How To Create A Marketing Funnel To Increase Conversions And Sales

Do you have an excellent product or service that no one wants to buy? Then it would help if you had a conversion funnel that increases the number of leads and sales stably and measurably.

In this article, I will show you how to create a marketing funnel that allows you to increase the turnover of your business without resorting to excessively pushed sales techniques.

But before we do this, let’s understand what a marketing funnel is.

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is designed to attract people interested in your market sector and convert them into customers for your business. In practice, it comprises different phases through which potential customers are made to pass. Each step from one stage to the next is called “conversion.” Funnel in English means Funnel.

ALSO READ: Five Ways To Ask For Reviews From Customers Without Sounding Intrusive

And if you look at the image above, you will notice a shape similar to a funnel or an inverted cone. The marketing funnel is designed like this because it shrinks as you get closer to the final stage of conversion. This happens because people tend to “leave” the Funnel along the way, self-selecting themselves as “unsuitable to become our customers”.

Marketing Funnel Example

I try to explain myself better with an efficient example.

Let’s say you have a business that sells snowboards. And let’s also assume that at this very moment, 100 people interested in snowboards are searching Google for board e-commerce.

1. People are looking for snowboard e-commerce: 100.

Let’s also assume that your site is well positioned on search engines. Let’s say you are at the top of Google results. It means that of those 100, about 40 will click on the search result and land on your site

1. People are landing on your site: 40.

You offer a 20% discount on your site in exchange for email contact. It will be helpful for recontacting potential customers in the future by providing them with offers on snowboard products and other accessories.  In the purchase phase, 25% of visitors decide it is worth leaving their email to receive this vital clash.

1. People potentially interested in the purchase (Lead): 10.

However, in between, many visitors forget or don’t have time and leave the site without making a purchase. Some go on and buy a board. Let’s say 30% of leads convert to producing a sale.

1. People converted into customers: 3

As you can see from the initial 100 people, we went step by step to 3. In fact, during each stage of the process, we lost possible buyers who, as much as they were interested, weren’t interested enough even to buy a board. Here is a numerical, graphical representation of the Funnel I just painted for you.

important: if you are an entrepreneur or a professional, you already have your Funnel.

1. How many times have you met people who wanted your services or products … and then they didn’t make themselves heard?
2. How many times have you made estimates that then did not go through?
3. How often have you been offered initiatives that were a waste of time?

I guess more than once … But I also imagine that you don’t know how many times such events have been successful and in what percentage.

Creating a conversion and sales funnel does just that:

1. understand what the numbers of each phase are
2. track exactly what happens before and after the purchase
3. improve conversion rates
4. with the ultimate goal, your overall sales are more significant than what you have now.

If you understand the importance of this methodology, it’s time to learn how to create your Funnel.

The Phases Of A Marketing Funnel

I have already introduced you to the discourse of sequential phases. To enter the next phase, passing from the previous one is necessary. The names of these stages are:

1. phase 1: Attention / Awareness
2. step 2: Desire
3. step 3: Purchase
4. step 4: Enthusiasm

This is just one of the many ways the various conversion funnel steps are called. Sometimes the phases are more than four and become five or six.

However, the underlying principle of a marketing funnel is always the same: measure the efficiency of each stage and improve it.

To do this, the first thing we need to understand is what each phase consists of and what are the psychological mechanisms that govern its functioning in the minds of your potential customers.

Phase 1: Attention / Awareness

Phase one is also called problem awareness: it is that moment in life when a person realizes that he has a problem or has to satisfy a desire. If a person does not realize he has a need that must be satisfied, he will never make a purchase.

Deepening

In reality, there is also a phase preceding that of awareness: that of the latent question.

Many people are not actively looking for a particular product or service. Still, they may be interested in buying it when offered something exciting and relevant to their interests/needs.

This is what typically happens with advertisements on social networks (such as Facebook Ads) The person’s needs can vary greatly depending on the market sector:

1. If you have a toothache, there is only one thing you can do: go to the dentist.
2. If you decide to change your car, it’s a whole lot more complex.
3. There are dozens of brands …
4. But even before that, there were different types of vehicles.
5. Each of these is characterized by pros and cons that must be carefully evaluated.

In some market sectors, therefore, the first phase of the Funnel is exceptionally long in time. In any case, when someone realizes they have a problem, the first thing they will do is look for a solution. And where will he look for her? Most likely online.

What Do You Need To Talk About

This is where you need to start showing yourself by capturing the attention of your target audience (the set of all the people who have the specific problem your product solves).

So what you need to do is:

1. raise awareness of people who may have it
2. describe any secondary issues that may arise or are related to it
3. persuade them that they must find a solution and that they cannot ignore it
4. educate them on the solution that solves the problem
5. connect the problem with your brand or product, or service.

