How To Create An Effective Sales Funnel- A Definitive Guide

Are you not getting sufficient conversions from your marketing campaigns?

You need an effective sales funnel!

The journey your customers are going through before they end up making a purchase from your business is mapped by a sales funnel.

Hence, in order to increase your sales strategy, you need to build a top-notch sales funnel which can move people from one stage to the next until they are ready to purchase.

So, let us discuss the significance of sales funnels and then explore the best methods to create one for your business.

Why Is A Sales Funnel So Important?

Don't you want to know how many customers are actually purchasing your product after visiting your website?

Your sales funnel  encompasses the entire journey of your customer from getting aware about your product to buying it and includes every marketing effort that you make along the way.

Implementing an effective sales funnel is important because it creates customers, helps to generate referrals, and also helps to monitor how the sales process of your business is working.

It is a stepwise process with eliminations at each of its 4 stages, hence leading to this funnel shape when drawn-

This is called the AIDA model (i.e Awareness, Interest, Desire & Action) and it must be built through planned marketing efforts to maximize the number of people that go from awareness to the action of buying.

How Does A Sales Funnel Work?

To build an effective sales funnel, your promotional activities must be bought in line with the AIDA process.

Moreover, you should use feature-rich yet affordable tools for creating the funnel to maintain cost efficiency without compromising on returns.

Let's begin with the key steps to build a sales funnel for your product or service with the AIDA process as a basis-

Awareness

At this stage, you must draw the attention of your prospective customers to your new product/service and the problem it solves or the need it caters to.

You must start with market research in order to determine the needs of your prospective customers and generate leads. Further, you must apply targeted promotion techniques accordingly across online platforms to raise awareness and acquire leads. 

The techniques applied in this stage include-

• Market analytics, cookies and first party data collection methods
• Online Advertisements including digital ads on social media, video ads on YouTube and PPC ads on other websites
• Articles and blogs on the topic
• Sponsorships and influencer marketing
• Webinars or podcasts (that deal with the relevant problem/need)
• Paid Search Engine Marketing
• Cold email marketing
• WhatsApp marketing

Suggested tools-  Google Search console, AdPlify, Tube Target, SEMRush, PursueApp, Google Adsense, Facebook Ads Manager, WhatDROID.

Also remember to check out this guide to decide the best type of online advertising for your business so you can make an accurate choice of tools.

Interest

The aim in this stage is to repeatedly generate positive attention towards your product or service to eventually get the prospective customers interested in it. 

Moreover, this is the stage at which your existing customers can re-enter the funnel as they are already aware about your offerings. 

The techniques involved at this step include-

• Search Engine Optimization
• Attention marketing on social media
• Content sharing and engagement on discussion forums, social media and group messaging
• Videos and engagement on YouTube
• Email marketing
• Listings on review sites, maps and directories
• Sending newsletters
• Special offers, events and discounts
• Retargeting through emails, messages or social media to retain the interest of existing customers

Suggested tools-  Google Analytics, Postifluence, Ubersuggest, Tube Rank Jeet, Viral Reach, Mail Engine.

Desire

At this stage of the funnel, you must turn prospects who feel interested in your offerings into people who are actually feeling a desire to buy them. 

Like the previous stages, you are likely to lose some customers at this step. But the key is to minimize the losses by presenting concise but compelling promotional content to convince customers into feeling the desire to purchase.

The techniques used for this step include-

• Landing page design with promotional SEO content including written content, images and demo videos
• Whitepaper/brochure writing and distribution
• Publishing ebooks

Suggested tools-  CloudFunnels, UberSuggest, SEMRush, Grammarly, Canva

Action

You must now seal the deal by providing evidence, arguments and offers that convince the prospects that their desire is justified and they should proceed to buy the product or service.

Hence, it is imperative to use the highest quality of content and services at this stage to justify that you are providing the best value for money and also make it easy for the customers to proceed with the purchase.

The marketing techniques applicable at this stage are-

• Creating or sourcing text and media content for the landing and sales page in continuation of the previous step with the aim to convince the customer to make the purchase. 
• This content includes positive reviews, ratings, testimonials, past clients, demos and any other evidence of effectiveness.
• Providing high quality support, bundled packages and upselling offers 
• Building a convenient payment system 

These actions will convince the customers that the product/service is perfect for them and lead to the final action of purchase. Notably, the same tools as the previous stage will apply in this phase as well.

How To Create An Effective Sales Funnel

Here are some tips to keep in mind while building and maintaining your sales funnel to ensure maximum results from it-

1. Identify your target audience

Spend sufficient time studying your target audience and their behavior to determine the problems they face and solutions they are seeking. Following this, you must build a persona of your buyers based on your research, highlighting the points on which your promotional efforts should focus. This would form a strong foundation for your funnel.

2. Plan and apply your promotional campaign

Plan your awareness and traffic generation campaign in detail and apply a variety of promotional techniques. These include landing pages, PPC advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, blogging, influencer marketing etc.

3. Maintain your marketing efforts 

Sustain and enhance your marketing campaign by regularly posting high quality content, encouraging membership, providing offers and consistently engaging with your audience. You must work continuously and relentlessly with the aim to build interest and eventual desire for your product.

4. Simplify the purchase process

Use a convenient purchase and payment interface, so that customers can seamlessly take the action of buying your product as soon as they feel the desire for it. The final step must not be cumbersome or all your efforts may go to waste!

5. Apply retargeting to retain your customers

You must also go for retargeting through emails, messages or social media at all times. This is important in order to retain your existing customers.

6. Take expert help at every step

Your sales funnel must be planned and implemented perfectly by specialists. After all, the effectiveness of your entire marketing campaign depends on this underlying structure.

Along with these measures, it is also highly recommended to use the best sales funnel builders to simplify every step of the complex funnel building process at low costs. For example, CloudFunnels is one such advanced yet affordable solution to easily build a sales funnel.

Why CloudFunnels?

CloudFunnels is an advanced sales funnel builder that provides comprehensive features at a highly affordable charge. Here is the complete list of features of CloudFunnels-

• Comes with 30+ readymade funnel and opt-in form templates
• Offers a powerful yet simplistic website builder that is ideal for making beautiful landing pages without coding
• It is SEO friendly with on page optimization, caching and AMP for best rankings
• Provides A/B testing and split testing
• Support for Zapier and Integrately
• Insightful sales and leads analytics
• Brings your funnels over from other sales funnel builders at one-click
• Integrates Facebook pixel, Google and all other pixels
• Email marketing support using an in-built autoresponder
• Has an integrated CRM with support for 20 autoresponders and 17 payment gateways
• Offers membership system to create free or paid memberships
• Easy One-click install with no coding or knowledge of hosting required
• Offers full GDPR Support and commercial license to use it for your clients

Conclusion

It's time to go ahead and apply the guidelines and build a sales funnel that brings you high conversions and profits. And if you think we missed something, please tell us by commenting your opinions below!