Sales Funnel Progression
A sales funnel system is a marketing strategy that follows a selling process by which a visitor arrives at your site as a cold lead and eventually becomes a long-term customer. Usually people arrive at a website looking for a solution to a problem or to fulfill some type of need. The sales funnel approach responds with a solution by gaining the trust of the visitor and once you gain a visitor's trust, that visitor consequently feels more comfortable purchasing products from you. The lead is converted to a prospect and finally a customer.
There arrives a point where through a strong sense of trust many of your customers become loyal enough to purchase just about every product you promote. A sales funnel as a whole consists of the many steps of the selling process that involve converting a website visitor into a loyal life long. For any online business owner or internet marketer, this is the ultimate goal. A funnel that is designed to be focused to your audience's needs will achieve this goal.
Creating a Sales Pipeline for your Business
So, after doing a little reading you have decided to create a sales funnel for your niche. As an internet marketer, this is probably one of the smartest moves that you can make. In order to be successful online, you need to have a good flow of customers who want to purchase your products over and over.
In order to get visitors to progress to becoming customers, you must prove that you know how to solve their problems, provide value and give them what they want. It is not until this happens that you will be able to continue selling products to these same customers who will in turn refer other customers and exponentially build your online business.
The Right Tools for the Job
The first thing that you will have to do is conduct market research and make sure that your niche is actually a profitable one online. Remember, just because you have a passion for certain products and have been successful offline this does not mean that everyone else on the web shares your same passion. Find out how many people are looking for the products online that you are trying to sell.
Second, find out what will make people want to purchase your products and build a landing page for that product. Does your product serve a purpose or solve a problem? Is it unique? Can you find it anywhere else? Determine what will make a person want to click the buy button. Now synthesize this data into imagery, text and even a compelling video on one single page to make your product as attractive as possible to prospective customers and get them into your sales pipeline.
The Front End of the Funnel
Some marketers prefer to sell their product from the initial landing page while others prefer to collect an email address and sell to them later through an email autoresponder. I do both. Every funnel is unique because no two niche's are exactly the same. Is it up to you to decide which you would rather do however there are still ways to collect email addresses from a landing page and then afterward guide them to a sales page.
If a web visitor gives you their contact information and opts-in to your marketing list without buying the product first then they have become a lead. This is part of the progression. A lead is ready to receive more information, and the selling phrase kicks in. Continue to send them emails until you transform this lead into a buying customer.
The Back End of the Funnel
The back end is where you sell the most products to your most loyal customers. Chances are, the people who reach the back end of the funnel are only about two to three percent of the total amount of people who first entered it. But guess what? They are usually the ones who purchase the most products from you. Why? This is because you took the time to find out what they needed in order to make them happy or solve their problem.
In conclusion, sales funnels are not created overnight. It takes time to build up the relationships that are required to ensure their success. Test and follow the natural progression of the product's selling process. Learn how to change your visitors from leads to customers. If done properly, you will have a very successful online business in the end.
My name is Kevin Stacey and I have helped many business owners create successful online sales systems. You can learn more about the tools needed to create your own by reading the article on my blogsite detailing the components of the sales funnel system or watch a short, free video on my YouTube Channel on sales funnels. The sales funnel diagram shown there will give you a stronger visual understanding of the process.