 It is far too early, and it would be counterproductive to push at this stage.

Instead, what you have to do in phase one is to let as many target people know your brand as possible. You have to throw your nets into the sea… And they have to be pretty big because you have to take everything you can, as you will then lose a lot in the later stages of the Funnel.

You must spread the contents described above on all your possible marketing channels. Or at least you should be in one of the following.

Where To Be Found

Google

Where do you generally go to look for the answer if you have a question? On Google, of course .Your customers do the same. They will search for the solution on Google if they have a problem. Statistics show that Google responds to 3.5 billion daily searches, dominating over 90% of the search engine market.

Then a good strategy is to publish quality content that talks about your customers’ problems and rank them for the most relevant search keywords with the problem itself. Content should not be written at random. They must be optimized for search engines and follow the logic of Content marketing. Click on the links below to learn more about these aspects.see also: Content Marketing see also: Search Engine Optimization

Youtube

We all know YouTube. It is a cultural phenomenon that has changed our lives. And although YouTube was created in 2005, the growth of videos continues to be more and more impetuous. More and more people are watching videos, so you have to preside over this platform within your marketing funnel.

The process that works for YouTube is the same as that described for Google.

1. Identify the most important keywords related to the problem you are dealing with
2. It produces high-quality videos that delve into the topic.
3. Post everything on YouTube, and that’s it.

Online Community

Google has answers to virtually every question in the world. But what if you have a question that needs a highly personalized answer or if the question doesn’t have a well-defined answer and you want to compare yourself with others who have had a similar problem?

In this case, Online communities are the ideal place to find other people who share the same interests and problems, discuss relevant topics, ask questions, share experiences and create friendships. And you can bet on it; there is a community for just about every possible topic. So these are some of the best places if you want to reach your target audience:

1. forum
2. blog
3. Facebook groups
4. Yahoo answer (use with caution)

If you enter one of these communities and bring your valuable contributions as an expert on the problem, you have certainly hit the mark and softly promote your brand to an audience that needs it.

Influencer

Some people in your market sector have likely built a large audience of targeted readers or users. These are the “influencers”, and the possibilities they offer nowadays are significant.

Think about it for a moment: Influences have built their audience by producing valuable content. But making this type of content is difficult. So you can convince them that you can deliver great content, and they will be happy to introduce you to their audience Or, more simply, you could enter into business deals with them to earn both.

Guest Post

If there are many bloggers in your industry, you could offer them content written specifically for their site in exchange for your link. It’s an excellent way to:

1. Get a highly targeted audience.
2. Make yourself known to users with problems that you can solve.
3. Have a backlink to your site (significant for search engines)

Step 2: Interest

The second phase of the conversion and sales funnel that of interest. At this point, your potential customers have been hooked, attracted, and intrigued. They have consumed your content, and now they want to go deeper into the issue.

They will most likely begin to:

1. Refine their searches using more specific keywords. For example, instead of searching for “neck pain, what to do, email start work in one”, they will start searching for more specific terms such as “shiatsu treatment for cervical”, “cervical osteopath Rome”, and “cervical massage pillow.”
2. Seek and follow industry experts and influencers. For example, they could look for “best osteopaths in Rome” or “physiotherapists in Rome”. In this way, they can quickly update and find out what is happening in the market sector of interest.
3. Consequently, your work here should be:

Create a mailing list of people interested in learning more about the subject and willing to give you their email contact to be contacted over time;

1. Increase efforts to be present on the search methods of the specific ones so that they can find your content;
2. Investing in paid traffic with Google Adwords;
3. Become the expert they want to follow whose I want to learn.

Create A Mailing List

Creating a mailing list of people interested in your industry is one of the most important things you can do within your conversion and sales funnel. By doing so, you can contact them again by increasing the number of touchpoints and carrying out an indoctrination that can lead to the purchase of your products or services much faster than you would with other means (such as present social networks).

To collect email addresses, you must have special software that automatically manages the collection of emails and the sending of your communications. To get you to leave the email, you should offer high-value content that solves a particular problem of your prospect and that can only be downloaded by going to your contact. Collect an email contact and also that phase of the marketing funnel in which the target user becomes the Lead, thus expressing their interest in the product or service

Rank On Search Engines For Specific Keywords

In the previous stage, your customers had problems. It was a vague and poorly defined problem. But once they get into the interest stage (after reading a lot of our or others’ material), they begin to think differently. They know the solution to their problem and want to investigate the issues of that specific solution. So they search more precisely by entering keywords with a lower search volume but more significant commercial potential. So our goal is to be visible for those keys.

