purchase.
The exact 5-step formula to create a fail-proof funnel
There are countless reasons to create a sales funnel. For example selling a single product, entire collections, or you can create sales funnels for specific target audiences. No matter what your plans are, on a high level, every sales funnel consists of three parts:
- Top of funnel (ToFu). Your target audience that isn’t in the market to buy from you at the moment.
- Middle of funnel (MoFu). Your potential customers who have visited your website and are considering products or services like the ones you sell.
- Bottom of funnel (BoFu). New and existing customers who are ready to buy from you with the right push.
To ensure that every step in the customer journey is covered, are going to divide this process into 5 steps. The framework we’re going to use for this is AIDA:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
AIDA is a sales funnel model that represents the consumer thought process at each funnel stage. The reason we’re going to use it is that many e-commerce brands start with this purchasing funnel because it’s simple to implement and build upon.
Tip: When you don’t have the budget or time to support and create multiple funnels, it’s best to focus on creating a single sales funnel for your most important product.
TOFU – Top of Sales Funnel
The ultimate goal of TOFU is to grab your audience’s attention, or in other words, create awareness about your brand and product.
Before we get into the juicy stuff, make sure you have a crystal clear understanding of who your target audience is. Because the better you know and understand your target audience, the better it will help you tailor your messages and ensure your funnel is effective.
Step 0: Create a buyer persona, a detailed description of your ideal customer. This will help you understand their motivations, pain points, and what they are looking for in a product.
Step 1: Awareness
Marketing in general is all about grabbing the attention of your target audience and keeping it for as long as possible. The awareness stage is specifically designed to capture the attention of a potential customer first.
- Paid advertising (Facebook, Instagram, or Google Ads)
- Content marketing (Blog posts, Social Media Posts, Youtube Videos, Podcasts)
- Influencer marketing
- Affiliate marketing (or word-of-mouth marketing)
The goal is to get as many people (target group) in contact with your brand as possible. In this phase you don’t sell anything, instead, you focus your strategy on three things:
- Create awareness for your products among potential buyers.
- Craft a compelling message that speaks directly to your audience.
- Develop a marketing and outreach strategy.
Tip: If you don’t know what to share, reach out to your target audience and ask them directly what’s valuable to them.
Did you know that fitness brand Gymshark had its own blog? This blog is full of valuable information about exercise and nutrition. A blog is a perfect strategy to attract people who have never heard of the brand.
MOFU – Middle of Sales Funnel
You have caught the attention of a potential customer, now what? The middle of the funnel is designed to lead potential customers to their first transaction. In this step-by-step process, you’ll nurture and convert your lead in 3 easy steps:
Step 2: Interest
The first step in nurturing your cold leads is to create interest in who you are as a brand and what you stand for. This is the stage where you provide value to the customer, so they start to know, like and trust you.
The best thing you can do is genuinely connect and engage with your audience, rather than trying to sell. The reason we use this customer-centric approach is that studies show that companies that do this make 60% more profit than companies that don’t focus on customers
So, help your shoppers make informed decisions, offer help, and establish yourself as an expert in the field. The way you can do this is to create more in-depth content, like:
- Educational content about your product or service
- Showcase your brands why (brand-related content)
- Showing social proof and testimonials
The moment you have the interest of your target group, it is very important to convert this interest into a name and email address. If you do this you can approach your customers directly via email marketing.
That is why this internship is also a good opportunity to capture leads with lead magnets, such as:
- Quizzes
- Checklists or ebooks
- Customer case studies and testimonials
- Webinars or live streaming events on social media
For example, Beardbrand creates interest with an interactive quiz, this gives the customer an enhanced personalized experience.
Step 3: Desire
At this point, your audience knows they have a need to solve a problem. They are actively looking for the best solution. The next step to take is to create a strong desire for your product.
Now is the time to use persuasive texts and images to show the benefits of your product. Why? Because the ultimate goal here is to show them why your product is the best solution for their specific problems or needs.
Ask yourself the following questions when planning for this stage:
- What makes my product desirable?
- How will I follow up with qualified leads?
- How can I build an emotional connection with prospects (website chat, email, SMS, tips and advice)?
Did you know that your social media channels and email marketing strategy are perfect to create a desire for your products Utilize these channels and make your products so desirable that leads can’t reject them…
Step 4: Action
Congratulations, your ideal customer is now ready to make a purchase. All you have to do now is give them a reason to make a purchase. The one and only way you can do this is by offering your product.
If you want to give that extra push to motivate your audience to take action. Consider offering a limited-time discount or free gift with a purchase to encourage them to act now.
When making an offer, try to take the following points into account:
- Make sure your Call to Action is Optimized
- The checkout process is fast and easy to use.
BOFU – Bottom of Sales Funnel
In this phase, you have transformed your customer from a random visitor to a paying customer. The goal of your sales funnel is to ensure that the customer remains loyal to your brand as much as possible (customer lifetime value).
At the bottom of the funnel, you try to ensure this through retention.
Step 5: Retention
The final step in your funnel is retention. Once someone has made a purchase, it’s important to keep them as a customer. You can do this by providing excellent customer service, offering promotions and discounts, and by staying in touch with them through email marketing.
The last step in your funnel is retention. Once someone has made a purchase, it is important to keep them as a customer for as long as possible. You can do this in three ways, such as:
- Provide excellent customer service;
- Offer promotions and discounts;
- Stay in touch with them through email marketing.
Did you know it can take over an entire year (or multiple years) till potential customers will buy your product/service?
Robby Luyken
That’s why the #1 thing you should do is to make sure – whether someone buys or not – to establish trust by building a strong relationship. The one and only way to do this is to consistently provide value to your subscribers. Did you know that email marketing is the #1 tool to do this? Click the link to learn more about
That’s why the #1 thing you need to do is to make sure – whether someone buys or not – that you build trust and establish strong relationships with your target audience.
You do this by consistently providing value to your subscribers and followers. email marketing is the ideal tool to support this. If you want to know more about how this works exactly, click on the link for more information about email marketing.
Here’s an example of how Ad Outreach used customer testimonials to showcase its army of brand advocates:
Key Takeaways:
Creating a sales funnel is an irreplaceable part of running a successful ecommerce business. In addition, a well-designed sales funnel has the potential to turn random traffic into irrational customers.
Remember to continuously test and refine your funnel to make sure that it’s as effective as possible. With a well-designed funnel, you can maximize your revenue and grow your ecommerce business.
Remember to continuously test and refine your funnel to make sure it is as effective as possible. The moment you do this periodically, you will notice that you can maximize your income to grow your e-commerce business stably.
Do you like this post and want to learn more about how to skyrocket your ecommerce business, try out and read more blog posts.
