As a business person, you likely understand the importance of marketing when it comes to the ongoing success of your business.
After all, without marketing, your business would eventually fail due to the absence of new customers.
Therefore, if you have not put enough time and effort into the marketing of your business thus far, now is the time to start, and one easy way to start is the utilization of a sales funnel.
What is a Sales Funnel?
This strategy is so named due to the fact that when written out in diagram form, this particular marketing strategy looks like a funnel.
The top category is the biggest and it represents the largest amount of people, or potential customers. The bottom category represents the least amount of people, those who are committed customers, so it is much smaller.
Now that you know what a sales funnel is, you likely want a little more information pertaining to its implementation for your business..and because this is from us…how can you use authority marketing tactics in it too.
After all, any strategy can seem great in theory, but you want to know how to actually go about building your own sales funnel.
Thankfully, the five steps listed below will show you how to construct a type of sales funnel, perfect for a digitally advanced business.
1.) Create a Great Landing Page
Your website's landing page is the first impression all your potential customers will instantly have of your business.
Therefore, take time to make sure that it looks great. Also, a good landing page will encourage individuals to sign up for some sort of list, or subscribe to the website.
This in turn gives you the all-important contact information, which becomes your first line of communication.
Use the best trust triggers (media logos of places you have appeared) in your arsenal…between 5 and 10 is good. More than that and it becomes cluttered.
2.) Present a Main Offer
The next step in the funnel is to present potential customers with the opportunity to buy a product or procure your service. This is usually accomplished through the a sale's page.
Be sure to showcase what your customers will get when doing business with you, mention all the benefits.
Todd Brown, a leading authority on sales funnels, offers this advice, “When constructing your main front-end offer, you should be engineering them with the additional mindset of… how will this help create more desire for the next upsell offer I'm going to present them with next.”
That strategy leads right into the next step.
3.) Give an Upsell
Offer your customers who just bought or are about to buy a product or service the opportunity to upsell, or upgrade, that service.
For example, create an offer that will deliver even more benefit to the customer if they upgrade.
The most famous upsell of all time is, “Do you want fries and a drink with that?”
You are offering your customers more substance if they choose to upgrade.
Of course, that also means you make more money because an upsell most often involves higher profit margin or higher priced product/service.
4.) Offer a Downsize Option
In the same way you encouraged customers to upgrade services in the upsell step, this element of the funnel calls for you to offer a downgrade option to certain customers.
No, this isn't a failure and should not be looked upon as a loss of a sale.
Instead, consider this a way to keep a customer that would not be able to buy from you at all due to budget constraints. Be considerate and offer cheaper options for those individuals and you can keep them as customers.
5.) Keep it Going
The last step in the sales funnel is to keep your momentum going. Follow up with all the new customers you have acquired and ensure they are happy with their product or service.
A great way to accomplish this is to offer a membership-based rewards program. This will allow you to remain in contact with your customers, giving you the perfect way to tell them about new deals and services.
The steps listed above are geared to a business with an online presence. Of course, this might not describe your particular business.
However, every business can benefit from the sales funnel model. Just remember, your potential customers, which represents the greatest amount of people, go on top of the funnel, and the smallest category, that of your established customers, goes on the bottom.
The categories in between can be altered to meet your specific business's needs and sales goals.