This obviously may not be easy as it will also increase competition. For this, you should consider investing in Google Adwords, which despite being very expensive, is unmatched in terms of traffic. Remember: at this stage; you must gently push into the next step by showing how to solve the problem and use your product. After all, results count for them, and if your product helps you to achieve it, it would be deeply wrong, even from an ethical point of view, not to mention it.

Become The Expert That Others Want To Follow

They consumed your content. They think they are valuable and have benefited from them.

Good job! But that’s not all. They may be your fans, but they’re not your customers yet.

One last thing to do at this point is to make sure they can follow you on social networks. The social network to use is dependent on your market sector.

Whichever channel you choose, remember to insert calls to action to push them to:

1. like your Facebook page
2. Subscribe to your YouTube channel
3. followed on Instagram
4. Connect on LinkedIn

Then, as always, produce quality content that aims to push the Leads to the next conversion funnel stage gently.

Step 3: Consideration

The third stage of the marketing funnel is a consideration. At this stage, your visitors know the problem and the solution, and you can provide the answer to solve their problems.

But there’s a problem. There are probably many other solutions they can choose from, and they will evaluate them all. This is especially true if you are selling high-cost products or services. Therefore your job here is to convince your visitors that you are the right person and have the right product for them. How to do it?

Show Your Results In Similar Cases To Theirs

Prove with hard evidence that you have already solved the problem for others like them. You can do this using very in-depth case studies where you describe the starting situation of your client and retrace, step by step, the road he took under your guidance to reach his desired state.

If you want to do an excellent job, produce a detailed case study full of numbers and objective data, exposing the problems you have found along the way and the solutions you have seen in the course of work for that specific case.

Design an indoctrination sequence

They are following you but are not buying yet. How can you continue to direct them to the sale? For example, by designing an indoctrination sequence thanks to which you can explain:

1. what are your values
2. because you are different

Typically such a sequence is delivered via email, and the best way to imagine it is to think of it as a story. A story during which you lead the potential customer along the customer journey planned ad hoc for him. If you don’t know what to write, here are some email ideas to build the sequence:

1. introduces a new idea or concept
2. teach something related to your product
3. announce something new about your product
4. show the value of your product
5. let them know who your ideal customers are
6. let him know who his nightmare customers are
7. answer common questions or objections
8. comparison effect between your product and that of your competitors

Step 4: Conversion

The fourth step in the conversion funnel is the sale. Your prospects are almost convinced to have the right solution to their problem. All you still have to do is give it a little final push, an urgent reason to make it click the “buy now” button.

1. use urgency: if a product is about to go out of production, you can kindly remind him
2. make sure the shopping experience is simple and smooth
3. offer them a discount to persuade them to buy (vital that you do so without belittling their product)

If the shopping experience is pleasant, potential customers will gladly make the purchase.

The conversion stage is also a great place to include some Upsells. Essentially, upselling means trying to add value to the newly purchased product to increase the average spend per customer. The most cited example from this point of view is McDonald’s: they convince you to enter by offering you the Hamburger for one euro, with the fundamental goal of getting you Upsell on chips and sugary drinks to increase your average expense.

How To Improve Your Marketing Funnel Conversions

At this point, the example I gave at the beginning on snowboards should be more precise. Above all, you realize that not all people are ready to move from one stage of the Funnel to the next.

1. Some are intrigued but are not interested.
2. Some people are interested, but not enough.
3. Some will change their minds and will never buy from you or anyone else (if you think about it, it happens to you too)

Therefore, there are average dips in numbers along the Funnel. You need to worry if the drops are too high between one stage of the Funnel and the next or if a particular stage has a much higher loss than other stages. This is precisely one of the advantages of a marketing funnel: it allows you to understand the efficiency of your purchase path and to segment the various phases to understand where it is possible to improve. The first thing to do is to understand which metrics to check: those that, in jargon, is called KPIs

1. Attention: number of visitors who land on the site
2. Interest: Number of people signing up for your email list
3. Consideration: Click-through rate of the email sequence
4. Conversion: number of people who buy the product

Start by measuring these metrics and checking them month after month. If you notice a sudden drop in numbers, you have a problem. Even if you don’t immediately understand what it is, the numbers themselves will make it easy for you to know where to start. For example, it could be:

1. seasonality
2. single channel traffic collapse
3. technical error
4. force majeure events
5. saturation of a paid campaign
6. etc. etc.

By having a conversion funnel, you can investigate and understand precisely where the problem is and then remedy it. On the other hand, if you didn’t have a funnel that allows you to measure the performance of each phase, it would be much more difficult.

Conclusion

I hope in this article, I have clearly explained what a marketing funnel is and how it works.

If you don’t have a conversion funnel, it’s time to build one. Start small and focus on creating a straightforward funnel, solving problems and identifying growth opportunities.

Leave the opportunity to increase the complexity and size of the Funnel for a later time.