Why Sales Funnels Are Good For Business
What makes the difference between a good salesperson, and a great salesperson? A structured process. You ask any top-notch performing salesperson and they will all agree that having a structured approach to selling (as well as having great products and pricing, etc) is key to their success.
Sales funnels is a way of visualizing, structuring and managing your sales pipeline, enabling you to digitally automate as much as possible and focus on delivering value.
If you’re not using sales funnels then you are most likely performing tasks manually that can be systemized, re-inventing the wheel at every juncture, and not making the most of every opportunity available to you, especially in repeat sales and developing customer loyalty. Who can afford to waste time and money like that?
What is a sales funnel?
Simply put, it’s a series of steps that lead a potential customer to a happy buyer and beyond. They’re great for business because they’re repeatable, configurable, customizable, and digital. We see sales funnels all over the web – sometimes we don’t even realize it. For example:
- Website attracts a visitor through an online ad, review or affiliate link
- Visitor is interested by a product image or claim
- Potential customer views info about the product, price, features, benefits, etc. (This is where the role of a traditional website ends.)
- Customer adds the product to their shopping cart
- Customer is presented with complementary products whilst viewing their shopping cart
- Customer adds a complementary product to their shopping cart
- Customer visits the checkout and completes purchases
- Customer is presented with complementary products whilst viewing at the checkout
- Customer receives receipts and customer service details by email
- Customer receives product updates, based on their preferences, regularly by email
(and hopefully)
- Customer is attracted to a product in a regular email, and enters the funnel again at stage 2.
You’re probably very familiar with the way these work, as you have probably made purchases through these stages many times over.
The process is quite simple, but the thinking behind it is sophisticated. Online giants such as Ebay or Amazon saw the benefit of sales funnels decades ago, and now spend $millions every year using big data and behavioral science to fine-tune and perfect their methods to maximize their sales revenues.
But you don’t need $millions to copy their approach because we can all employ sales funnels in our business. Of course, if you’re a programmer and data-scientist (as well as being a retailer or digital marketer) you can build it yourself from scratch – but who has the time, resources and know-how for that? Instead, choose an out-of-the-box solution.
It can be daunting when introducing a system or methodology to your business. But using a ready-made sales funnel solution gives you more than a website and a sales process; it gives you insight, relevant research and a guiding hand from experts who have been digital marketers for decades. Being properly trained in using this methodology means you get to switch on your revenue faster with less mistakes. One of the best sales funnel trainings is Secrets Masterclass, by ClickFunnels. Learn moreabout it here.
