Why Do I Need a Sales Funnel?

With so many ways to drive traffic to your website — from Facebook ads to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, SEO, email, and so much more — it’s a relatively easy practice (however daunting, nonetheless).

While each of these ads can garner thousands of views, impressions, and clicks to your site, we know the ultimate goal — sales. But how do we turn all of our views and clicks into tangible revenue? This is where the sales funnel comes into play.

What is a Sales Funnel?

In its most basic definition, a sales funnel refers to the steps a person must take to become a customer. This effective digital marketing technique is essentially the algorithm that you want prospective customers to experience as they move from a Prospect to Lead to a Customer, and hopefully, a Repeat Buyer or brand ambassador.

With repeat buyers being the ultimate goal as you look to create a stellar customer base, the sales funnel is essential to a company’s long-term success. However, it’s important to take the right steps to properly execute this sales funnel. With our model, the well-designed sales funnel includes six essential stages for ultimate success. These stages are:

1. Awareness
2. Discovery
3. Evaluation
4. Engagement
5. Commit and Purchase
6. Delight

With a properly executed sales funnel, you can not only convert leads into paying customers but ones that continue to shop with you through the years. While this isn’t an easy process, it’s incredibly important, and we are here to walk you through every step of the way.

Let’s review each of the six steps to an effective sales funnel!

Stage 1: Awareness

You can’t sell anything if people aren’t aware of your products or business. Before beginning the sales process, you first need to reach new prospects to build an audience to sell to.

When reaching new prospects, the best tactics include:

• Social media ads and boosted content.
• Banner ads on industry platforms that are uniquely relevant to your business or services.
• Video marketing on platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, or Instagram.
• Incorporating guest blogs about your products or services.

Remember, you cannot assume anyone knows about your brand or what you do. Potential prospects are likely to know very little, if anything at all, and won’t be ready to buy until they have a better understanding of your business. For this reason, the awareness stage is not about selling. Instead, focus on engagement — catching the eye of potential customers and enticing them to learn more about your brand or services.

Stage 2: Discovery

Now that you’ve created awareness and a prospect has engaged with and clicked your ad, visiting your site or further engaging with the brand, it’s time to focus on a stellar buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey is essential to keeping the attention of the prospect. However, there are a lot of factors you’re working against. With so many options to choose from, prospects are quick to stop their journey when they notice certain elements or missing must-haves.

Reasons prospects leave at the Discovery stage of the sales funnel are:

• There’s not emotional engagement.
• You’re not offering any special, limited-time offers.
• You have an outdated website.
• The interface isn’t user-friendly.
• No selling proposition uniquely expresses why a prospect should buy.
• Your website contains errors or bugs.
• A lacking social media presence.
• Product descriptions that lack valuable information and insight.
• No video elements to introduce or further explain.
• A lack of personalization that shows off the faces behind the brand or the mission.
• Missing comparative infographics, tables, or charts that help compare product features.

Phew, that’s a lot! However, all of these elements are seamlessly integrated into successful websites, and they all work together to create a user-friendly, informative, and engaging experience that carries the Prospect to the next stage.

To be successful in the Discovery stage, we recommend:

• Incorporating a clear selling proposition that shares why a Prospect should purchase with you.
• Multiple call-to-action options that prompt a passing viewer to shop.
• Video elements to further entice or educate customers.
• A website with clear reviews and testimonials, so they are confident in purchases.
• Any personalized imagery or messages that connects customers with the face behind the business.

Stage 3: Evaluation

So your prospect has successfully passed the discovery stage of the sales funnel. Now, they begin evaluating.

When we talk about evaluation, this refers to the debate the customer has on if they need to buy an item or service. With so many options, many customers will search around, looking to other sites or for any information to support or contradict their initial reaction to buy with you.

At this point, it’s important to convince the customer that you are the right choice, so they stop looking elsewhere and click “add to cart.” To successfully convince your prospective buyer, you’ll need some key tactics to promote success. These include:

• Sharing customer reviews, plus links to third-party sites with additional reviews as with Yelp, Google, and Facebook.
• Any educational materials that answer customer questions or concerns.
• Case studies of successes using your product or service, including charts or numbers.
• When applicable, share product demos to show the ease of use.
• Clear pricing or price calculator.

Stage 4: Engage

Now that you’ve managed any customer concerns, answering the “why to buy,” a large majority of your prospects may still be interested, however are not quite ready to purchase.

There are a few reasons why customers don’t buy immediately. Some like to think about their purchases first (we aren’t all impulse buyers!), while others might not have the funds or are waiting for a better time to shop. However, you don’t want to lose these prospects at this point – and you don’t have to.

To continue to engage prospects, bringing them through the sales funnel and towards a purchase, it’s time to get engaging! We recommend:

• Sharing limited-time offers (or first-time-buyer sale discount options!).
• Interactive elements, such as games, surveys, polls, and contests.
• Case studies with truly engaging results and insights.
• Cool and unique product features that make your product stand out from competitors.
• Events and webinars for further education and engagement.

With these tactics, you won’t lose the more hesitant customers!

Stage 5: Commit and Purchase

Hurray! You successfully engaged your prospects, and they’ve decided to buy your product. They’ve almost clicked the “buy now” button, but they aren’t quite there yet…what’s next?

At this point, customers need one final push, reassuring them that this purchase will be a smart one. There are a few ways to do this, but the top methods include:

• Share customer reviews and testimonials close to the “buy now” button.
• Display price comparisons that instill your competitive pricing.
• Incorporate a few reassurance elements.
• Share any offers of free trials or money-back guarantees.
• Include limited-time discount offers for a final push to purchase.

With these methods, you can give the customer the final reassurance they need to finally buy now — a worthwhile final push!

Stage 6: Delight

We aren’t done yet!

Now that you’ve secured the first purchase from a customer, it’s time to make them long-time shoppers and brand ambassadors for your business. And why does anyone keep coming back for more? Because they love you!

To make a customer love your brand, cementing you as an essential part of their life or routine, it’s important to:

• Communicate and provide product support post-purchase.
• Share free education materials and tutorials, providing bonus content that’s valuable to purchasers that makes them feel as though you went above and beyond.
• Create communities of your customers and continue to support them through email, social media, and other platforms.
• Features contests and games that existing customers can participate in.

By continuing the relationship, displaying that you offer ongoing support and information based on purchases, you will effectively show the customer that you’re a trusted business to continue purchasing from. And that completes the sales funnel!

If you have more questions on the six-stage sales funnel or need help implementing any of these tactics, our team at Comrade has the answers. Contact us at 312-265-0580 today.