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Watch the Journey

Your Blueprint for Creating the Most Effective Sales Funnel

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The look of your website is important to a point. However, eye-catching colors and images will only get you so far. The real money lies in converting looky-loos into paying customers.

Boost conversion rates with a sales funnel. The sooner you develop your sales funnel, the quicker you can hone and optimize yours.

​Let’s look at the tiers, stages, and ways to build an effective e-commerce sales funnel. We’ll end with how you’ll benefit by harnessing its power.

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A 3-Tiered Framework

The top of the sales funnel involves awareness. This part includes marketing strategies to attract prospects.

The middle of the sales funnel constitutes turning prospects into leads. You promise something valuable in return for their contact information (typically their email address), such as offering a discount for signing up for your email newsletter for free (which is chock full of valuable information). Sometimes, you give them the value upfront and then ask for contact info.

​At the bottom of the sales funnel, you convince your prospects (now leads) to buy. Then, aim for repeat buying by including something like:

  • A rewards program.
  • More social proof of your authority and value.
  • Education on other products and services you offer.
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Two 4-Stage Models

The 3-tiered framework consists of four stages. The most popular sales funnel models are the AIDA and the Value Ladder.

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AIDA

AIDA is a popular sales funnel model. It is an acronym for the following stages:

Attention/Awareness
Interest
Desire/Decision
Action


​Let’s talk about these four stages in more detail.

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1. Attention/Awareness

Your prospect encounters an ad, hears about you via word of mouth, sees you on social media, finds you in a search engine, or comes across your blog.

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2. Interest

Prospects will evaluate you based on their interest. Your content and copy must get your message across clearly and concisely.

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3. Desire/Decision

Your prospect gathers information, looks at demos and testimonials, and compares your price and value to competitors. Engaging content and community-building can help set you apart.

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4. Action

Your prospect will decide whether to purchase or not. Your attractive offer and call-to-action (CTA) can convince them. Regardless of their decision to buy or walk away, your work is ongoing. Turn buyers into loyal repeat customers with ‘thank you’s, feedback surveys, sign-up requests, and support services.

​For those who didn’t purchase, your sales funnel should have captured their contact information. You have more opportunities ahead to win them as a customer. Don’t stop at one or two emails. Chances are better if they see you in their inbox at least a dozen times.

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Value Ladder

AIDA is an excellent model, but we’re partial to the Value Ladder. It is the most effective e-commerce model with high-yield results. It took our founder from zero to over $10 million in annual revenue in one year and over $100 million in revenue year over year.

It’s more than a breakdown of the sales journey. It’s a model of motivation, helping prospects convert and head deeper down the funnel.

Here are the details:

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Stage 1: Bait

In this first stage, you reel in prospects with an excellent hook, story, and offer. You dangle a lead magnet in front of them in exchange for their email address.

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Stage 2: Frontend

Next, offer the customer your least costly, least valuable product or service at an incredible price.

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Stage 3: Middle

Offer customers your next most expensive and valuable product or service.

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Stage 4: Backend

Offer your most expensive and valuable product or service. Ideally, also offer a continuity program to retain them.

​This model’s awareness piece is in Stage 0 or a marketing funnel.

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Four Essential Ingredients to Build Your Funnel

You’ll need the following essential elements to begin building your funnel:

1. A goal. You can’t steer towards a destination that you haven’t established yet. Determine what your sales funnel’s goal should be.

2. Key players. Include those employees, departments, and partners you’ll need to reach your goal. You’ll go further and faster when you’re all on board with the plan.

3. Information. Gather as much information as you can about your target customers. Send surveys and questionnaires. Communicate with them face to face. Investigate their online habits, desires, and gripes. Create customer avatars based on the personas of your perfect customers.

4. Tools. You’ll want a landing page with excellent copy, clear action steps, payment solutions, and metric trackers. Look for software that can get all parts of the job done.

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Build Your Funnel

You’re ready to build your funnel. Follow these steps to create a highly effective, income-boosting funnel.

  • Create your landing page. Boost conversion rates by giving prospects a dedicated page that leads them where you want them to go and matches your advertising. Write an attention-grabbing headline. Describe your company and your product’s unique advantages. Include a lead-capture form to collect contact information to help you continue communicating your value.
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  • Offer valuable content. Incentivize prospects to give you their contact info in exchange for your expertise. Deliver useful, hard-to-find information for free.

  • Nurture the relationship. Deliver educational content once or twice a week. Emails and webinars work better than social media because you’re less bound by the newer stringent social media rules.

  • ​Make your irresistible offer. Close on the deal by offering something impossible to walk away from. Create scarcity and urgency by communicating its limited-time availability. For example, discount codes and free trials often help customers get over the fear of buying.

  • Repeat. Communication and relationship-building continue whether or not the customer purchases from you during their first round through the sales funnel. Continue to educate customers and prospects about your products or services. Offer excellent follow-up services and engagement opportunities to build loyalty.
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Optimizing Your Sales Funnel

Never stop testing and improving your funnel. From the color of your CTA button on your landing page to your discount offer, continue to experiment and measure results to see what delivers the best outcome.

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Sales Funnel Influence

The sales funnel is a model of the stages the customer goes through on their way to purchasing from you. Once you understand it, you can set smarter goals, use it as a guiding light for the rest of your team, and determine what the results mean for your business.

A sales funnel helps you analyze your target customer’s journey, identify areas of improvement, utilize automation, and hone your delivery. A sales funnel model will help you gain deeper insight into your customers’ thoughts and behaviors for each stage.

Improved insights generate improved decision-making and marketing investments. Messaging will be more effective, and conversions will increase.

​Best of all, a funnel-generating tool can help you with every part of building yours. You can develop yours with ease and start growing your business faster.

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