Practical Sales Funnel Strategies To Increase Your Business Online

Have you ever wondered what makes a business so successful? What makes a customer want to buy your product?

Developing and implementing the right sales funnel strategies can make your business boom online. Every business has a unique sales funnel strategy that focuses on converting leads into customers.

With each funnel stage, you can determine prospective customers' behavior and engagement level. This helps you understand whether the lead has a chance to turn into a customer.  

Let’s dive deeper,

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is a marketing strategy that describes the journey of a customer. Each funnel visually represents how a prospect is turning into a customer.

The concept of the sales funnel is based on the idea that every lead goes through the same stages of the funnel while making a decision to purchase. 

Therefore, implementing the right marketing and sales funnel strategy can convert an individual into a customer. With each stage of the sales funnel, an individual is one step closer to becoming a customer. 

The stages include,

• Awareness Stage

• Interest Stage

• Evaluation Stage

• Decision Stage

• Action Stage

• Re-engagement stage

If you want to learn in detail about stages, you can check out our previous article on the stages of the sales funnel.

However, In this article, we are going to discuss how to create a sales funnel for your business's growth. 

How do you create a sales funnel for your business?

Given that you know the stages of a sales funnel, it is essential to understand how to create one. This helps you track the behavior of the consumer at each step of the funnel.

 Before building the strategies of the sales funnel, you need to identify your ideal customers, understand what motivates them, and understand their pain points. Do market research to gather data to understand buyer personas.

The sales funnel can vary depending on the business or industry; however, there are some common strategies for creating a funnel that we are going to discuss below.

Strategies for Creating a Sales Funnel For Your Business

Awareness Stage:  Create A Website To Attract Lead

Your first step to creating a successful online business is to attract people to visit your website. This will help them learn more about your business. 

But, how?

In this stage, your goal is to let the lead know about your company's products and services. People become aware of and learn about new businesses and services through Google searches and social media posts, so it becomes important to work on your search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing strategies.

You need to create a brand identity and message that resonate with the emotions and needs of your target audience. 

Create a visually appealing and user-friendly website. You also need to optimize your website to get traffic. Boost your social media presence by participating in online communities and groups. This increases your brand's visibility and attracts potential customers. You can run paid ads on social media, and so on. 

Strategies to consider:

• Create brand identity and message to resonate with the audience

• Visual appealing and user-friendly website building

• Optimize your website to get traffic

• Increase brand visibility in various ways, like paid ads on social media

Interest Stage: Create A Landing Page to hook customers

Once people learn about your product/services, they visit your website. 

To do this, you can add blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, webinars, social media posts, and so on. Make your content informative and engaging.

Once your prospects start learning about your business, they visit your website. Since your lead has visited your website for the first time, they may not be in a buying mindset. So, don’t start selling your products and services right away. 

They will subscribe to your newsletters to get your content if they are interested. Your objective should be to add valuable content that solves their problems. Highlight your unique feature by offering them free trials and demos, newsletters, and customer support where you could answer their queries. If they are interested, they will subscribe to your newsletters to get your content.

Strategies to consider

Make engaging and informative content to let an audience know about your business.

• Add Blog posts

• Videos, podcasts

• Infographics

• Webinars

• Social media posts

Evaluation Stage: Focus on Relationship Building

Once the leads subscribe to newsletters, they enter the evaluation stage of the funnel. Here, the leads are comparing your product to your competitors. Your goal in this stage is to persuade them that your solution is best suited for them.

Highlight your competitive advantages, and how you are different from other competitors. Provide them with the product details, service information, features, and benefits an individual gets once they buy your product/services. You can use case studies, customer reviews to build the credibility of your brand. 

For this, you can create interactive content by showing them testimonials on how many people have bought your products or services, the benefits they have received, and so on. Show them your success stories and how you have offered solutions and helped other customers too. With demos and webinars, you offer them information on the benefits of using your products/services. This motivates them to make a decision.

Strategies to consider

How different are you from other competitors

• Show your competitive advantages

• Benefits of your products/services

• Case studies, 

• Customer reviews

• Show success stories

• Provide service information

Decision Stage: Make Them ready to buy your product and services

In this stage, your prospects will vigorously research whether your products and services are best suited to fulfill their needs. Once your leads are satisfied with your services and products, they are ready to make a decision. Add a call-to-action, FAQs, common objections, and live chat support to address the concerns an individual may have.

To make the decision-making process smoother, streamline the checkout process. Add multiple payment options or gateways that are secure and reliable. You can add free shipping, returns, and guarantees to boost the confidence of your leads. Use incentives like discounts, limited-time promotions, and free trials to entice the lead to buy your products/services.

Send cart abandonment emails and remind them if they have not finished the purchase. Create FOMO and a sense of urgency by mentioning how many slots are left.

Strategies to consider

• Call-to-action

• FAQs

• Common objections

• Live chat support

• Easy checkout process

• Multiple payment options

• Free shipping

• Guaranteed returns

• Limited time promotion

• Free trials

Action Stage: Ask For Reviews/Feedback

Once the lead has purchased your product or services, the individual becomes your customer. Now your goal is to deliver on the promise. 

Follow up with customers once they have completed the purchase, send a thank-you email, and provide order confirmation details. Ask for feedback or reviews of experiences, and create a post-purchase email sequence to encourage customer satisfaction.

You can also enhance relationships with customers by sending them tutorials on how to use your products and services. You can also enhance their experience by offering upsells or cross-sells. You can also offer referral programs to bring in new leads.

Strategies to consider

• Send thank you mails

• Ask for  feedback or reviews 

• Send confirmation mails

• Post-purchase email sequence

• Offer upsells and cross-sells

• Give referral programs

So, don’t stop the communication when your lead has become a customer.

Re-engagement Stage: Make Your Customers Your Brand Advocates

Use customer retention strategies like personal discounts, personalized emails, social media customer support, referral discounts, rewards on repeated purchases, and so on.

When your customers are fully satisfied and happy with your products or services, they become your brand advocates. This encourages them to refer your business to other individuals as well.

Send them email newsletters with valuable content to keep them hooked on your products and services once or twice a week. Be interactive on social media and invite them to join your community.

Strategies to consider

• Personal discounts

• Personalized emails

• Social media customer support

• Referral discounts

• Rewards on repeated purchases

In conclusion,

Creating a sales funnel is not a one-time thing, you need to continuously update the strategies to attract and convert your customers. Also, entice them with various offers to retain them as brand advocates.

This is how the sales funnel strategy works!

If you want to grow your business and try to figure out some strategies to attract and convert your prospects into customers, a proper sales funnel strategy is all you need.

Wondering how to create one?

Master Bazar is here to help you plan to expand your business online. With our advanced tools, we help you develop your business strategy to boost your online presence and attract new customers. Get started with us with a 360-degree solution!

Grow your business now!

For such in-depth articles, check out our blog and enhance your knowledge of digital marketing.