5 Tips for Building an Effective Sales Funnel
87% of consumers buy from a company that provides them with enough content to support them in their decision-making process. Indeed, it should be understood that before buying one of your products/services, the consumer goes through 3 phases:
- Identifying needs
- Finding information
- Evaluation of the proposed solutions
Throughout this cycle, you have to help him with more and more specialized content. The information transmitted must follow the maturity of the prospect.
This is where the need for a sales funnel comes in. This process should help the prospect go through each step until conversion. How to build it efficiently? Discover five pro tips!
1. Start with general information
As we said in the introduction, the sales funnel accompanies the prospect during his reflection. Usually, he begins by expressing his need. But he is not yet 100% sure of his precise need.
Thus, you must help him to take stock of his expectations. At this stage, don’t start turning your visitors into leads by offering downloadable content (white paper, webinar, kit, etc.). It is still too complex a subject for them!
Focus on accessible content, such as blog posts, podcasts, infographics, or videos, which raise the big picture.
Example
If you are selling a tool to analyze keywords and their positioning in search engines, offer articles on the role and importance of SEO. At this point, the prospect knows they need to get more traffic to their site, but they don’t understand how. So you will need to educate him on SEO techniques in the first place.
2. Use retargeting to maximize the chances of conversion
98% of your site visitors leave it without taking a conversion action. To have a chance to win back all those bounces, bet on retargeting.
Retargeting reminds your prospects that they have found relevant information on your site. The idea is, therefore, to make them come back with additional content.
What’s interesting is that you can customize the retargeting campaigns based on the pages visited.
For example, a visitor who has consulted general articles (1 st phase) may be offered more detailed articles or white papers to bring him to phase 2.
For internet users who have downloaded webinars, ebooks, or other expert content, you should advance them to phase 3. Simply provide them with case studies, a demo, or a trial offer.
3. Personalize the relationship with a live chat
Want to optimize your sales funnel? Bet on dialogue! 77% of visitors don’t buy from companies without live support. The consumer who enters your sales funnel has questions and doubts.
With a live chat, you make yourself available to help them progress. You answer their questions while laying the foundations for a relationship of trust. A must create a bond that will make him want to progress in your funnel.
To take the experience further, add dynamic features to your live chat, such as screen sharing, video, and co-browsing. Do not hesitate to demonstrate, in concrete terms, how your products/services solve a problem.
You can also integrate chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence into your customer service to support the prospect throughout his journey.
4. Use automation to optimize conversions
Called “trigger marketing”, this strategy consists of automatically triggering emails when specific actions are taken by your prospects. The goal is to stay in their minds while helping them get to know your business and services.
Using a marketing automation tool, set up action triggers like:
- A welcome email for a new newsletter subscriber.
- A reminder email for cart abandonment.
- Educational emails following the downloading of content.
- Emails containing case studies for prospects who participated in your last virtual events.
- An appointment email at the end of a trial period.
5. Avoid rushing out of your funnel
By leaving your website or store without converting, leads are likely exiting your sales funnel. So you need to take action to keep them on your page.
When they approach the mouse to the cross, trigger a pop-up that will make them an offer that is difficult to refuse! This may be :
- A coupon
- Exclusive content to download
- A free trial offer
- A gift for any subscription to your newsletter
The goal is to retrieve the contact details of the lead to re-engage them later.
You now have all the keys to building an effective sales funnel. However, if you would like to be accompanied by marketing professionals, contact my team at ufound now!
