Are you thinking of starting a business in 2022? 

You’ll need more than valuable products and clever marketing strategies to see real conversions.

In 2020, more than 4.4 million new businesses started operating in the U.S alone. With so much competition, many entrepreneurs now struggle with turning their products into successful businesses.

Fortunately, the solution is easier than you may think! To successfully launch your products and services and generate returns, you need to create an effective sales funnel. Below, we’ll go over the essential ingredients of a powerful funnel: from understanding your customers’ needs and discovering their pain points – all the way through customer conversion. Let’s get started!

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is an essential tool in a business owner’s arsenal, regardless of the type of business they run. A sales funnel is an organised system of resources and techniques that makes it easier to convert online visitors into paying customers who repeatedly use their products and services. To put it simply, it is the journey a customer takes before they buy your product. As a prospect moves further down the sales funnel, they are more likely to make a purchase and become a customer.

What Are the Stages of a Sales Funnel?

Prospects undergo several steps before becoming a customer, from first becoming aware of your products or services to ultimately making the leave or buy decision. While these steps can vary from business to business due to differing sales models, generally, there are four primary stages to a sales funnel as mentioned below:  

Awareness

At this initial stage, the prospect becomes aware of your brand and product. This may happen through a social media post, your blog, an ad, or your SaaS email marketing efforts.

Interest

After gaining your prospect’s attention, the next step is to hook them in to buy your product or service. Focus on developing their interest at this stage instead of pushing them to purchase from your business.

Decision

Once you have your prospect’s full attention and interest, they are ready to spend money. Here you must convince them that your brand is their best option by making irresistible offers.

Action

This is the final stage of a sales funnel, where your prospect finally becomes a customer. Here, the company’s goal is to focus on customer retention through activities such as asking for feedback, providing customer support, or sending regular marketing and customer retention emails. For emails, you can use SaaS email marketing examples, or better yet, put your brand’s own creative spin on them to add a more personalized touch.     

Steps to Building a Sales Funnel to Rake in Revenue

Build a Robust Landing Page      

When a prospect clicks on your ad or signs up for an exclusive webinar, it leads them directly to your landing page. Since this is the first time a prospect connects with your brand, you need to leave no stone unturned to make a positive lasting impression.

Use your landing page to impressively describe your business to attract your prospect. The main thing here is capturing leads and not making sales. So, engage prospects with compelling copy, impressively describe your brand and product or service, and finish off with a strong CTA. Also, don’t forget to include a method for capturing the prospect’s email and contact information! 

Offer Quality Content           

Before you start selling anything, you need to take a good look at your audience to figure out their core problem. After all, if you want to offer a practical solution, you must first understand what the problem really is. Doing this brings you closer to your prospects and creates a more robust sales funnel. 

Once you have figured out your target audience’s needs, you need to develop a lead magnet that offers actual value to your potential customers. When a prospect shares their email with you, they do it in hopes of getting something worthwhile in return. 

Lead magnets come in all shapes and sizes; however, the most common type is a landing page with a free trial subscription or a free eBook. 

Let The Nurturing Begin          

Up till now, you must have generated enough leads through your landing page. Since you’ve already caught your prospect’s eye, now you can solidify their interest by creating a nurturing series. 

Did you know that 131% of individuals are more likely to purchase if your business provides relevant information! So don’t hold back and regularly share high-quality content that makes your audience trust you to be an expert in your field. Offer them material they can hardly believe is free, so they keep coming back for more and eventually become a paying customer.

This nurturing can be easily done with the help of some of the best email marketing automation tools such as AOL. These tools let you send bulk emails and campaigns based on your selected audience. However, don’t flood your prospects with emails; one or two per week should do the trick.

Seal The Deal

You have established the prospect’s interest in your product or service at this stage. Hence, you can now start pushing them to make a move. This can be in the form of a special discount or a short demo. Give them your best offer, one they can hardly refuse.

Keep It Rolling

As you reach the bottom of the sales funnel, your prospect will either become a customer or decide they are not interested in buying from you. In either case, you need to keep in touch to maintain communication.

For the new customers, focus on building your relationship by sharing educational content, asking for their feedback, sharing promotional offers and deals, etc. For prospects that didn’t turn into customers, develop a new nurturing series to reach out to them every now and then.

Putting It All Together…

Building and using a productive sales funnel is all about doing the right thing at the right time. You already have all the ingredients; all you need is the recipe we’ve provided you above in simple and easy-to-understand steps. Create a compelling landing page and provide value through digital lead magnets. Once you get your prospect’s information, send targeted marketing emails to get them to make a purchase. That’s all.

With all the information and tips provided above, you’re now ready to start building your own sales funnel and get things going for you!

Also Read: Understanding The Importance Of Salesforce Test Automation