The sales funnel is not a new concept in business but unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs don’t know what it is or how to apply it in their business. A sales funnel is all about building and strengthening the relationship between the business and the prospect.

 

It's about building the “know, like and trust” factor through a series of buying decisions until the prospect becomes a raving fan. At the end of this article, you will know, why implementing a sales funnel in your business is important, how to conquer a simple high-converting sales funnel!

As a business grows, the entrepreneur creates more offers, more products and programs. Take for example a coach. A coach can offer 1 on 1 sessions, VIP sessions, group programs, online membership programs and many other types of programs.

 

Over time, these offers can pile up without a clear way of marketing it. And that’s quite the headache once you eventually start your marketing plan. I want to be sure you can take advantage of the different offers and use them to build a solid sales funnel.

 

A sales funnel starts by creating a great freebie. When a prospect goes to your website, you need to capture their information so you can contact them again. Simple, eh?

 

Imagine you went to a live event and met some great people who are interested in working with you. If you don’t get their business card there is no way you can connect with those people once the event is over. A compelling valuable freebie gives you the chance to get a prospect’s contact information. Plus, your prospect now likes you a bit more due to your freebie.

 

You have their information, now what?

 

Most entrepreneurs just stop there, wasting a great opportunity. But you aren’t going to let your warm lead go to waste. This is where you will create a marketing sequence. When the prospect enters their information, you send them the freebie. But don’t stop there, set up a series of emails that are sent to the prospect to engage with them and give them valuable information then offer the next item in your sales funnel. So, what does this look like?

 

The Sales Funnel Levels:

 

As you can see in the funnel, there are multiple stages that you should walk the prospect through.

Level 1: A valuable free gift just to get their information and give them a free taste of what you can offer them.

Level 2: One time purchase item. You can offer a report, workbook, ebook, swipe files, training,etc.

Level 3: As they are willing to spend more money with you, you can offer them a membership program, group program,consulting, etc.

Level 4: At this level the prospect likes and trust you and is becoming a raving fan, so you can offer your expensive programs.

Level 5: Here, the sky's the limit as you can offer your high end and most expensive products.

 

5 Steps to Building a High Converting
Marketing Sequence

Now that you understand the different levels in a sales funnel, here’s how you decide on what product you should offer at each level.

1. Take inventory: Make a list of all your offers.

2. Sort your offers into two categories:
   Anytime offers: those are offer that people can buy anytime like a report, book, etc.
   Time-Specific offers: are only available through a launch like a live training program.

3. Determine your goal: what ultimate action do you want them to take? Is the end goal your 1 on 1 program? VIP program?

4. Create the journey: Where should they start? What is their next step? What kind of valuable info will you offer? What alternative offer should you give them if they didn’t buy? Keep in mind the price point going from the lower to higher priced offers.

5. Create your automated marketing email series: map out what you’re including in each level and how you’re going to offer it.
    

After you work out all the details you should have a clear plan of how your sales funnel is structured.

To help you with putting together your sales funnel & marketing sequence, take advantage of this free workbook:

Now you have a solid sales funnel for your different offers. It will provide major growth for your business with the right systems to automate the process and not have it turn out to be a headache.

Now you have the sales funnel, how do you maximize your growth?

 

10 Tips for increasing Conversions

 

1. Have one call to action on your opt-in page. If you have a couple of different call to actions, the visitor might get confused and they won’t take any action.

2. Use a different color for your call to action button. If your opt-in page has a certain color palate and feel to it, use a different color for the call to action button so it would pop and grab the visitor’s attention.

3. Offer a freebie that is valuable to your target audience and addresses a specific pain. Don’t just put any freebie on your site. People are bombarded with all sort of free content nowadays, make sure that what you’re offering is of great value to your target audience.

4. Use the 80/20 rule in your follow up marketing sequence. If you keep selling to your potential prospects, they’ll just unsubscribe. After sending the freebie, send them some great free content with heart, so they’ll get to “know, like and trust” you. Then, send the next offer then some more valuable content, and so on and so forth! Think, give, give, give, sell!

5. Keep in touch with the prospect even if they didn’t buy. If the prospect didn’t buy, maybe they aren’t quite ready. Keep in touch by sending newsletters and valuable info, then reintroduce them to the marketing sequence.

6. Make sure that your emails feel personal and not spammy. Address the person by their name, write as if you’re talking to just one person so that they’ll get that personal feeling.

7. Increase engagement to your emails. Ask questions, create a contest or challenge. Get to know what they want, what do they like and what they don’t like.

8. Build your own community. Ask people to join your Facebook group, Slack team, Twitter chat and so on. Offer a higher level of support and get to know your prospects on a deeper level.

9. Always be authentic and honest. Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. Be yourself and trust that you’ll attract the people who like who you really are.

10. JUST DO IT! Don’t procrastinate, don’t put things off, don’t get stuck in the planning and don’t let your fear stop you. Do it anyway and tweak as you go.

 

How will you improve your sales funnel? If you are starting out, I can't wait to hear how you will use your sales funnel in the comments below!

Hosna Shahin is a certified online business manager and tech specialist for established wholehearted coaches. She helps coaches set up scalable systems and manage all the different revenue streams they have so they can get more freedom, concentrate on creating new revenue stream and build a legacy business.  She’s an expert at setting up, launching and managing membership programs, tele-summits, virtual events, speaking events and other revenue streams. 

Check her out here: http://www.hosnashahin.com/